Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Another Cooking Topic

Since we seem to have many fine chefs in our group, I was wondering what kind of pans everyone is using. The reason I ask is my old 12" saute pan has seen its last days, I'm looking at getting a 5 or 6qt non stick pan, at this point the brands I'm looking at are Calphalon and All Clad. If anyone has some other suggestions they would be much appreciated, Thanks.

My wife is a fan of T-Fal, but I think that they are cheap, and the non-stick coating scratches easily. Also, they tend to bow on the bottom over time which causes poor heat transfer.

So, it doesn't help with what to buy, but maybe at least one not to buy.

Calfalon anodized-for when you don't want non-stick. We have an 8 inch sauce pan that I mainly use for browning things. OK, ok, and when I don't want to go outside and use the grill (read: completely strip the grill and clean it, then rebuild it). Bad me. But it cooks real nice. We also have the wok from a similar (same?) series, which is marvelous for frying and stir-frying, assuming you get it hot enough. No Teflon to burn off there!

We have Analon non-stick for those purposes, and it cleans off very well. Heat transfer seems decent--no complaints about the soup pot or the 10-inch frying pan.

My wife won a set of Kitchen Aide. It's like 4 ply steel and seems to do a stellar job in the cooking department. It cleans up nicer than I thought steel would. The big frypan is heavy though, heavy enough to be used as a weapon. If I ever get hit with that bugger it is going to do some damage.

I also recommend Calphalon. If you happen to have a Tuesday Morning or Ross close to you, I'd check there. They often have the more expensive brands at a significant discount. I got my last few pans from Tuesday Morning for about half off.

I find the local restaurant supply shop and look for good values there. I followed the recommendations of a restaurant owner friend of mine who suggested that pans that cost $50-60 or more can be bought for $10-20. No name brands here, just value. When scratched, burnt, etc, you don't feel bad about tossing it.

Most supply houses will sell to the public.

Sure wish cast iron wasn’t such a PITA. I prefer the taste of food cooked with it, but the PITA factor makes me hesitant to use it but for special occasions.

We use a combination of SS and non-stick. The SS is for sauces, plus some other stuff. For non-stick, we have a set of Calphalon (sp?) Pro that looks brand new after five years of use. Well the non stick side anyway. The outside of the pans used to be black but hundreds of runs through the dishwasher has removed all the coating. Now they’re all a nice uniformed aluminum color. But that frigging non-stick wears amazingly well. I don’t care much for the phonograph marks it leaves on my pancakes though…..

I highly recommend ScanPan for nonstick. They can take much more abuse that the normal coated nonstick pan.

All-Clad for non-nonstick (?!).

Lately I've been going back to the basics and using the old Lodge cast iron skillets and Dutch oven for most cooking.

We buy nonstick skillets at Costco, or get the the Farberware Millennium ones. The only nonstick things we think we need are 7, 10 and 12 inch skillets. Throw em out when they wear out.

We have and love cast iron, but agree that it's a PITA.

We have some Costco-branded and some Calphalon multi-ply stainless. We are VERY happy with it, and have had other brands over the years including All-Clad, the fatal flaw of which is the absence of a rolled edge on the saucepans. I don't think you can beat stainless-clad-aluminum for looks, easy care and quality. I think the newer Calphalon version is a pretty good value.

I can’t believe I forgot to mention my favorite cookware!! That glass tray that goes round and round in the microwave! Works slick, fast, convenient…