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What cooking tools do you really need?

by John W. Moxin
(Calgary, Canada)

After decades of enthusiastic home cooking and trying all kinds of different cooking tools, I am still not decided on the level of quality I need for my pots/pans/knives.

My boiling pots are big, heavy-bottomed beauties that cost a couple of hundred each and I love them. I have a couple of cheap non-stick fry pans and I replace them when the coating wears out. Two inexpensive cast iron pans have been with me for decades.

I have both cheap and expensive knives, I keep them sharp and I like them all for the jobs they do.

And yet on the cooking shows it's all copper-bottomed this, hand-hammered that and stupidly expensive. C'mon, is all that necessary?

Ry Cooder makes amazing music on $50 pawn shop guitars, can't I make just as good a meal in my camping pan as I could in a $300 hand made designer pan?

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What cooking tools do you really need?

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Apr 30, 2009
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starstarstarstarstar 		Pots and Pans
by: Chef Todd Mohr

Of course the Recipe TV network has expensive pans. They have sponsors that sell those pans. Can you still play tennis without a $500 racket? Do you need the most expensive guitar to play music? No, no, and no.

Depending on the type of stove you have (gas or electric) will dictate the types of pans you need. Generally, I recommend stainless steel pans with a composite material "foot" on the bottom. This will conduct heat best on electric and gas stoves.

For gas, aluminum pans are inexpensive and conduct heat well. Depending on what you cook most, you generally need a 1 qt sauce pan, 4 qt stock pot, 7" saute pan, 10" saute pan, and a sheet pan or two.

If you say you love the pans you've had for decades, and you are comfortable with them, then that's all you need. Don't let mercinary merchandisers make you think you need expensive equipment. You don't.

Chef Todd.

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