Don't worry about the brand name... use what works best! Whether you buy All-Clad piece by piece, or over time, it's easy to end up spending $800-$1500 on what amount to, let's be honest, FRYING PANS! They are just one small step in the making of your finished recipe. Both the All-Clad and Kirkland stuff are more than capable of handling serious daily use. (Obviously you're going to need to use nylon utensils with nonstick cookware if you want it to last more than a month! I actually use a rubber "spatula" instead of a nylon spatula; it works great in a nonstick pan.) I've used, on a daily basis, All-Clad Stainless, All-Clad LTD, and currently, the Kirkland nonstick cookware (Costco #783634) for sauteing, frying, roasting, etc. I consider all three to be excellent cookware, and I've noticed no difference in performance between them. Obviously the nonstick makes life MUCH easier. I prefer the Kirkland pans' handles. They are hollow stainless, and are easier to grab. The All-Clad ones are thin and V-shaped, and aren't as easy to work with. Which is a pain when you're doing 2 crepes simultaneously, each in their own pan, and Time Is Of The Essence. :-) I've got the Kirkland pans set up on a wall rack in my home kitchen, and it looks very sharp, so don't let the low price fool you... it's very high quality manufacturing, and if you're going for that "cool kitchen" look it's just as slick as the All-Clad stuff, in my opinion. I believe that good cookware (and a hot fire) can turn cooking from a chore into a fun, memorable experience. If you've got a junkyard of pots and pans, struggle to turn out consistently cooked food, and find it generally miserable, I recommend giving the Costco stuff a try. You get an entire set for the price of 1 to 1.5 All-Clad pans, you take it all home that day, and can immediately use it all. To sum up: buy the Kirkland stuff, and use the $1000 you saved on not buying an expensive frying pan... to buy higher-quality ingredients... French wine... organic produce... which will REALLY make for good cooking!

Weed, There are two tricks to cooking with stainless steel cooking surfaces that will optimize the performance. First, always preheat the pan to the temperature you want to cook at and at the same setting, i.e. don't try to hurry this process by pre-heating the pan on high. Then preheat the oil. This will make foods stick less, release better, and let you get a good fond. Second, keep the cooking surface scrupulously clean. This is easy if you wait until the pan is warm until you wash it and finish with a little Barkeepers Friend applied with a paper towel, rinse thoroughly, and hand dry the pan. Any residue left on a SS surface will make food stick and progressively harder to get off with each use. It only takes an extra minute or so per pan to keep them really clean and it's worth the little bit of effort required.

So far, the range is doing pretty good. It's a darned sight better than my old ceramic range no doubt. I love the responsiveness. I have some suspicions that it's not quite as powerful as some of the other induction sets but it could just be my setup. I don't like having to press three different buttons to turn on a burner (on/high or low then the opposite arrow to adjust). I'm also not too keen on some of the button placements. I do have to say that I am loving the touch pad. Last night I had a stir fry and a sauce going at the same time and it was so easy to just tap the arrow to adjust the setting mid-stir. I love love love the warming drawer, though the idea of the gliding racks is nice, too. The racks I have are standard design, though they do have a kind of handle built in that is nice. We are DIY and installed the range into an existing cabinet/counter setup. It was a huge pain for Hubby as the slide-in has some overhangs, etc that made it a tight fit. Make sure you plan appropriately. I also have some threads over on the Kitchens forum - which include pics, details, etc. Just go over and do a search on pbrisjar and induction. Here is a link that might be useful: Here's another thread here

I was looking at stainless steel cookware the other day. I want to buy some someday. My old set is ceramic coated and from Germany. Bought them at a mom and pop pots and pans factory in the mid 1980's. They are chipped and very well used and so thinking of getting a new set. Bad thing about the search for stainless steel is that most seem to be made in China and are bad quality...just like microwaves. I worry about dishes/cookware made in China too, the coating they use. I don't buy pretty dishes when I see they're made in China. This past summer I found a coffee mug (travel type) that looked like aluminum, made it China. Bought it even though I never buy food/drink containers made in China. After using it all these months, though, I think it's plastic made to look like aluminum. So, I was in Wal-Mart the other day and saw some more aluminum looking ones, one made in Canada (better than China) but more expensive than the one from China. Which by-the-way, is very dented up just from being put in my locker at work. The only copper things I've ever used was a tea kettle from Turkey. It got very discolored but I never babied it. I think I still have it and may have to try and clean it up.