I love cast iron for cooking. It's also very forgiving. Depending what I am cooking it gets treated carefully for the seasoning, or scrubbed with dish soap. The beautiful thing is I can take it camping, come home and scrub all the 'seasoning' off, then re-season with 30 min in the oven an a bit of olive oil.
When my SO and I first got together I did his dishes one day, and as I had never seen a cast iron pan I just washed it, fussing the whole time about how filthy it was. My Australian bush lunatic, one pair of underpants owning mother in law had an apoplectic fit. But seriously, these people cook salmon in them one night and pancakes the next with barely a wipe and it's disgusting. Give me stainless steel.
Well that’s just crazy. I wash mine with soap and water after cooking… but then I give it a quick flame dry and re-season on the stove top, which I can definitely admit is more maintenance than most people want to deal with.