Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Amy, names?????

WOW....we are now officially an "official bulletin board", born from CI and the good old days. Crystal and Sunny in one thread....really good!
Thanks Amy for using your boredom wisely
ilene

What fun seeing all my old friends. Amy, so glad you bugged me about this board!

Okay now what's for dinner??? Have top loin roast and filets aging in the outside refrig, (Jerry only likes filet) but want to do someting different with them, tried strog etc...

Sunny

Yeah they are easy!

Welcome Crystal!

And Sunny....queen of ice cream!
ilene

Yippee. C is back. Can't believe H is 5'9'. Where does the time go? The girls are 5&7, losing teeth, loving school. Darin quit his day job & is in nursing school full time. He loves it. Erica is teaching mostly 10 grade girls math. She & the girls are all at the Bryn Athyn school where Erica grew up.

I don't seem to be cooking as much or entertaining. Need to get back in the groove.

Missed you on the board & glad you are back!

Hi,

Now, can I talk dirty? Crystal loves it when I talk dirty!!!!!

Tim

Ok, Tim, I'll give you the opportunity to talk dirty.

I need another really good saucepan for making more delicate sauces; even heat is the king here, but responsiveness would be nice too. Heat capacity is not needed. I have one good saucepan currently -- an AC SS -- that noticeably outperforms the others. I'm contemplating SS-lined copper this time. I think a dubuyer (2.00mm) is quite a bit cheaper than mauviel (2.5mm). Thoughts? Am I overspending utterly needlessly, or will these give the the 'ultimate' that I need.

Sunny,

Welcome back! Hope to see more of you here.

This is really easy for me to say, but:

I've been cooking quite a bit with my 2.5mm Mauviel saucepans recently and have become very aware of the superior heat distribution of the thick copper. 1 1/2 cups of sugar for salted caramel was significantly easier than the same dish a few weeks ago in Crystal Fouch Ware, sarcasm intended. It's easy for me to say because I paid $39 for the 2 quart Mauviel nickel lined 2.5mm copper chefs pan at Zabars in the late 1970's. The 3 1/2 quart 2.5mm chefs (tin) was $50 on sale at Wellborn-Senora's about 20 years ago.

Then there is my magic $20 1 1/2 quart de Buyer 2.5mm aluminum (stainless lined, copper sheathed) with an additional 2.5mm aluminum disc on the bottom - TJ Maxx closeout.



At today's prices, there is no way to justify the expense of the copper or even Deymeyere. The answer may be the second hand market or copper, if that exists. You might also want to try some higher quality cladded pans like Mauviel's MCook. If you get to NYC, a search of Zabar's might just find you an old saucepan bargain. The other option is the higher quality All-Clad, I mean All-Clad Limited, the thickest, most even-heating All-Clad. (Crystal is now gagging!)

I do know there is lots of 2mm copper ware that is showing up at TJ Maxx and Tuesday Morning. I used to hear that it was not worth buying but I suspect that it may perform decently. Maybe, somebody has experience here.

If even heating is the primary goal, a solid aluminum diffuser should improve the performance of your inexpensive Jiffy Pop pan. Just think, even heating and instantaneous responsiveness on your Hotpoint.

I probably have not helped you at all, at least I've given Crystal some ammunition.

Tim

ps: There is one caveat about Zabars which can cause problems. The best advice is to seek medical assistance after four hours...