I love my cast iron. It cooks most of my food - everything except pasta, rice, beans... I have a 12", 10", and a dutch oven. My stainless steel pan is hardly ever used.
Cast iron is very low maintenance, too. Buy a pan from online, or any big box retailer. Make sure the brand is Lodge - there are no other good cast iron manufacturers except Lodge today. (There were in the past, of course, most notably wagner and griswold.) They're cheap as fuck, too. Now, note that 12" is perfect for two or three people, but it's heavy - and it's heavier when it's hot! (That's sort of a joke, but mostly -- when it's hot, it's probably loaded and therefore heavier; also you hold it farther from the base, which means a bigger lever arm, so it feels heavier.) 10" is great for one person.
So you buy a pan. Now you don't pay attention to it saying "pre-seasoned" on it and don't try to, you know, cook eggs the first day. Just use a paper towel to wipe down the inside with oil - most preferably safflower oil, or peanut oil, or vegetable oil, or olive oil (non-virgin, just the standard cheap stuff), in that order. Oil it - a small layer - then turn it upside down, stick it in the oven for as hot as the oven goes, let it sit for an hour. Take it out, let it cool, oil it again, and repeat.
You could skip all that and just use it for cooking things - use plenty of oil and especially cook anything greasy or fatty in it; cast iron loves grease and fat. Bacon is the holy grail.
Anyways, after seasoning and some time cooking, or just some time cooking, you notice nothing sticks anymore. Every. Even eggs. Even eggs with no oil. Yep, I cook eggs with no oil. Now that is non-stick!
A couple notes:
- Use a metal spatula, preferably one with sharp edges, like a small grill spatula.
Like this, super simple. Make sure it has a sharp edge on either the top or the bottom. You use this to scrape your pan clean, never a plastic or silicone spatula.
- Clean it by scraping it, and paper towelling it. That usually is all you need. To wash it,
rinse without soap, then stick it on the flame until all the water evaporates.
- Any time it gets wet, stick it on the flame to heat dry it.
- Never use soap or a dishwasher.
- Cast iron loves heat. Loves, loves, loves. Don't be afraid to give it heat. Screaming hot stove-top, into the oven, broiled, back out, onto a fire... whatever. Just don't cool it too fast with water, that's the only thing I know that can break them.
- If it gets rusty, use vinegar (or apple cider vinegar) to de-rust, then reseason and off you go.
- You are going to burn yourself by grabbing the handle by habit. Don't worry, you'll soon break the habit.
- If you treat it right, the cast iron pans will outlive you. Your grand-children will teach your great-grand-children to never use soap on them.
- Very handy should a war come your way. Use it to bash some skulls. May or may not be bulletproof against small calibers.