My advice is to figure out which size pans you use the most and buy the best quality you can swing for those few pans and keep and re-use what you have in the other sizes and kinds. Put your money in sauce and saute pans/skillets where you use higher heat and fats rather than tall stockpots where you're either simmering something or just boiling water for pasta. I know I use the same 3 or 4 pans every day, and then the rest of them might get between one use per week to one per month. I had an OK-to-pretty-good stainless European cookware set before I got my higher-BTU range. It was quickly clear that I didn't need to replace the Volrath stainless stockpots as the ones I had worked just fine> But sauce and saute pans were a different story. I bought a couple of W-S on-special All-Clads (this was 20 years ago) and quickly found that they made a big difference in my (amateur cook's) control of the higher fire-power. Since then I've added some more AC (usually at sales or the good deals at W-S outlets). Truthfully, I don't actually use all of them equally. I find my 2 1/2 qt windsor pan, a 1 1/2 qt sauce/saute pan, 4 qt sauce pan and the big, 6 or 8 qt saute pan are all I really need. I think they have made a change in their handle design or finishing standards. I find the older handles to be better fitting (and smoother) than the newer ones, so I'm glad I'm not in the market for more. Aside from the AC, I use a range of 2 or 3 ancient cast iron skillets/chicken fryers and a dutch oven (inherited). I fequently use my beloved Pyrex glass double boiler (I can't the hang of the D-B insert that came with one of my AC sauce pans - I really need to see the water.) And I have a group of big to really, really large (I am a home canner) stainless Volrath stock pots (purchased at restaurant supply house). I have a few 50+ year old Revere Ware sauce pans that I grew up with that I occasionally fish out for old times sake. (But you have to watch'em like a hawk if you've got your cook-brain programmed in AC mode.) Cookware is something that's so tempting to me - and I find it hard to resist buying other pieces in the line as new ones are added. But I try do so since when I have bought extra pieces, they usually don't get as much use as I thought and then I kick myself for spending so much $$. And you definitely should avoid buying a full set of any one line. However, for my every day, core, AC pans, the $100-$300 -apiece! - they cost doesn't seem exhorbitant (in retrospect, I remember being pretty shocked at the time) because they are reliable, well-performing tools that rarely go a day without seeing some action. Aside from some evidence of use (a stirring patina and scratches on the bottom from burner grates) they look and perform as good as new. I can see no reason they won't give me another 30 years of service and then I'll leave 'em to somebody in my Will. I don't own anything with a non-stick coating. I don't think the coatings are healthy (no matter what the manu. says) and, anyway, I've never seen the point since I do just fine with my plain stainless and cast iron pots, without any evidence of sticking problems. I don't have a DW, so I would definitely know if I had the stickies. If a pan has a crust on the bottom when I plate, I dump some hot water in the pot and let it soak while I eat, then a nylon, or worst-case, a stainless scrubbie takes care of it when I wash up. And believe me, I am certainly not an expert cook who never scortches or burns things. ('Course when you've got a couple of hundred bucks invested in the pan, no way are you not going to take the trouble to clean it up!) Unless you exclusively use well-seasoned cast iron skillets (and will continue to do so), I think the first better-quality pot I'd suggest purchasing is a saute pan, or french skillet. That way you can try out the new cookware line with a pan that's intended to be used with high heat and a bit of fat. That's where I see the biggest difference in cooking technique and success among the different pans. The next would be a larger sauce pan where you'd be sweating some veg. or actually working with a sauce. You won't see to much of a difference with a "sauce" pan that's primarily used for boiling or reheating liquids or steaming veg. It's mostly where you're actively using heat in the transformational alchemy of cooking, not simply boiling fluids, where you'll see the biggest difference with your new range and better quality pots. L

Ratherbgardening, be sure to check the new-in-the-box ones too. I seem to have had more bad luck buying Le Creuset than most. I own 3 pieces, and have had to make several returns in order to get perfect ones. My first was an online purchase which arrived with a bulge in the iron near the rim, along with several pits in the enamel. I replaced it with one that looked fine in the store, but under my bright kitchen lighting, I could see that it had a few tiny black pits on the interior cooking surface. I then got my first keeper at Sur la Table, which incidentally, was a floor model. Next, I picked up a braiser at an outlet. I asked for a perfect one and got it. Finally, my third one (I think I am developing an addiction) came from Williams Sonoma. I took it out of the box in the store and examined the pot and interior of the lid carefully. I made the mistake of not taking the cardboard off the top of the lid. (In my defense, it was heavy and I didn't have much counter space to work with.) When I got it home, I could have kicked myself. There was a small, but very obvious black burr sticking out through the yellow enamel. Oh well....the store was "only" an hour away. Will my track record stop me from buying more? No.....the aforementioned addition is now telling me that I need another one.

I've been hinting to my husband that I really needed the 7 1/4 french oven from Williams Sonoma, finally he got sick of hearing about it and told me to go get it already but when I did, they were not having any sale, I had no coupons and just could not do it. (I'm sure he was aware this would happen!) Thanks to this thread I searched for an outlet store and discovered a store not twenty minutes from me. I called and asked if they were having any kind of sale and they are having a 'scratch off' sale until March, my card was good for 30% off. I easily justified this purchase, lol, and got a beautiful red one for $160. The saleslady tried to sell me a bottle of special cleaner for $12. I have never heard anyone mention a special cleaner, should I go back and get it? My pot is so pretty, I've made chili, chicken soup, beef stew and next up is a Throwdown recipe for Arroz Con Pollo, which is sofrito, chicken and rice.

I see you picked the Dijon - good choice! I had not seen it before and think its beautiful. (I did not like the Citron) Just for comments - l I think Cobalt blue is a classic sort of kitchen accessory color because over the years country kitchens, white cabs etc. come back into style and blue looks really wonderful with that. Also "yellow" sunny walls are popular in kitchens and blue looks good with that. I have the Flame and occasionally think I'd like to switch, but then change my mind. Its classic in its own right as one of the original colors of a pretty old name in French cookware - now too trendy for being copied by Rachael Ray, Mario Batali etc. but I like the sense of tradition it gives me and I believe orange is supposed to induce hunger? (not that I need any more of that:)