The family fryingpan

I bought a book once, The Family Frying Pan by Bryce Courtenay. I realised we also  have a family fryingpan. Not with a long history like the one in the book but nevertheless a cast-iron pan that was used to create many great meals and memories.

I'll just share one of these memories with you. My father played skittles, a game like 10-pin bowling but requiring more skill and strategy, one night a week. It goes without saying that during the sets a beers or two, maybe four, were enjoyed. My father would arrive home as hungry as a labourer would be after spending the day in the fields or as hungry as the wolf in Red Riding Hood. We would all be asleep but would wake up abruptly as soon as he opened the cupboard to get out the frying pan. A man who has had a few beers is in a good mood and oblivious  that any noise he makes in the middle of the night is amplified. He would fry up onions and two eggs, strong smells to have in the house in the middle of the night. We all lay in our beds waiting for the familiar routine to play itself out.
No one got up to join him because there was an understanding that this night was his night off. This understanding was not verbalise or spoken of, it's just something you know, something you sense intiatively.
As soon as my father went to his bedroom the calm and quiet of night was restored and we all went to sleep. Well, sometimes he could be heard sharing the events of the evening and the gossip of the past week with our mother but it was a soothing sound, like a lullaby.