Word.

Best deal in cookware: cast iron pans. From cornbread to duck confit, they don't mess around. And they're cheap.

Second best deal in cookware: Costco's set of stainless pans with copper cores. Main difference between them and the All Clad copper core pans is that the core doesn't extend up the walls of the pan; personally, I'm happy to lose the weight. I've had them for three years, they're great pans. $200 for the full set last time I checked.

(not affiliated with anything, etc. etc.)

YAY! It's so nice to see this coming from a publicly read, professional chef.

I learned to cook just about five years ago, and in the beginning I used whatever cheap, lame pots and pans were available to me. I've found that having good pans makes cooking EASIER, but it doesn't make me a better cook.

A few years ago, I decided I was ready to buy a few seriously good pans. I talked to a friend who is a professional chef, asking him what I should do, where I should go, etc. He told me to go to Marshall's or TJ Maxx, and look for stainless steel with encapsulated bottoms. To look everything over carefully before I bought it, as they carry rejected products sometimes. I did what he suggested and came home with an amazing chef's pan and saucepan. They are fantastic, easy to clean, and the thick heavy bottoms do make cooking easier. They cost me VERY little.

I've also found Bed, Bath, and Beyond's house line, "Invitations" to be pretty good. My stock/pasta pot is from that line. The steel is not quite as good quality as the ones I got from Marshall's, but with a coupon the price was right and the pot has served me very well.

I love cast iron too. I have my grandmother's cast iron pans and I love them. They heat evenly, stay hot with very little energy, and they impart a yummy flavor to food. And, I think of her every time I use them.

Bless that chef, for telling that woman the truth! So many chefs today are hung up on selling things.

Brava! I have some nice pieces of cookware and some nice knives that I truly appreciate, but that doesn't stop me from loving my old granny's kitchen hand me downs. Cooking is about what's in the cookware, not the logo.

So, so true. One of my favorite pans is one I got from Goodwill in (mumble mumble) when I was setting up my first apartment. Loved it then as a single gal cooking for myself, love it now as a married woman cooking for myself, a husband, and two kids.

There used to be a show on Discover, many years ago, called "Great Chefs of the World" that showed, duh, great chefs in their own restaurant kitchens fixing their signature dishes. And you know what? They used the most ungodly mish-mash of banged up old pans and bowls, forks from off the table, and almost no fancy gadgets. (Consistently they all had good knives, but that's about it.) That's always stuck with me, all these years. I eye some fancy somethingorother, and then think "Yeah, but what about the dude who made the standing rib roast with veggie terrine using nothing but an old pan and a fork?"

I'm so glad to see food professionals pointing this out to the public. We need to hear it.

Hear hear.
I'd like to have read that you and/or the demonstrator gave the fake blonde twunts something to think about as well - is there anything more annoying than some trophy wife who thinks her stable of matching chrome Kitchen-Aid elevates her Jell-O "salad" to haute status? Ugh.

Props to you, woman.
Many a sneer I've tolerated from label-whore dilettantes when they see my beat up old Chicago knives. Then I explain that those same knives have not only been in my posession for close to two decades, but were pulled out of the charred remains of a burned restaurant none the worse for wear.

Yeah, and those crummy little hardware store paring knives? They COMPLETELY ROCK.

The Food Whore camps?! Wow, who knew?

Well done!

It's about the food and enjoying it. Not what you cook it in!

I love you. Ok, not in the weird stalker crazy way, but for saying what we needed to hear. But I'm still in love with my Kithen Aid mixer & would die without her!

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I've been waiting for someone, anyone, to step up and tell all these "foodies" that you don't have to break the bank or bring your family to the point of poverty to provide a fabulous meal for them! What do your kids care that their hamburger was cooked in a "AllCalphEmerilPuckRayPricey" skillet? They don't - they just care that their mom/dad loves them enough to actually cook for them - not buy them one from the local fat shack!

So THANK YOU dear FoodWhore for stating what I wish was obvious to everyone else!

I've got some pots that I got from a sort of Tupperware party type thing back in college, because although they were expensive, they came with a lifetime guarantee from a real company (whose name currently escapes me), and I had just had my housemates ruin yet another frying pan. It's been 20 years and I still have them and use them daily. I'd say it was a pretty good $300 for three pans, a dutch oven/large-enough-to-boil-pasta-pot, and a large frying pan. The dutch oven gets used to roast chicken frequently. (Just a chicken with an onion stuffed in it for 1.5 to 2 hours at 350, meat falling off the bone, but still moist. My picky eater children love it.) My favorite paring knives are two cheap, plastic handled things we got God knows where, and they get used for everything, including opening bags of guinea pig food, foil pouches of semi-prepared stuff, you name it, but they still keep their edge.

