"The best scrambled eggs"

     This past sunday, I found myself with extra time in the morning and so decided to indulge in what Mark Bittman calls "A Sunday morning indulgence": Best scrambled eggs.  "These take time, cream, butter, tarragon, and-the really hard part- a great deal of patience." quotes Mark Bittman.  Since I had used the cast iron skillet for the frito pie the previous day (see previous blog), I decided it was time to use it for real.  I had made these before in a regular skillet.  How would they hold up in a cast iron one?
  
Ingredients:

• 4 or 5 eggs
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons cream
• 2 tablespoons butter or extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp tarragon
• 1 tsp chervil
• 1 tbsp. parsley
• 1tbsp. chives

Procedure:

1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them just until the yolks and whites are combined. Season with salt, herbs and pepper and beat in the cream.
2. Put a medium skillet, preferably nonstick, over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add the butter or oil and swirl it around the pan. After the butter melts, but before it foams, turn the heat to low.
3. Add the eggs to the skillet and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. At first nothing will happen; after 10 minutes or so, the eggs will begin to form curds. Do not lose patience: Keep stirring, breaking up the curds as they form, until the mixture is a mass of soft curds. This will take 30 minutes or more. Serve immediately.

     I decided to try the "scrambled eggs aux fines herbes" variety, one I had had several times before when I was dating my ex and that I remember being quite good.  So, how they come out?  Not quite as I had expected...  For one thing, I'm not sure if it was the fresh parsley or the cast iron leaking a little or what, but they came out a very unappetizing green color.  For another thing, they took forever to cook.  I mean, he says to use patience, but I gave it like a good hour and hardly anything was happening!  I finally kicked up the heat just the tiniest bit at the end.  From the previous time I had made it, I remembered it being smooth and delicious and well worth the trouble.  Now, it was just... bleh.  I ate it, but it was... bleh!  And then, to add insult to injury, the eggs stuck to the skillet and I had the darnedest time washing them off without messing up the seasoning (this was a pre-seasoned skillet).
     What I finally realized in retrospect was that (I think) my cast iron skillet, despite being labeled as "pre-seasoned" wasn't quite seasoned enough.  I am still *very* new to this whole cast iron thing.  I got the skillet as a wedding present from Lynnelle and Derek.  I put it on my wedding registry as I had heard of the wonderfulness of cast iron.  Unfortunately, the only one that Bed, Bath and Beyond had that looked like what I wanted was made my Emeril Lagasse (who I really can't stand) and (I found out later) was made in China.  But, whatever, I had my first cast iron skillet even if it did sit on the living room floor for months.  Well, after doing a lot of internet research and reading a lot of conflicting advice, it seems the consensus is that even pre-seasoned cast iron skillets still need seasoning.  A lot of people recommend stripping off the preseasoning and seasoning it from scratch.  At the very least, they recommended cooking a lot of fatty foods in it for a while.  So, I think that's why my eggs stuck.  I've been trying since then to cook fatty foods in it and do the proper thing of drying it right away (including letting it heat on the stove for a while) and then coating it with oil.  I even bought lard to use in some recipes that I would have otherwise used oil or butter in just so I could have lard around to season my cast iron if necessary.  However, I made a frittata today and it came out almost completely without sticking to the pan!  So I must be doing something right!  Anybody out there with cast iron experience have any advice?

My snot-colored best scrambled eggs on beer bread. 
This was the best picture I had!