(And appliances too, I suppose.) I mentioned in another thread that I have two rules for my non-stick pans: Don’t overheat them, and don’t use metal utensils. I’ve cooked at other people’s places and a couple of things that come to mind are a non-stick frying pan that was horribly warped, and one whose surface was pretty much scratched off. I don’t want that happening to my pans! (I prefer heavy pans for most things, so warping is less of an issue.)
If someone is abusing my cheap Teflon pans, I don’t care much. They’re cheap, and I expect them to fail eventually even under what I consider normal use. Fortunately my roomie knows not to use metal on non-stick, and she even bought nylon tongs. (I use metal tongs and a cast-iron skillet, myself.) Strangely, she’s intimidated by my cast-iron pans. I think it’s because she thinks she doesn’t know how to clean them. FWIW, I heat them up, drain the grease, scrub the stuck bits off (if any) with a nylon brush under very hot running water, and put them back on the burner to dry. Wipe with Crisco while hot, when necessary.
So I’m protective of my better non-stick pans, and try to take care of my cast-iron and stainless steel pans.
I have so much cookware I can’t put it all away in the kitchen. Only the best stuff gets the VIP treatment, my 17" cast iron skillet, KitchenAid mixer, sushi knives, chopping knife, slicing knife, stainless steel mandolin, that’s about it. Everything else is readily replaceable, or unremarkable.
I use cast iron and restaurant-grade pots, so they are reasonably bullet-proof. The non-stick is cheap stuff that is easily replaced. Give a minimal cleaning every time and the heavy stuff lasts forever. The cheap stuff gets replaced regularly. No hu-hu.
I can be a little obsessive-compulsive about dishwashing. Roomie washed a non-stick pan she used, and I see that it has a little cooked-on stuff on the rivets. It will get washed again before I use it, even though the cooking surface is fine.
Roomie really likes my knives. I don’t think she’s ever had decent ones before. I think she’s still figuring out which one to use for a given application though.
Like Implicit said, my pots and pans are Stainless Steel. I’m not sure you could hurt them if you tried. I do have one small skillet that looks a bit seasoned, but it’s not hurting anything and other then that one, after years of use they still look pretty good.
I’m a bit protective of my cast iron, but if that gets messed up I can always fix it. But my knife? I have one, just one, good knife. Anybody who abuses it risks being stabbed with it.
Good question; no one really uses my stuff except me and sometimes my mom, and she doesn’t seem to do anything abusive to my pans or knives. If I came into the kitchen and she was prying open a jar with the end of my good knife, I’d not be impressed, but I don’t think she’d ever do that. We don’t really ever have company that would be using my cookware, but if we did, I would be somewhat protective of it - I look after it so it lasts a long time, and I don’t want some schmoe wrecking it.
My pans (other than my cheapo nonsticks) are all All-Clad or Le Crueset or other indestructible things. There’s really nothing anyone can do to them to hurt them, so I don’t worry about it. The cast iron is indestructible, but it’s a pain when some well-meaning person decides to wash it in soapy water, so I usually don’t pull that out if I have such people around.
My stainless pans are pretty indestructible (30 years old now), my knives are sharpenable (also 30 years old from back when I worked in restaurants), and my non-stick coated saute pans are cheap and replaceable when they coating wears off - my last batch was from Ikea for something like $12 for 3 sizes. And my cast-iron pans are well-seasoned enough that dish soap doesn’t hurt them a bit. I’m probably harder on my pans than anyone else would ever be.
I have general crap that I don’t give a care about, as long as it gets cleaned properly after using.
I have stuff i don’t even let mrAru touch, and we had our 20th anniversary this past Feb.
I had the mother of a friend of my first husband visiting Norfolk to see her sons [both of them were in the Navy stationed in Norfolk, so we let the 3 of them all come over to our house for the week between Christmas and New Years] and not only did she open the box and use my brand new christmas present robo-coupe, she set an antique ironstone platter [turkeyzilla size. I have never seen any platter this large ever] that was well over 100 years old on the stove and ‘accidentally’ turn the burner on under it, cracking it irreparably. I also had a roommate prior to that who scrubbed a very well seasoned over 50 year old wok shiny and run it through the dishwasher. I have never been able to get the seasoning right in the 28 years since and it gets used about 3 times a month. I also had a different roommate snap about a quarter inch off the tip of a $400 Sabatier Aine & Perrier #23 chefs knife [9 inches roughly] stabbing it into a can to open it. We won’t go into how many cheap nonstick skillets I have had roomies essentially gouge, sand or otherwise ruin the coating on.
Oh, and one dropped a 3 qt le creuset saucier onto the glass top of a stove, shattering it totally and then refusing to take responsibility for breaking it. Nobody else in the house at the time, and I didn’t drop it …:rolleyes::dubious:
Don’t be so sure that cast iron is indestructible. A friend of mine was once washing dishes, when a glass casserole dish and a cast iron skillet both fell off the dish drainer. As a tribute to his quick thinking and reflexes, he was able to grab the glass dish and save it before it hit the floor… And the skillet (an heirloom, of course) broke its handle clean off.
For myself, I have one nonstick skillet that gets used only for omelets, and I’m very careful with it. And when I make something that I know will be rough on the pan, I make it a point to use an old one for that. But other than that, I don’t worry too much about it: Most of my spatulae are nonmetal anyway, but I don’t think it’s a big deal to dish up something with a fork, for instance.
I care so little about my dishes/cookware that after going several months without washing an overflowing sink full of them I just threw them away and got new dishes.
I’m intimidated by cast iron pans because when I was in grade school a friend of a friend’s mother beat him to death with one. I can’t have them in the house because they always remind me of that.
LOL - I’m actually reminded of a news story from…Jesus, I was like 10 or something so, 30 years ago? Anyway, apparently some woman brained her husband to death because he washed her “perfectly seasoned” skillet with soap. I swear it is true, but have no way to back it up. (It was a big conversation topic between my parents/aunts/uncles who lived in southern Indiana at the time, so perhaps it happened there or Cincinnati.)
Also: Thank you Spell-check: I can never spell Cincinnati right.
I have a beautiful Calphalon collection that hangs on its own wall in the kitchen. The glass lids are in their own drawer. My one rule is: Metal utensils must never touch Calphalon surfaces. Also, it helps that I don’t own a dishwasher.
aruvqan: Wow! :eek: One or two instances of carelessness/cluelessness/abuse is understandable. But it sounds like you’ve had an especially bad run of luck!
My first Swiss Army Knife (which I still have, of course) was a Champion I got in 1982. Dad had a coworker who lived in a camper next to our house. He asked to borrow my Champion one day. He tried to loosen a very small screw – not with the Phillips screwdriver, which was too big, but with the small cutting blade. He notched the blade. I sharpened it as well as I could, but it’s still there and pisses me off to this day.
The next door neighbour was working on his car. He asked to borrow my Bali-Song butterfly knife. He shorted the battery with it, and melted a ‘notch’ in the tip.
The co-worker was a reasonably intelligent guy. The neighbour… Well, he was always wearing frayed cut-off jeans shorts and nothing else, had grease all over him, and always had a can of Budweiser and a cigarette. And he also worked at Rockwell on the Space Shuttle. He knew cars, and one would really think he’d know what happens when you touch a thin piece of metal to a car’s battery. :rolleyes:
