I thought I had a lot, but I'm am much reassured that I don't!

I still think I have a lot, although in my defense much of it is cookware and appliances, with fewer utensils. I don't have a box full of measuring spoons, but I do have four sets. Some were Elery's and some were mine.

Anyway, it's the collection of two people spanning 40 or 50 years, and he had a LOT of stuff, from rice cookers to electric roasters to deep fryers to electric kettles. I had a few, mostly cheap but made up for it in cookbooks, most of which I received as gifts. We did give things to the kids and I still have boxes packed and stored.

Mine are just more spread out, LOL, my entire back storage room is full of my "cake stuff" but if I added shelves, it would take a lot less room!

Annie

@pillog: this forms part of my defense for my next purchase :)

@annieD: I do think she has a bit of duplication but it's not to say I wouldn't mind using some of the stuff. When I first saw the racks and cabinets, I thought it looked like a branch of Sur La Table, right in one's home.

Wow, I now feel virtuous and even a little noble, that I manage to get by with so relatively little!

I have about 30 pots and pans, I guess. Maybe a few more. About ten get used regularly, the rest are for special projects which apparently include once in a decade occasions.

The silliest purchase was a square, copper, tamago pan. Because I just had to make tamago (Japanese omelette, made by sushi chefs). Yeah, that obsession lasted a few weeks, if that.

About half of our pots and pans were bought during two reckless shopping sprees in Dehillerin, the Parisian cookware store. It was expensive. I have no idea why we felt flush enough at the time. But buying all that thick copper today in the US would be triple the price. Don't ask how many hours I've spent polishing it all.

My favorite pan is a cast iron skillet that cost $10 at a flea market. My next favorite is a large stainless lined aluminum pan, also $10.

I have sworn off buying any more cookware. Which is too bad, because I still don't have a Dutch oven and I could use one. But enough is enough.

Oh, wait, I did just buy the disco ball pot. Well, that was for dear daughter. That's my new excuse.

If I were to buy more cookware, just hypothetically, it would be All-Clad. I love that stuff. For awhile, people were giving me cookware that was much like All-Clad for father's day and so on. But it wasn't All-Clad. I'm still a little sad about that. But better than a necktie or a sweater.

I imagine she cooks for a lot of people...... so do I at times and can't imagine having so much stuff. I couldn't watch it all as she's rather verbose..... I just don't have room. I don't think it's necessary. But, if I had the space and the budget.... who knows!

Oh my. My thought was she has way to much. who washes all that? I have a lot and my husband has put some of it in the basement. You know you don't need all of that equipment. A few pans and dishes and the right utensils do just fine. Less is more. I have dishes I haven't used in years. Time to unload my kitchen.

Why would she store the large KA mixer above her head?? That's just dumb, trying to lift that puppy down.

Okay, I (AKA the Gadget Queen) surrender to Amy! I value clutter free rooms more than cookware and gadgets.

Sounds like Eric supports her in this overkill.

Gooster, you have made me feel wonderful! My daughter read and HIGHLY recommended the book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" by Marie Kondo. Now I can send her this link and say "See, it could be a bit more out of hand":)

Honestly, I have a mere scintilla of this room and just kind of watched some of this video with what was probably a quizzical expression. I saw the duplicate fondue pots, the taco shell fry basket, the popover pan and thought "my word." The Le Creuset, etc., was beautiful, and I like the box of parchment. I have to wonder how much money is in that room.

As an aside, I actually use those dividers (not as many) for my sheet pans, baking racks etc. as a pretty slick space saver. She has a nice foodsaver too:)

I found a local news article Local librarian’s desire to learn to cook lands her in barbecue competitions

Kind of fun to watch Eric cook too.

Cathy in SWPA

For me, it is more important to have what I need to use in the kitchen (not in a pan room) so that I can access it efficiently. I recently moved about three pans to a shelf in the garage (my overflow storage) because I seldom use them. I would get rid of them except that they were a gift from my mother, and while I used them for many years and now use different pans, I feel compelled to keep them for sentimental reasons.

Her pan room looks more like a restaurant supply store, and I would never want that in my house. We did buy a wine fridge this week, however, and that is now on my counter top below my hanging rack in an area that is not really usable for prep and that had tended to collect clutter of sorts. I do feel that I need a somewhat larger kitchen, but not much larger or else it would also be inefficient.

While I do store a few seasonal or seldom used items in the garage, I would not want to keep things I use on a regular basis (such as prep bowls) in a pan room. I also did not watch the entire video - a few minutes was more than enough. What I did watch made me want to declutter even more than I already have, and I've been doing a lot of that lately. However, I do still have four strainers in my hanging overhead rack, and one of them I very seldom use, but I cannot bring myself to store it in the garage. It is a very fine mesh, and sometimes I need that, but usually not. I was criticized at my last party for having too many strainers, but they really do not take up that much space, and I like them.

Here's how my rack looked February 2011:

@JohnLiu, I knew this would be of interest of several of us, who fear that we have too much. Your Dehillerin collection sounds amazing. I have only just begun adding copper pieces, and I think I'll seek out the shop on my next visit.

@isley -- it is just the two of them! But it does sound like cooking is now a major focus for both of them, since they compete as well. Apparently, there is another women on eGullet (andiesenji) who has a whole separate storage building for her collections of rare and vintage implements.

@jasdip -- I wouldn't want to lift that mixer up -- but she has like five others.

@mustang, @cathy -- I feel you. I am under orders that each new purchase must evict an old one. (How will I ever get that copper Pommes Anna pan?) I would not want a separate room, but perhaps a section of the pantry for electrics.

@Lars, it reminds me of a restaurant supply store or, SurLaTable (the same type of metal racks).

tip on the video.... scroll through to each rack

Well she certainly has more than enough. I had to fast forward through to see what she had because I found her rather annoying.

I could even finish her presentation of the STUFF in the closed cabinet. Yikes, way to much stuff and she seems overbearing to me.

Lars I do sometimes wish I had the space for a rack like yours.

It's interesting to me that all that "stuff" appears to be new and unused. Like a couple of others here, I couldn't watch the whole thing, sort of skipped through it, so maybe I missed something of importance. But I came to the conclusion that this is a hobby for her, that she doesn't necessarily accumulate the stuff to use it, she just enjoys having it. Sort of like some of us might collect cookbooks or Fiesta Ware, or Depression Glass. And there is nothing wrong with that!

Rusty

Oh, Rusty, I bet you're right! That it's about collecting. I am an accumulator but not a collector so I didn't recognize it in my overwhelmed claustrophobia. I was thinking about the famous dish room (http://betweennapsontheporch.net/dish-heaven/), which is easier for me to fathom, but where all the dishes are (presumably) used. Even though they're different shapes and good for different things, I don't really need two spring whisks, but I didn't buy either and since there's still room in the drawer I don't feel a need to pare down. Collecting is a different thing.

I do think it is about the collecting, not unlike the dish collector or a doll collector. (I love the dish room -- I would not mind a set of shelves in the pantry for storage of dish and serveware. I don't have a walk-in pantry),

I too fast forwarded through the video plus a few others (like where she reviews the various items like her saute pans). Brief it is not. She answered a few questions on CH -- the stuff is very clean because she is germaphobic.