I have been a big fan of Calphalon for many years. What turned me on to it was the wide availability, and some personal reviews from friends and family. My first 12 inch non-stick pan lasted me 4 years of constant beating before it finally died on me. I replaced that particular pan with a 6 QT Unison Saute pan and I can't say enough about it. It can take the high heat of the stove, hot oil on the surface, and going into the oven up to 500 degrees F/ 260 Celsius. The clean up is fantastic, and supposedly you can put it in the dishwasher, but I fail to see the point when you can wipe it out easily enough. It's still harder to get a good crust on meats with a nonstick, though I have to admit this new series of cookware (Unison) has gone the distance to try to address this problem with a slightly textured surface of the pan.

As for All Clad, I like their line of Stainless steel. I've never had an issue with the pan not working well or heating evenly, and I have the dreaded electric stove! I have never tried their copper core set as the price tag was a little to hefty for my budget, but the 10 inch pan I have gets a fantastic sear on meats, and cleans up easily retaining it's beautiful shine.

I recently bought a Le Creuset Dutch Oven, which is a an enameled cast iron pot. Occasionally this thing is hard to clean, but I think that was partially my fault for being lazy and leaving it to the next day. :) I can do just about anything with this thing, and I often do. I love cooking ribs in it, large casseroles, soups, it can easily be your go to one pot meal cookware. Well worth the price, which I have to admit I was skeptical about. I didn't take the plunge until a friend of mine bought one for herself and just raved about it non stop to me.

Lorelei, please consider trying to use of cooking sprays on your dutch oven before use. I've always found that my dutch oven cleans-up very easy after spraying with any common cooking spray. This encludes the times I placed the dutch oven on my grill. Additionally, I place celery on the bottom which adds flavor to the dish and keeps meats from seemingly fusing to the bottom. I concur with your comments on all-clad. Greeting to all, continued success to ROUXBE. Best Regards,
Terry

I'm a little surprised that no one on here has mentioned this line of cookware.

The multi-clad pro line is tri-ply aluminum sandwich construction set that I believe matches or surpasses the big boys like All Clad and Calphalon at a fraction of the cost.

Advantages (particularly over All Clad I have less experience with Calphalon cookware)

*Handles are much more comfortable I cannot stand All Clads handles.

*The lips/rims are much better designed than All Clads. The flat relatively unfinished lids on these leads to a lot of spilling/pour under. With the multi clad I can pour a tiny stream with zero spillage.

*Cost (COST) you can buy a twelve piece set of multi-clad pro for roughly $250.00 US, roughly 1/3 the price of a comparable set of All-Clad

I got the set and I'm really loving them (check amazon for some more opinions I'm not alone in my feelings on these things).

Also if your interested in these/this set I would consider grabbing them off...

http://www.everythingkitchens.com/Cuisinart-Cookware-Set-12-piece-multi-clad-pro.html

and using the coupon code Cuisinart10 to save 10%

you end up getting the 12 piece set plus a 1.5 qt sauce pan and lid for $270.00 US.

Kelly,
Glad there is someone else out there that likes the wolfgang stainless steel set!! I couldn't have said it any better myself! :)

I bought a set and some individual pieces of Henckel's cookware. The stuff is really nice and high quality like their knives. The prices are very reasonable too.

lately I have purchased a couple stainless steel pans from Le Creuset at their outlet. I LOVE LOVE the handles, how they clean up, and how they cook. They are pricey but I buy them when they are on sale at the outlet.

At a Le Creuset Outlet? Sometimes, if not sold at a manufacturer's own outlet, the products can be imperfect. But good quality products are always worth the money; it is an investment in your culinary growth.

I agree with those who do not purchase the whole set. I like to buy a pot or pan for any specific purpose. I like using a stainless steel pan for a certain type of cooking and a cast iron for another. It depends what I'm cooking and what texture I want. I just mix it up and use what works best for the meal I'm making. For example: I love using my cast iron frying pan for french toast or fried chicken, my non-stick gridle for eggs, and my stainless steel for fish. My cast iron pots and pans are different colors, as well. I couldn't decide on one specific color so I just buy whatever one I thinks looks good for that pan. But it's good to get high quality, even if that means buying one piece at a time, but doesn't mean you have to spend a whole paycheck on one. Next time I'm going to check out the outlet stores that some of you have mentioned. Thanks!

Hi Julie:

I purchased the pieces of Le Creuset stainless at their outlet. Honestly, I can't tell what is wrong with them. They look perfect to me and were packed as if they had never been touched.

Hi Christina, then, like at Simon Pierce, they are selling their overages and are probably perfect, you lucky girl. I will have to keep my eye out for them. I do love my Panderno stainless. Calphalon just came out with a stainless non-stick. Has anyone had the luxury of trying it yet? We are buying a new place in Downtown Montreal and I am not purchasing anything until we move. Maybe when we do I'll test it out. It sounds super. Here in NYC, I just don't have the extra space. Up there I will. Glorious eat in kitchen with lots of cabinets. Cannot wait. MAYBE, I'll go for a piece of the Le Creuset and the Calphalon stainless as well. It will be a new kitchen after all.....

Also-- just tonight-- shocker of all shockers, I bought a gorgeous Mauviel Copper Saute Pan 3qt in the M'Heritage line. Originally (when I search for it online the price is close to 350-400.00) for $109.00.

I can't find anything wrong with it.

I also purchased 2 All-Clad pans--- one 8 inch stainless fry pan and a 1.5qt Sauce Pan in the LTD2 range. I can't find the "errors" with any of the pots. And they were all very good deals.

