Les Jones

Home Life > Kitchen Blogging Mayhem

Glenn started it, asking about All-Clad vs. Emirilware (by All-Clad) at half the price. Now Stephen Green has chimed in, and Glenn responded and opened comments for the first time in forever.

Melissa and I registered for All-Clad for our wedding. We only got a couple of pieces, though, and when it came time to pony up for the rest, we couldn't bring ourselves to spend $550 for a 10-piece set (that's 10 pieces including lids!). Worse, if we decided to buy an extra piece at some point it was going to cost about $100 per. And we weren't even sure we would like stainless cookwear.

We decided to live below our means and buy Proffitt's Living Quarters stainless cookwear to test the waters. A 16-piece set was $179 (minus a day-after-Thanksgiving discount of 15%). It's not quite as hernia-inducingly heavy as All-Clad, but it's stainless steel and has riveted handles. We like it. We also kept one of the All-Clad pans for comparison. It will have to be a lot better than the cheap stuff for us to replace the cheap stuff with All-Clad.

We do most of our frying with Melissa's cheap iron skillet from Wal-Mart. When we moved in together I had a set of Lodge cast iron cookwear, but it's heavier and not as stick-proof as the no-name Wal-Mart skillet, so it's now in the yard sale box. I wanted to like the Lodge stuff because it's made in Tennessee, but it never measured up to Melissa's skillet, or to the older-than-I-am cornbread skillet my mom gave me as a house-warming present when I bought my house.

I also have a set of 6- and 10-quart Kirby &Allen stainless stock pots I bought brand new at a yard sale for a dollar each. They're great for making big pots of soup or cooking a wort for home brew.