From regular ESPN reader JKGaucho comes this intriguing question about cookware:
Keith, I have a non baseball question that I thought would be right up your alley, and maybe a blog entry on the dish if you had the time. My financee and I are in the early stages of registering for gifts and after going around to Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma, I found the experience rather overwhelming. If someone knows about what are the best pots, pans, knives, etc., I figure you do. I should say that when it comes to everything, easy to clean is preferred. How did you find the registering process and is there something that you would certainly avoid? Any suggestions on brands like All Clad vs. Calphalon or whatever if more than greatly appreciated.
Well, at least someone understands what marriage is all about: The gifts. Anyway, what follows is my reply to JKG.
Sure, happy to help. But there are no straightforward answers:
Pots and pans: Brand doesn’t matter as much as material. I had anodized aluminum for a few years; it’s easy to clean because it’s mostly nonstick, but the pans/pots are very heavy and you won’t be able to brown meats as well as you can with other materials. Now I have a better mix of materials based on how I use each pot or pan.
My current setup includes two anodized aluminum skillets (9″ omelette pan and 10″ deep skillet), a 12″ cast-iron skillet (heavy, but the best cooking material on the planet and quite cheap), an enameled cast iron Dutch oven (about $200) an aluminum stockpot, a stainless steel saucier with a cover, and a stainless steel saute pan with a cover. I also have a pressure cooker, but don’t use it all that often. Calphalon and All-Clad are both excellent brands. Avoid Teflon or other “coated” non-stick cookware.
Knives: This depends entirely on your hands. Go to a Bed Bath & Beyond or a Wms & Sonoma and get a salesclerk to open the case so you can hold the knives and see which is comfortable. I have J.A. Henckels’ Four-Star line and am very happy with them. I have one of the Five-Star knives (a santoku), and the only difference is that the handle has a different shape. You should get a chef’s knife
FWIW, the America’s Test Kitchen people rated the Victorinox Fibrox 8-Inch Chef’s Knife
Registering – who knows, that was 13 years ago and I didn’t cook back then. But you named some expensive stores. I’d say register at Bed Bath & Beyond, which has most of the same stuff as W-S or C&B but way better prices on pots, pans, knives, and small appliances; and then use a higher-end store or a department store for flatware and silverware.
Also, if you intend to cook, register for a food processor and a 5-qt stand mixer. They are indispensable and expensive enough that you won’t want to buy them on your own. Other kitchen toys I use often: Stick blender (“boat motor”), blade grinder (for spices, not for coffee!), digital kitchen scale, roasting pans (get at least two different sizes), V-slicer (or a mandoline, if you have wealthy relatives), salad spinner, eight different colanders (and I use them all, often), electric carving knife, and a waffle iron with reversible grids
Keith,
What material browns the best?
I second the cast-iron cookware – we registered for Le Creuset stuff and couldn’t be happier. Even if you don’t plan on doing a lot of cooking, do get the stand mixer. Even a person who is totally without cooking ability can make great cookies from scratch with zero effort with one.
One other bit of advice is to think about what you’re going to do with the dishes you buy. We originally planned on getting a ‘nice’ china pattern and some everyday stuff, but after our first big haul of the nice china arrived we loved it so much that we decided to just use that all the time, and cancelled the boring regular stuff.
I agree with Keith about avoiding W-S and Crate + Barrel. You can find good kitchen stuff for much cheaper than at W-S, and I find all of C&B’s stuff to be pretty boring (though that’s just a personal taste thing).
Btw, Keith, why 8 different colanders?
Dave – cast iron or stainless steel. I’m sure plain aluminum is fine, but it’s flimsy and harder to clean, and there’s maybe a tiny risk of aluminum ending up in the food.
Jeff: Two hand-strainers. Two large colanders for pasta or similarly large jobs. One deep colander with a long handle for large batches of vegetables, like broccoli. Three of intermediate size for, well, intermediate jobs. But mostly because I use 3-4 a night, sometimes more, and hand-washing them on the fly isn’t that easy because they don’t dry quickly. I know at least one of the colanders dates back to our wedding, so it’s at 12 years and still rocking.
Wait wait wait wait…
You got married at 22? Jesus.
I think Mr.Law covers most grounds as far as the cookware goes.However, I think even that list could be a bit overwhelming if the reader who asked the question doesn’t cook all that much. Well, I understand the whole dymanics of wedding gift, at least I think it is maybe the best chance to have a lot of things once. If they can spare some money by not receiving all the gift right now, I think it would not be a bad idea to buy very basic items now and buy others piece by piece.
I am using that Victorynox 8″ chef’s knife. It was $15 few months ago. Since I have not used any kind of expensive knife, I am not able to do any comparison, but it could easily be the best among the knives of same price range.
When I read Kitchen Confidential, Tony Bourdain mentioned that most of expensive stainless steel knives like Henckel and Shun is hard to maintain sharp at home and rather heavy for the home cook. Thus he recommends the brands like Global as they are lighter and easier to maintain. Once again, I have not used any of them, but planning to have some by the end of the year and keep researching. From some article from a magazine, some chefs said Global’s edge tend to be worn down relatively sooner.
One kitchen gadget I recently got that I recommend is a potato ricer. You can get one at Bed Bath and Beyond for I think less than $20 and it’s incredibly helpful when making mashed potatoes. After boiling the potatoes, you run them through the ricer and end up with incredibly smooth mashed potatoes.
Keith and everyone else, thanks for the advice.
If you are near a city then go find your local restaurant supply store. William Sonoma and such are really over priced for what is often quite fragile stuff.
Generally you can equip your kitchen with the same gear the pros use for 1/3rd the price at a kitchen supply shop. The one big exception to this being knives.
The thing about knives are you dont need those giant sets. Most people find 1 or 2 knives in a set to their liking and ignore the rest. So go to william sonoma, try out the Henkel’s and Wustaf knives and buy the best version of the size you like online.
Also, try to avoid getting specialized single purpose devices as this leads to clutter. Don’t buy things like a potato ricer, get a good mill.
Aluminum pans- They don’t hold heat as well as a cast iron. Get a cast 2x cast iron pans and season them. Set aside one for fish and the other for everything else. If you can afford it get a Lu Cruset skillet. I know a lot of pros scorn this sort of thing, but 1 is really useful. They hold heat like a cast iron pan but clean like a non-stick.
Stand Mixers- I don’t like em, but I don’t bake.
Cuisinarts- Totally awesome, get a mini one as you will use it more.
Hand Blenders- More useful then most realize (soup, sauces) and you can get experimental with them and make foam.
Seriously though, buy it all at a restaurant supply store. Twenty dollar tools at sonoma quickly become $4 at the supply store.
Keith,
You really got me thinking about cooking. I went to Williams and Sonoma to sign up for cooking lessons only to find out that the classes aren’t hands on. Any suggestions? I would do trial and error, but my kitchen is the size of a 1/2 bathroom. You know of any good cooking classes? I’m sure you have better ideas than this, but I was thinking that it might give me the opportunity to meet “babes” who like to cook… that last line was a joke.
Q
PhillR – restaurant supply stores don’t do wedding registries, so it doesn’t really apply to JKGaucho’s question, but yes, you can get some great buys there. I bought a pair of half-sheet pans at one for about $4.50 apiece, and I don’t use anything else for baking cookies, meringues, etc. Those stores are also great for storage solutions, like large, sturdy, stackable plastic containers for dry ingredients.
Also, a mill is not a good substitute for a potato ricer, because the mill will overwork the potato starch and make the result gummier. I bought an Oxo potato ricer a few weeks ago and couldn’t be happier with it.
I wouldn’t recommend a mini-food processor, at least not as a substitute for a full-size one. The mini motors tend to be a lot less powerful, so your purees won’t be as smooth or your grinding as fine. (I actually had a Hamilton-Beech blender/mini-processor, and I eventually threw the processor bowl and blade away because they didn’t do the job.)
Francis – Try a local cooking school. If you’re still in the Boston area, the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts offers classes for non-professionals, from basics like knife handling (not a bad idea for a rookie) to specialized classes for advanced home cooks.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned yet but Alton Brown wrote a book about kitchen tools called Gear For Your Kitchen. Its a good book and explains why one material is better than another for a given function. It is easy to read and worthy of a $20 investment.
I think some restaurants will occasionally offer cooking classes as well. There’s an Italian place in this area (Western Massachusetts) that I saw advertising classes a couple of years ago. It’s something to keep an eye out for as an option.
I recommend the book “Elements of Cooking” by Michael Ruhlman. In fact, any book by Ruhlman is good. The aforementioned book is handy guide to the kitchen, with a great explination of many culinary terms. The book begins with a few essays, and one of which is on stocking the kitchen. He says that any kitchen must have five essential tools: chef’s knife, flat wooden spoon, heat-proof glass bowl, heavy cuttingboard, and large sauté pan. Since these are the most essential items, spend most of your money here (i.e. don’t get an expensive knife set; get a good chef and paring knife, and then buy those knives which you need).
Ruhlman further describes the pros and cons of the different kinds of cookware. Regardless of what you choose, no plastic parts anywhere; you will want to be able to put them in the oven to finish a dish or two. Also, heavy cookware evenly distributes the heat, and holds the heat much better than cheap, flimsy cookware.
As for the enamel coated castiron, Le Crusset is the most popular brand, though quite pricey. Mario Batali has his own brand at Crate and Barrel, and it is more affordable.
I might be able to help gaucho as well here, as I just got married 9 months ago and did the whole registry thing. I had a bunch of stuff already but we registered for a set of Le Creuset cookware (a casserole, a skillet, a stir fry pan, and a large pot). They are incredibly great, and have lifetime guarantees. They are heavy, so if your wife does some of the cooking then you might want to opt for something else. My wife isn’t allowed in my kitchen though.
I can recommend a reasonable knife set that I haven’t seen up here before. Fiskars knives from Finland are incredibly good. They have a good weight, are durable, and are very affordable. I have had those for about three years and have not had a problem.
