Cast Iron, Cornbread, and Cookies With Shannon Barnard Van Dusen

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

Dade County native Shannon Barnard Van Dusen has enjoyed cooking and baking since she was a kid, and while she dreamed of one day making a living by working with food, it took time to reach that goal. Of her current role as a chef with Lodge Cast Iron, she says, “It took me 45 years to get here, but it’s my dream job.”

The daughter of Rick and Diane Barnard, Van Dusen graduated from high school in Dade (when it was Northwest Georgia High School) in 1992. She earned a degree in nutrition from East Tennessee State University. She met her husband, Kevin, while in school, and they married in 2004.

Van Dusen started working on her master’s degree with the goal of becoming a dietician but did not finish because she realized she wanted more hands-on work with food. She said, “I realized baking was really what I wanted to do. It was my therapy.” To this day, she not only enjoys the experience of baking but also making others happy by sharing the treats.

The couple spent some time in Dade, Nashville, and Johnson City before settling back in Dade long term in 2015. Throughout these seasons, Van Dusen worked a variety of office jobs and continued baking purely for fun.

The birth of their daughter, Harper, helped pull Van Dusen home (along with wanting to be near her widowed mom). She explained, “I wanted Harper to go to school in Dade. Johnson City schools were huge, and I was thinking, ‘She can’t go to school with 2,500 other kids!’ I wanted Harper to have teachers who I went to school with or knew their families.”

When the Van Dusens returned to Dade, a Saturday farmers market took place on the Trenton square each week, and Van Dusen decided to see if her baked goods would sell. Her treats were a hit, and she built a baking side hustle. She sometimes posts items for sale on her Facebook page, but word-of-mouth references keep her plenty busy.

Then, Van Dusen’s career at Lodge began. She saw that they were hiring for a customer care position and decided to apply. “I immediately fell in love with Lodge and the people here,” she said. “This is the best place I’ve ever worked.”

In the customer care role, Van Dusen primarily answered phone calls from customers who had questions about cooking with and caring for cast iron. She said many of the calls came from regions where cast iron cookware isn’t richly engrained in the culture.

One common question was whether or not to use soap on the cookware. Contrary to what many of our parents and grandparents taught us, Lodge recommends using gentle soap. Van Dusen explained that soap used to be much harsher than it is today and would eat the seasoning off the cast iron. Van Dusen wipes out cast iron with a paper towel after cooking non-messy items, but she’ll wash with soap when necessary.

While Lodge’s cast iron is pre-seasoned (the process that makes cast iron unique), each piece improves with use. Van Dusen said, “The seasoning keeps building and building, and that’s why grandma’s skillet that she used every day of her life is the best skillet.”

She covered other tips for cast iron care and cooking, saying, “I think this is what intimidates a lot of people, because it’s a lot of information just for one skillet.”

Van Dusen was promoted to product development coordinator in early 2020 which involved working with the social media team. Now, when you watch social media videos from Lodge, you might see her or hear her voice. Her first Lodge video was of her making focaccia bread in a skillet.

Van Dusen’s coworker, Chris Stubblefield, was the main chef at the time, and he made food for photo shoots and events. She joined in, helping Stubblefield with whatever he needed: measuring ingredients, cleaning dishes, etc.

Then, this March, Van Dusen was promoted to chef, and she hopes to continue her culinary education in the pastry arts while in this role. Her focus is baking and pastries, while Stubblefield handles the main dishes. She’ll also continue creating recipes, adding to several of hers that are already on the Lodge website.

Van Dusen helped create Lodge’s brand new cornbread mixes. “While developing the mixes, I asked my mom if I could watch her make cornbread,” Van Dusen said. “I asked for her measurements, but she said she just eyeballs it.” Once the mixes were ready, Van Dusen put them to the ultimate taste test: her mom. “I knew if my mom liked it, we’d succeeded. She told me that she hasn’t made homemade cornbread since we’ve released it because she uses the mixes.”

Explaining why Lodge made two sweet versions in addition to the southern and jalapeno versions, Van Dusen said, “We know that a lot of us from this area strongly believe that cornbread does not have sugar in it, but we wanted cornbread to be universal, so we do have two sweet versions.” The mixes can be purchased on Lodge’s website, and they’re starting to show up in Walmart stores.

This weekend, April 27-28th, Van Dusen and the rest of South Pittsburg, Tenn. will be celebrating the National Cornbread Festival. While not organized by Lodge, many of the employees volunteer with the event, and Van Dusen will be helping with Saturday’s cornbread cook-off. Last year, she led a short talk about baking with cast iron, but most of her weekend was spent making 35,000 servings of cornbread to promote the mixes.

After years of working jobs she didn’t enjoy, Van Dusen deeply appreciates where she is now. She said, “Years ago, all I wanted to do was bake and get paid for it. Now, it’s my actual job!” She noted, though, that there have been plenty of mishaps and lessons learned along the way. Her encouragement to other beginning bakers? “Try to bake a cake and give it to somebody. You never know what you can do until you try.”

For now, Van Dusen has no plans to slow down, and one thing is for certain: creating, enjoying, and sharing food will always be part of her life. The Van Dusens’ travels often revolve around food (such as visiting Kansas City, Mo. to try Kansas City barbecue for the first time).

Van Dusen concluded, “Food is my life. I’m elbow deep in it, I’m traveling for it, I’m researching it. I read cookbooks and food science journals for fun.”