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Archive | June, 2010

Shipping to Canada

We recently added Canada as a shipping destination to our shopping cart after having received quite a few requests to ship to Canada.

Canadian customers, please be aware that the first handful of orders may have issues as we work through any kinks that might exist the ordering and shipping process.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any difficulties placing an order or problems with receiving the order, and, as always, we will do our best to make everything right.

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We're here to help, just ask

Can’t find what you are looking for on our site, or can’t find the replacement part you need?

We are always willing to help answer your Revere Ware related questions, just ask us.

You can submit questions on our contact form.

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Revere Ware in the movies

I mostly try to post useful stuff related to Revere Ware, but sometimes I am struck with a bit of nostalgia, like yesterday, watching an old move called Underwater! from 1955 with Jane Russel.  This scene on a boat shows Revere Ware prominently hanging in the background.

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World Kitchen building sold

On a slow news day, I guess this story makes sense.  World Kitchen, the owners of the Revere Ware brand (among others, including Pyrex, CorningWare, and EKCO) just signed a new 10 year lease on their building in Chicago.  The building was recently sold to a group of REIT investors.

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Metal in the microwave

My recent purchase of a Revere Ware micro fryer got me thinking about the taboo of putting metal in the microwave.  If you believe the micro-fryer literature, microwaving food in metal cookware is superior to either microwaving in non-metal or cooking in metal on the stove.

So I did a little research.  Most microwave ovens include a warning about using metal in the microwave.  But I did find one interesting article entitled You Can Use Metal in a Microwave Oven, which appears to be a very thorough and well-researched investigation into microwaves and metal cookware.

What exactly are the benefits of cooking in a microwave oven?

  • Faster cooking that uses less power.  (Hey, its GREEN!)
  • What you are cooking won’t brown on top until it is fully cooked.  Ever tried cooking a frozen dish that turns out burned on top but frozen in the middle?
  • Using metal in the microwave, food can be more evenly heated, avoiding those molten-outside frozen inside results.
  • Metal won’t break, melt, or burn, and won’t leach nasty BPA (like some plastics) into your food.
  • You can use the same cookware to cook a dish both on the stove AND the microwave, for perfect results.

The most important thing about cooking in the microwave with metal cookware is to use microwave safe metal dishes.  What makes cookware unsafe for the microwave are:

  1. Microwaves can cause an electric arc to appear between two improperly placed pieces of metal. The user’s ability, to cause an arc, or prevent an arc, depends on the size and shape, of the metal pieces, their relationship to each other, and the lossiness of the load in the oven cavity.
  2. A metal utensil will arc to the oven walls, depending on its size, shape, distance from the oven walls, and the amount of food or other lossy material in the oven cavity.
  3. Metal reflects microwaves. A metal pot with a metal cover shields the food, that it contains, from microwave energy. Food, in a metal pot with a metal cover, will not get hot. The dimensions of the metal container in relationship to the size of the food is also important.
  4. The black, phenolic handles on metal pots and pans are not “Microwave Safe.” Phenolic is a plastic material, that has been used since the early part of this century as handles for metal pots and pans. Phenolic handles explode when exposed to microwaves.

Ok, so no utensils, no pots with long handles, and no phenolic handles.  I had a little trouble determining exactly what a phenolic handle is and whether Bakelite fits into this category.  My micro-fryer does have what appears to be a Bakelite handle, but it may be a different formulation that is particularly microwave safe.  Let’s just say no Bakelite handles in the microwave unless the instructions specifically say it is microwave safe.

The bottom suggestion by the article is to stick with cookware that is specifically designed for microwave cooking.  Given that not much metal cookware for the microwave is sold these days (if any at all), this might be difficult.  The value of my micro fryer just went up.

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New vintage Revere Ware pressure cooker booklet

With manuals in hand, I thought I knew all there was about the vintage 4 quart Revere Ware pressure cookers, but I just came across a pamphlet that was distributed with the pressure cookers entitles Know Your Revere Pressure Cooker, and it has some interesting information and clearly shows how the Revere pressure cooker was superior to others when it was introduced.

Among the tips gleaned from this pamphlet:

  • The sealed pressure gauge is completely waterproof so you don’t have to worry about fully immersing the lid in water.
  • The grooves in the underside of the vent hole are there to keep the hole from clogging up easily should food get pressed against it.
  • Instructions for removing the gauge.
  • A better description of the over-pressure plug.
  • Instructions for dealing with a too-tight fitting gasket.
  • The cover twists to remove to the right or left, benefiting both right and left-handed cooks.
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