you have an empty kitchen and $250.

[topaz]

You have an empty kitchen and $250.  What cookware set do you get and why?

As reported in keyne's LJ, most of our cookware has still not turned up after a couple of weeks of unpacking.  There are still some boxes where some of it might be hidden, but their numbers are dwindling.  A cast-iron skillet and Dutch oven are versatile things but we are getting to the point where we are ready to buy a new cookware set.

Whatever we get needs to be easy to store, as our new kitchen is a lot shorter on storage space than the last one.  So options which stack well will get bonus points.

But forget all of htat.  You have an empty kitchen and $250.  What do you buy to cook with?

Comments

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

I think I'll be the voice of disagreement here. The idea here is that you have $250 and you need stuff, not what some random set of magazine editors or restaurant chefs want you to have. What were the things you used the most? If a cookware set fits your needs, buy it. It all depends on what your household needs the most.

When was the last time you actually needed to start something in the stovetop and finish in the oven without putting everything in a roasting pan? Restaurant/professional workflows are very different from household workflows -- most recipes I make either start and finish in the oven or the stovetop, the few that start in the stovetop and have to be finished in the oven in the same pot (as opposed to a roasting pan) require only 350F which is perfectly safe for most pots and a lot of pots can take 400F. It's rare that something needs 450-500F and buying all-metal pots and lids just for the rare cases is insane -- I'd hate to *have* to use a potholder for all my cooking including dealing with the lids all the time like I see chefs doing on TV and in restaurants. Even if you have recipes like that, they usually need no more than one cast iron Dutch oven and one metal frying pan (usually cast iron or All-Clad) to make. Unless you have an induction stovetop, you don't need the expensive All-Clad everything.

Make sure the stuff you buy can go in the dishwasher -- it takes just a fraction of the energy it takes to hand wash them (the majority of the energy is to heat the water).

Same thing for conventional vs. non-stick: in our household, most recipes don't need to create a fond, so we only have two items (one All-Clad frying pan and one 5 Qt Le Creuset Dutch oven) that stick and everything else is non-stick. Even then, I only got those as a splurge, one can certainly find equivalent items for way less money.

Find out if a cookware set fits your usage patterns, if it's close, buy it. It's cheaper to buy the extra couple of things you are missing than individual items. In our case, we tend to use a lot: non-stick covered pots (3 Qt, 2 Qt and 1 Qt), non-stick 5Qt Dutch oven, 8" and 10.25" non-stick frying pans. We paid less than 100 bucks for a set like that at either Kmart or WalMart (http://www.t-falusa.com/All+Products/Cookware/Non+stick+cookware/Products/PROFESSIONAL/PROFESSIONAL.htm). We also bought a 12 Qt covered dutch oven from the same company (http://www.t-falusa.com/All+Products/Cookware/Non+stick+cookware/Products/Non+Stick+Stock+Pots/Specialty.htm, about 30 bucks), but we make an awful lot of soup.

We also use a lot of Pyrex pans (loaf pans, 13x9 in, 8x8 in etc), but those are inexpensive, as are the metal equivalent pans, but metal pans tend to not last long (and I find that the only thing that tends to demand metal pan are things that need broiling and a couple of cake recipes, most cake recipes will do just fine on Pyrex and bread tends to do better on Pyrex). When you're looking at Pyrex, see if any of the available sets also fit your use patterns, they are cheaper that way -- the sets don't much fit our pattern, so we got them as separate items. Pyrex tends to be about 5-10 bucks each on average, so it's not that much of a splurge.

What else? Cookie sheets... Measuring cups (dry and wet), measuring spoons... an electronic scale, they tend to go for less than 50 bucks... get yourself an instant read thermometer that you can stick in the food and keep the console out of the oven (10-20 bucks). Use the rest of the money to buy stuff you really like.

Good luck.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone posting here is either a restaurant chef or a magazine editor.

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

In our extended crowd we have people who are professional chefs and one of the people who works for Cook's Illustrated is the landlady of someone in this extended crowd too. I recognize their opinions among some of the opinions stated here, and, in my experience, those opinions are perfect for the workflow in a professional setting but may fail more often than not in a home setting. Not everything that is done by professionals is the best, tastiest, fastest, cheapest or safest for a home setting.

For example, I do like All*Clad(tm) and Le Creuset(tm), but I'd be leery of using them if we had children -- the absence of insulating knobs and handles is an additional risk and will require more constant and closer supervision than a standard cookware set. Not impossible to do, generations of people grew up with them, but they also had less haired/busy parents than our home can be.

As for Tramontina, I was born and raised in the country they come from. That company in particular sells everything from top-of-the line stuff to absolutely cheapest possible. I've seen their stuff at Wal*Mart and it looks decent, but I know Wal*Mart well enough to know that they got the stuff for as little money as possible from Tramontina as they can -- my conclusion is that it's probably worth the money and, while I wouldn't be surprised at all if it lasted many years, I would also not be surprised if it lasted just a few -- say, less than 3 to 5.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

I was born and raised in the country that Apple comes from. Does this automatically make me a Mac expert?

