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Archive | November, 2017

When food sticks to the inside of your stainless steel pan

Customer Paul writes:

I was wondering if there is a way to cure my frying pans. The food.I cook seems to stick too easy no matter if I use oil or butter in the pan.

We can think of a few things that might be happening.
If you have ever used steel wool, that can leave little bits of itself stuck to the stainless steel and promote food sticking and rust.   Cleaning as outlined below will likely help with this.
If you have hard water, an invisible layer of hard water deposits can definitely cause food to stick.  Give it a good soak in 50% vinegar and water and then scrub the inside thoroughly with a green Scotch Brite pad.
You can also try using Bar Keepers Friend to polish the inside and try to get food to stick less.
Other than that, we just recently wrote a blog post on seasoning stainless steel.  We haven’t had the chance to try it yet, but are really curious if anyone has success with this.
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Should you buy a new set of Revere Ware?

If you’ve read just about anything on our site, you likely know that the quality of today’s Revere Ware pales in comparison to that made in the pre-1968 era.  We’ve heard lots of stories of quality issues like the copper bottom falling off.  But let’s say you don’t care about the quality and just want a set of Revere Ware cookware because you like the look.  Is it cheaper to get a new set, or a used set from eBay.

Here is a new set on Amazon.com.

This set costs $95.55 with free Amazon Prime shipping an option if you are a Prime member.

Here is what we put together from eBay:

4.5 quart Dutch oven with lid: $33 shipped
9″ skillet with lid: $31 shipped
1.5 quart sauce pan with lid: $$20 shipped
1 quart sauce pan with lid: $20 shipped

That gives us a total of $104 shipped.  Withe the tax you’ll likely pay on Amazon.com, and the potential to find better deals on eBay (there are lot of Revere Ware pieces listed at any given time) we’ll call the costs roughly even.

If you wanted to replace all the handles and knobs, that would run you about another $50, although all the items we found on eBay had Bakelite handles and knobs that were in reasonable condition.

If you scoured your local thrift stores, you could likely find all the vintage Revere Ware items for much cheaper, but there is a time cost involved.

It seems to come down to preference – buy a set that will last a few years before it starts falling apart, or buy as set that will likely last many more decades and has a strong history to it.

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