We also have some Le Crueset which my husband had bought before we were married which I hate, because I have bad wrists, and they are just too heavy. When I cook I like to do it avoiding pain.

If you could see my sorry collection of saucepans you might wonder how I could ever cook anyhting at all. I guess I can cope.

Best knife I ever bought I found at the salvation army for 25 cents. Got a good bread knife for a dollar. And don't get me started on Champagne flutes and wine glasses. So many people get them as wedding presents and then never use them and then donate them.

And my husband burns pans too fast to buy anything but the cheap Walmart stuff.

thanks so much, FW for your honest opinion - i recently experienced the ease of cooking with great quality pots and pans (at a p.chef show) and loved how QUICKLY they heated through and would love to someday have my own set. in the meantime? i am content to make really good food out of what i have(just takes a little longer), and it's really GOOD simply because....I MADE IT.

and amen to good food over a campfire - that is where it's at! nothing like potatoes in the coals and eggs and bacon in a cast iron skillet over the fire. man, i need to go camping now!

I've always thought that I was a good cook, and to me, the 'good stuff' only serves to make it easier to be so. Like you said about the paring knife--it feels better to you while you're using it than other ones you've used. I'm happy with the things I have, and while I covet certain things in kitchenware, I'm not stupid enough to think it will make me any better. I can still scald milk in an awesome pan.

Amen!

I love my calphalon, but I'd still be cooking my fabulous food (humbly) in my wal-mart pans if I hadn't gotten married.

crap cookware won't undo a good cook. only crap ingredients can do that. spend your pesos on quality ingredients and you're halfway home.

Obviously, this one hit a nerve. sometimes the good stuff DOES make it easier - but more often than not, all those fancy pans are WAY too heavy for me to handle comfortably. BTW - one of my fave pans is a flat cast iron griddle that my ancient neighbor lady gave me - I found it under her house one day and she said - "take it". so I did and scrubbed it and seasoned it and it's the handiest thing - from crepes to grilled cheese to just heating something up. Money does not equal talent, skill, adventurousness (or class either).

I like the part when I was watching a few of Julia's old cooking shows. A few were black & white, the first season I suppose. Then a few were color, second season I'm guessing. The fry pans, sauce pans and equipment she was using were from dime stores or any ol' department store. Remember the old non-stick pans? The aluminum ones with the light brown non-stick coating? That peeled like old paint?
Damned that was cool, the best part. Julia Child could totally kick your ass with a 7 dollar fry pan.

Biggles

Here Here! I have expensive cookware and cheap cookware and the bottom line is - can you put ingredients together in a palate tingling manner? I can't, but my better half can, and he can do it in a tin can while camping. Good tools may make it easier - but they don't make the cook!

I hate to admit this - but what is All Clad?? I don't watch any cooking shows. I use my $100 set I got about 20 yrs ago, the pots the hubby brought into the marriage & the one we inherited from the parentals & they work fine - tho I'm intrigued about the heating properties mentioned above.

I got a set of knives as a wedding present that are perfect. Just the right heft. What I need is the right spoon. I like to do my cake batters by hand & need a spoon with the right gravitas. My mom's spoons seemed to have it when I was a kid. But, not that I'm older, I need something a bit more so.

You rock.

My mother made the most amazing food for us when we were little using cheap pans so we learned early on it's about the cook, not the cookware. Great post.

yes yes yes!! The tools are cool. But the tools don't make the cook. Oh, I love my new santoku. But I didn't pay a small fortune for it. And for my birthday, I bought a new Kitchenaid knife cuz I loved the handle. But does that make me a good cook? Not just no. HELL no. The tools might make it a little easier, but they don't make the food taste any better. I mean, my mother-in-law substitutes .. you know, dried oregano (past its date by 5 yrs) for parsley (ok, I exaggerate, but not by much). No fancy All-Clad is gonna save her from HER fate, right? Right.

And, Julie T.... Right on. And you can still find Great Chefs reruns every now and again on cable. And they all still use that beatup old cookware!!

k

I agree absolutly.

I'm a student in college on a tight budget so my cookware is pretty much catch as catch can, whatever I can get cheap or free. My wonderful sweet boyfriend bought me a set of All Clad as a presant to me (and get this- he used it with money someone gave him to use for himself. He said "I wanted to spend it on you becuase it would make me happy and becuase I know you'll cook really good things with these pans)

Of course I do find them a bit inimdidating becuase I'm scared of messing them up or staining them permanantly! It took me a few weeks to get use to them.