I can’t agree more with one specific tool mentioned by a couple people above: the stick blender. I use mine for everything (baking, making sauces, mashing potatoes, etc.) and it does the job. I just have to stress that you get one with mutiple speeds and multiple attachments like the higher end Brauns.
Also, on the service side. Get good crystal glasses for everything. Those are the types of things you won’t buy later but are great to have. We registered for whiskey glasses, pilsener glasses, red wine glasses, white wine glasses, schnapps glasses, and grappa glasses and we use them all the time. Also, if you’re a oenophile, or actually, if you ever drink wine, even cheap wine buy a good decanterwith a crystal or aluminum funnel. Its worth it.
Hope this helps.
Keith- For my registry we actually opted to exclude all cooking gear and just put it all into silver. I didn’t expand on this enough but once you see the prices at a supply store then outfitting a kitchen is not quite so daunting and the registry can be used for other purposes.
I ran into the same trouble with a food mill and potatoes at first, but after playing with the meshes and hot versus cold cream I found I can avoid over developing the starch. With the right mesh one turn of the crank will push the whole potato through.
The mini food processor would be in addition to a regular one. Sure the regular one has a stronger motor and is better for purees and such. However for day to day use I get a lot more mileage out of my mini processor. Quick emulsions, bread crumbs, etc. The Cuisinart mini food processor is surprisingly powerful.
Oh, one thing that my wife and I did (got married almost three years ago), we skipped the fine china and silver. Instead, we loaded up on French porcelain from Williams and Sonoma. Our apartment is rather small, and we have no idea where we would store china/silver; probably in a box. So we got really nice plate/bowls/etc. and flatware, and we have recieved a lot of compliments. I figure you might as well get good quality stuff that you will use on a regular basis.
Only general comment is to go for heavy/durable pans for sauteeing, grilling, searing. I personally have All-Clad Stainless sautee pans and skillets and love them. The heavier pan-rule stays true for non-stick sautee pans, too. America’s Test Kitchen provides good recs here. For stock pots and larger saucepans, go for thinner-walled, cheaper versions. You don’t need the heat-retention there and will appreciate a lighter pot when you fill it with water.
On another note, thought that this audience, or at least Keith, would appreciate that the Golden Clog award “For being on Food Network and yet, somehow managing to Not Suck” is named “The Alton”:
http://eater.com/archives/2008/02/sobewire_the_20.php
Good times.
For a great reference for this kind of thing, Alton Brown put out a book describing what to look for in everything you need for your kitchen. The book is called “Alton Brown’s Gear for Your Kitchen
“. I’ve found it to be a great resource when setting up a kitchen.
Seriously though, married at 22? GL.
I just noticed the google referal ad for Zabars on the right. People click this link and order the hand sliced nova. It is without question some of the finest smoked salmon in the world.
Just seeing that banner ad has given me an irresistible urge to schlep across town and get some good lox.
Keith- Clearly if google adsense is placing Zabars ads on your blogs then you must be doing something very right.
Keith,
Do you have any recommendations for stand mixers? With the Cnd $ at par, we’re looking at getting one from the US and have heard good things about the Cuisinart and less than great things about the latest KitchenAids.
Thoughts?
ATK’s most recent stand mixer testing gave the Cuisinart 5.5 Quart Stand Mixer
the top rating. I’ve got a 12+-year-old Kitchenaid 4.5 qt model, and I’d like to upgrade, as the bowl is just a bit too small for some tasks, like certain bread doughs and genoise batter.
ATK?
I’d like to think that ATK is the first google result for the acronym, “an advanced weapon and space systems company,” but somehow I doubt it. But more to the point, as a coffee fan, I am wondering if this post implies that there is something better for the morning jolt than your standard coffee grinder, and if so, what it might be. Also, I am evidently a fan of using many words to say/ask a little.
ATK = America’s Test Kitchen, a TV show on PBS here. They also publish a very annoyingly written magazine called Cooks Illustrated.
I wouldn’t recommend anything less than a burr grinder for coffee, even if it’s just for drip. I use a Capresso Infinity burr grinder
for drip and espresso and I’ve been quite pleased with it.
Does the ATK have a decent meat grinder attachment? I have one for my kitchen aid and have found it to be totally worthless.
You mean the Cuisinart? It’s got one, but I (obviously) don’t know if it’s any good.
Two comments as far as registries go:
1. Williams-Sonoma will give you a 10% off card after your wedding that you can use to either clear the items you didn’t get off your registry or get whatever else you want for 6 months. We had a September wedding so it saved a little on Christmas gifts.
2. Bed, Bath and Beyond lets you return gifts for cash, not just store credit. If you get something you semi-wanted from there and didn’t get something you really wanted elsewhere, you can flip it.
It’s my impression that pretty much everywhere you can register offers the 10% discount (or something similar – it might just be only on your registry items). That BB+B setup sounds really awesome though.
Also, keep in mind that your relatives may not be as internet-savvy as you are. We had a bunch of internet-only stuff on our registry and very few of those items found their way to us.