More to the point, the fact that you know somebody who knows somebody who works for CI does not mean that my opinion (or anyone else's here) is merely an expression of Christopher Kimball's biases. Nor does it refute what I said above.

FWIW, since crendentials seem suddenly important here, my own opinion is informed by several decades' worth of cooking for my own preferences -- the last 9+ years of that in a house with children. I've never cooked in a professional setting. My situation is a lot like qwrrty's. In fact, even without knowing you, I can say confidently that it's quite a lot more so than yours is.

This one got too large, sorry (Part 1)

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

OK, I thought I had been careful qualifying everything I said and, in particular, I thought my two responses had hinged on "don't take what experts say without thinking if it's appropriate for your home"... certainly I did not mean to offend anyone and I apologize if I did and I apologize in advance for this response.

I would think a priori that we may have met several times in the same circumstances that I've met a lot of people in this crowd (parties and large gatherings). In any case yes, we don't have kids -- I grew up in a home with plenty of kids and busy parents, though, if that counts. I believe you when you say your home is more like qwrrty's than mine, but that doesn't mean that you both will need exactly the same stuff, although I agree it's way more likely given the circumstances.

Credentials are not that important to me, I thought I was saying that just because an expert says something (and they'll probably be right for that particular circumstance), doesn't mean that situation is the same as yours and you should do what they said.

I mentioned that this crowd has several professional chefs and even minor celebrities in response to "I don't think anyone posting here is either a restaurant chef or a magazine editor." -- because even if they had not said anything up to the point we posted, they might post given that they belong in this extended crowd and I don't know everyone that has posted either.

You ask if being American makes you a Mac expert -- not really, it makes it more likely than if you were born in countries where importing a Mac is more of a pain though -- however, it gives you a big leg up over other people, even people whose country has English as a native language, in that you were immersed in this culture and you're more likely to know what Apple's (or IBM's, Dell's, HP's, or any other company's for that matter) intentions are when they announce something -- you lived thru the patterns of advertisement and business practices that make up your culture. So did I when it comes to Tramontina -- I can tell you that either they sent their best cookware at an artificially deflated price (or, to be more rude, "dumping") to get Wal*Mart to be business partners, or, more likely, they've made the thing to exact specifications (looks nice, but is "cheap" as opposed to "inexpensive"), because their top-of-the line stuff rivals All*Clad and is priced accordingly... barring dumping, there's very little chance they'd be selling stuff as good as All*Clad for a fraction of the price, the price of labor and materials there is not as low as in Asia. And if they are dumping, the quality will not be there across the line or as time goes by, it's an "introductory offer" only.

This one got too large, sorry (Part 2)

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

It's not the fact that I know somebody who knows somebody who is a professional cook or works for CI that implies anything any of us will say. It just implies they can be posting here. I'm also referring to the fact that in America it seems to be a common belief that if someone is a professional or an expert, their opinions trumps ours. Not necessarily so. The best computer is not necessarily the thing to use at home when we're talking servers, or in a company if we're talking laptops -- each setting has different needs. The best stove for a restaurant may suck big time at home and, in many jurisdictions, they are not even legal to own (the insulation, or lack thereof, makes them dangerous for home kitchens where they maybe too close to flammable materials). Most people don't *need* everything in All*Clad unless they have an induction stovetop (most other brands that are similar to All*Clad are not as efficient in the magnetic coupling to use induction at is best, but that will probably change soon now that induction cooking is becoming popular in US). While all metal pots are effective for cooking, they are not necessarily the most practical when one needs to use pot holders all the time. And for the handful of dishes that *do* need an all metal pot to be in the oven, one can buy just the couple of pots one needs instead of an entire kitchen set. The fact that magazines and chefs in general even suggest that pots should be all metal, instead of having insulating handles, is enough to convince me that their workflow is very different from a home workflow (and they are often the first ones to admit it). Cook's Illustrated, in particular, has their quirks -- for years they've been carping on the fact that regular sets are not "oven safe to 500F" -- well, how many recipes need a _pot_ at 500F? Roasting pans, sure, but pots? Two, three recipes maybe? What if you don't make artisanal bread, does that fall to one or zero? Most recipes call for less than 500F. Worse, they love Le Creuset but fail to mention that Le Creuset has a plastic knob on the lid, that makes it safe to only 400F (recent models) or 450F (earlier models). They whined for years that cookware sets are not good because they have all the wrong size pots, in particular, they often complain that the 1 Qt pots are not good for anything and the 2 Qt pots are barely worth having and they only take up space. Well, what a surprise, the Tramontina set has pots in 5, 2 and 1 Qt sizes. And they don't seem to be implying that one is buying an entire set for the 5 Qt pot and the skillets, they seem to think it's a steal.

Anyway, my whole point is that it's OK to disagree with the experts, and that I've been perceiving people responding here basically repeating the opinions I've seen in magazines and cooking shows. Which, if I am to believe the professionals when they tell me that it's because their workflow is different than home workflow, may mean that while they may love what they use at work, it might very well not be the most appropriate for us home cooks.