I'm a horrible cook and will be the first to admit that nothing will change that. :)

My favorite kitchen tool is a spaghetti scooper which was attached to a jar of Prego years ago. A quarter of the handle melted in the dishwasher a long time ago, but I refuse to toss it.

Am I sharing a bit too much? ;)

This SO needed to be said! The Food Network and all the gorgeous cookbooks are terrific but they create this expectation of perfect-looking, perfectly-styled, organic-this, local-that, sugar-from-Mauritius that you sit down to with a few perfectly pedicured, chicly dressed, ever-so-hip friends. My best friend (and I love her dearly) just got a Viking for a second home (and a set of Viking, not All Clad cookware) and hasn't cooked a meal in her first home since Christmas. I cooked with a mishmash of my mother's grocery-store pots and pans until about 10 years ago. The Dutch oven's handle just broke off last week, it's probably 50 years old, I cried ... and reached for the SuperGlue.

My husband looked around our kitchen yesterday and said "4 frying pans and not a single one the same make. Is this what a chef's kitchen looks like?"
I guess now I can answer "Yes!"

In further regards to the snit issue, I had one dork go on and on about some $400 knife he bought, and how it was worth it to spend a bit more. I just smiled and nodded and remembered my various teachers who used:
-A cheap circa 1970's Brazilian Henkels
-An old chef knife they got when apprentencing in Germany that is almost sicle-like now from use
-An old carbon chef knife that has the handle taped back on so they can still use it
-An inexpensive restaurant chinese cleaver

My husband buys me cool kitchen stuff because it's easy to get a shopping list for it. But he married me (in part) because of the cooking I did on the mixed up hand-me-downs I used in college.

Agreed, in fact I just won an expensive cookware set, & seeing nothing wrong with my old set which I think my brother bought me from Kmart years ago, I actually took them back & had much more fun spending the money on things I really needed, ie more wine glasses for 1 so that I now have a complete set of red & white for when I have a full dinner party!

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you! Whew. I received a beautiful set of All-Clad pans for my wedding, but my favorite pot is the 3-qt. Martha Stewart one I got from KMart 8 years ago. I felt guilty about that until reading your post.

The snitty trophy wives are the same ones who have a $10,000 and don't cook! Their self-worth is wrapped up in labels (see their cars, handbags, jeans, etc.)
It's all about the food, stupid!

My previous post should have said a $10,000 kitchen, sorry!

Here here!!!

amen, girl! I could not have said that better myself. At the unmarried age of 35, i just got my first all-clad skillet, and though I am thrilled beyond imagining about it, it is my firm belief that you can and should be able to make just about anything with a cheap serrated paring knife, a cast iron skillet, a cheap steel spaghetti pot, and a cutting board. All of which could set you back less than 20 bucks, if you shop at thrift stores and Target. My parents have the saddest pots and pans imaginable, and their knives are a scandal, but we manage to put together fantastic holiday meals somehow anyway -- it ain't what you got, it's what you do with it. (Btw, the victorinox serrated paring knives are about $4, are indestructible, and are the sharpest and lightest I have found. They rule.)

Thank you for sharing.

It's good to know that there are minds out there that still think simple, easy-on-the-pocketbook, easy to handle, easy to use, "baterrie de cuisine" makes just as good a meal. It's not in the price of the equipment, but rather the quality of the ingredients, the handling and technique of the hands that make the creations.

The don't call it "Culinary Arts" for nothin'.

Well said! Bless you for writing this...

I do have to say, there is a difference between good equipment (no matter what it costs) and bad equipment (not necessarily inexpensive).

I treasure my good knives, but I have just four of them and they wre very carefully chosen and acquired over time. Same with the cookware, which ranges from the $2 pan that i like to burn stuff in, to some nice Calphalon pieces.

I think that my early learning happening with inferior gear was really good for my technique, and allowed me to really appreciate for example, the Wusthof chef's knife, once i was ready for it.

I agree wholeheartedly with every who posted. Ingredients and technique are vastly more important than the name brand stamped on the handle/side/bottom. And you can pay high dollar but still get a crappy piece of equipment. Although I would have appreciated a sturdier stock pot a few weeks ago. I seriously scorched a huge batch of pastry cream while preparing for my final exam. I passed so it couldn't have been too nasty. :-)

I must confess however that I would fight to my death to keep my Kitchen-Aid mixer and my Henckels chef's knife. My BF bought both for me because he likes to eat. Lucky for him I like to cook. Added bonus: he buys me gift cards to Williams Sonoma and I splurge on good quality cocoa powder, vanilla and whatever else tickles my fancy. Yep, I'm spoiled and lovin' it!

bitchin' post.

I read an article once where Mark Bittman said he uses the most expensive knives and the cheapest pans he can find... Works for me.