I am new to "real" cooking - thanks,Rouxbe! - and have discovered that I do not have many of the recommended tools. Unfortunately, I also do not have much space or funds to buy new tools. I want to try making the dark stock today, but all I have to roast the chicken bones in is a glass casserole dish. Will that work?

If the dish is oven proof and the sides are not too deep then you could give it a try. Cheers!

I think I asked this in the wrong forum - sorry everyone - I'm new to a lot of things...

I did try it and it worked great. The problem was deglazing - since you can't use Pyrex on the stovetop. My husband suggested using the microwave to create the heat to deglaze, and though it probably did not work as well as using the stovetop, it did result in removing enough sucs to add to the dark stock. So...it worked to some degree, but I look forward to getting a good roasting pan someday.

Thanks!

I am completely sold on Tramontina tri-ply available at Walmart. After much research I bought the IDEAL set and couldn't be happier. Very useful set. The 12 quart stock pot is the one I use the least; the rest I use about equally. I especially like the non-stick for eggs. The ones that surprised me most are the cast iron fry pan and dutch oven. I absolutely love them, especially the dutch oven. I'm not sure how I lived without it. I also have a few pieces that I bought from Ikea's 365+ collection that are not bad.

Just built a new kitchen with an induction cooktop. You have to have steel/magnetic cookware for the induction to work so I bought a full set of beautiful Scanpan cookware.
Magnificent and the induction is soooo fast!!

8-))

I have also gotten an induction cooktop; super high-speed heat up, but has the ability to lower temps similar to gas. Does require the steel bottom pans and cannot use cooper. I purchased a piece of the Le Creuset and the Calphalon non-stick stainless, just to test. I really like them both. Mich is no help he doesn't care about cookware one way or another, so before I commit to an entire set, I think I'll just accumulate pieces as I need them a buy whatever grabs me. I have never been so indecisive about pots and pans in my life. It is terribly awkward. But I love my new kitchen; new appliances and I don't know if I will go the "set" route. We shall see. Love Rouxbe, love this post!

I just purchase a induction cook top, but I decided to go with a hybrid cooktop. My girl friend and I both have many types of pans and with that there is no just converting everything. I found an Electrolux Hybrid Induction Cooktop with 2 Induction/3 Radiant Elements. It fits all my needs.... Funny, the gas was key to all my cooking experience, but I moved in an area with out gas in the community; works great.

Has anyone heard of WMF stainless steel pans? They are a German make.

How do you like the Scanpan cookware? A salesperson tried to convince me into purchasing a set before I was ready. I would like your opinion. J

So...once I got a couple of cast iron pieces with my Tramontina IDEAL cookware set I was hooked. One day I was looking for information on seasoning cast iron and I discovered vintage cast iron, Wagner & Griswold in particular. Since I'm always looking for a bargain I latched onto Wagner. They are definitely more dense than modern cast iron and I now own 3 of their skillets. Anyone else out there a fan of vintage cast iron?

I use a mix of Calphalon and All-Clad for most daily pots and pans and have been generally pretty happy. The non-stick surface on the Calphalon doesn't last as long as I'd like, but otherwise I'm pleased with both. But the best purchases I've made in the past year have been a set of cast iron skillets (Lodge skillets at Sur La Table) and a large, 24 quart stock pot (Winware stainless steel on Amazon). The stock pot is indispensable for large batches of chicken and veal stock, and i've become a huge fan of the cast iron for searing off steaks, roasting chickens with vegetables, and making things like savory dutch baby's and skillet corn bread. And both were much lower cost items than the all-clad pots and pans and should last forever!

A few weeks ago, I sat in on a "home show" demonstration of waterless cookware. The demonstration centered mostly on the health benefits of cooking your meat, potatoes, and vegetables in one pot without any water, butter, or oil. How dare we subject our kids to the risks of non-stick, and cast iron cookware. What kind of parents are we?? His presentation was slick and he'd obviously been doing this for a good many years..

He ignored me as I asked about making sauces and gravies, and sucs, and sauteing and sweating ingredients.

I watched and bit my tongue as he derided cast iron pans while holding up a rusty and obviously neglected cast iron skillet. I kept silent as he described "standard" stainless steel cookware as porous and hard to clean, requiring lots of oil, or butter to keep things from sticking.

Knowing that this was a slick sales presentation, I hung around just to see what the price was going to be. I was expecting it to be around double what we might pay for quality cookware at most retail outlets... I figured anywhere from $1200 to $1500 and was anxious to see how many of his attendees would buy at those prices.

I was in for a shock! He began to describe the packaged "show specials" and I gasped audibly as others cheered at the "deal" he was offering. I watched in disbelief as he soon had several buyers running their credit cards for $4000, $6000 and even as much as $8000 for the "ultimate" package, which of course included hundreds of dollars of show special freebies. He was easily charging quadruple what it would cost to get an equally satisfactory set of cookware for at most any retail outlet.

I couldn't get over it. I felt buyers remorse, and I hadn't even bought!

Whew!

I've been using an electric for many years, but would really like to move to gas (would be propane where I live). The electric is usable, but is very slow to respond. You have to "know" how to use it to avoid burning things. I also occasionally use a glass surface stove top elsewhere (induction? It glows red when hot). Not overly impressed with that either and am always worried about scratching the surface when shaking a pan, etc.

What say you? Any thoughts or recommendations?

Pdiff

Didn't see Julie and Zep's posts above. So is induction steel only? That would be a problem with all my old-school aluminum Calphalon. I would like something that cools quickly, though.