Okay, I’ve given my advice on kitchen gadgets. Now it’s time to talk about cookware and baking gear. You can spend lots of money on these items when you may be able to get away with a more reasonably priced set.
Again, the first consideration is what you do in the kitchen. Do you use the microwave more than the regular oven? On average, how many pans do you use to make dinner? Do you bake anything more complex than buy and bake pizza?
Second consideration: What kind of cooktop do you have? Electric, gas, smooth top electric, or induction? We learned when we bought our induction range that most of the pots and pans we’d accumulated over the years wouldn’t work on it. We failed to factor in the cost of new cookware in the price of the range.
Third consideration: Are you comfortable with obsolescence? The average non-stick pan may last a couple of years before you have to replace it. On the other hand, your descendants can inherit your cast iron pan if you care for it properly.
Here are the bare-bones items for a starter kitchen:
Two frying pans, one cast iron and one non-stick;
One large pot suitable for boiling pasta or making soup;
One medium and one small saucepan;
One large and one small shallow baking pan (often called cookie sheets or half sheet pans);
A 1 1/2 quart ceramic casserole dish, preferably with a cover;
A 9″ x 5″ loaf pan, for bread or meat loaf;
One 9″ square and one 9″ x 13″ baking pan for cakes, cookies, or casseroles.
The type of pans you buy will depend on the above considerations and your views on cleaning cookware. Julian ordered a pricey set of cookware that’s compatible with our induction range. For most of our everyday cooking, I use our old induction-compatible pans or the items we bought at Ikea while we were waiting for the good stuff to arrive. The Ikea pans and glass/ceramic casseroles can go into the dishwasher. The pricey stuff and cast iron need to be hand washed, dried, and regularly re-seasoned. The ability to let the dishwasher do the work gets you back to watching silly online videos or reading blog posts faster.
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Our pricey cookware items are from Demeyere. These are manufactured from thick sandwiches of stainless steel and aluminum. This purchase was admittedly a splurge, but the items do have some advantages over cheaper alternatives. They are very durable. The alloy sandwich spreads heat evenly, without hotspots. The bottom cooking surfaces are perfectly flat, so liquids and fats distribute evenly and don’t pool in spots (assuming the range is leveled). For most cooking tasks, the cheap pans are fine. But there are times when the expensive stuff comes out. As for occasional re-seasoning, that’s worth doing for any pan that’s used at high temps, even the cheap stuff.