Most grocery store brands are as good as “brand name” items.
Big exception: Dollar Tree and other $1.00 stores. Avoid any brands of food or medicine, even if they’re name brand, especially their toothpaste.
I’m not much of a gourmand when it comes to olive oil, but I was impressed with the selection at Litteri’s. They have a pretty good selection of items and they have good prices. The only drawback is that the neighborhood that it is in is not a pretty place by any standard, and that they have pretty short hours.
I read a most excellent book by journalist Mort Rosenblum, entitled Olives. This book is all about the history, geography, politics and culinary aspects of the ancient crop of olives. In particular, he goes on at length about olive oil. Each chapter of the book is about a different country or region of the Mediterranean, and he samples and discourses about the quality of that region’s olive oil. It’s a fascinating book, and I recommend it.
Rosenblum points out something very interesting. He says that Tuscany consumes more olive oil than it produces. What makes up the discrepancy? They buy a lot of oil from Greece, and mark it “Bottled in Tuscany”, mark it up and sell it off. Not that there’s anything wrong with this; it was his opinion that the finest olive oil in the entire Mediterranean is produced in Greece. It’s just that Greece isn’t as good as marketing the oil based on the romantic concept of where it was produced.
Keeping this in mind, I go to middle eastern markets and look for olive oil produced and marketed from Greece and buy it by the giant can. It’s spectacularly good - sort of in between the peppery green oil from green olives and the buttery yellow oil from ripe olives. It’s fruity and fragrant and you can get it at a bargain price.
I got the Kirkland Signature stainless steel set for ~$200 with the copper bottoms and I love love love it! Comprable sets at Macy’s or Bed bath and beyond were $400+. Aluminum pans are fine for a while, but once they start to age you really don’t want to be ingesting the stuff that comes off them. eew.
…sigh. I’ll admit that it’s possible, even likely that what I just bought may be the product of this ploy. But I do know that my first encounter with and import of Tuscan oil was the real thing, since I was there on my friend’s farm (with a bunch of his other pals) raking down the olives myself for him to press cold.
I just got that set! I went in for norinew’s set, reconciled to the fact, as I said, that it wouldn’t be my “forever” set. It was only $149 instore, but there, right next to it, was shiny pretty stainless with the 5 layer copper and aluminum disk bottoms, rolled edges (to prevent slop when pouring), riveted handles, tight fitting gorgeous lids and only $50 more. Of course, the sautee pan is much smaller than **norinew’**s. But as we rounded the corner, we found a not-exactly-but-very-close-to-matching 5 qt sautee pan made by another manufacturer with a triple layer bottom disk. So we got the shiny pretty set and the almost-matching sautee pan for $229. It was so worth it. I think they’re just beautiful, in addition to being heavy and sturdy and I think they’re well made enough to be my “forever” set, since there’s no non-stick to wear off, and I can actually scrub them with abrasives if they get gunky. In fact, I panicked at first, because the first thing I used a pan for was some chicken sausages with nonstick cooking spray, and the pan got all yellow and sticky. But a quick go-over with Bar Keeper’s Friend powder and it’s all shiny and new looking again!
They don’t seem to be on the US Costco website, but here they are on Canada’s. The picture does little justice to how physically beautiful the set is, I have to say.
(Is it a measure of the patheticness of my life that I every time I wander into the kitchen, I open my pots-n-pans cabinet and smile? Surely such things shouldn’t make me so happy!)
If you’re pathetic, I don’t even want to think about what I am. I had previously been cooking with the aluminum pans that my mother got for her wedding 25 years ago, so I’m still smiling about my “new” set 6 months later.
We have a nonstick saute pan for scrambled eggs and other cheese-based dishes, but for everything else I love how evenly they heat and how hard it is to burn my food now (although I still try occasionally :smack: ).
When we remodel our kitchen we’re even going to hang them up over the counter because they are just too pretty to put in a cupboard.
WhyNot, if my non-stick set doesn’t last as long as I think it should, I’d definitely consider the set that you got, next. In fact, if I end up returning my non-stick, I could just fork over a few extra bucks and get that set. I did see it, and consider it when I was shopping.
Oh, yeah, that’s pathetic, all right! 
But you wanna hear really pathetic? The day after I got my new set, I woke up at 4AM with a kidney stone; quick trip to the ER, CTScan to confirm, IV drugs, and Percocet to take home with me. Well, once the pain and nausea were under control, my first concern was to be disappointed that I was too sick and stoned to cook anything in my new cookware!!
And speaking of the saute pan, I cooked a chicken parmagiana in it for the family. I pan-fried the breaded chicken in the pan, then just added the marinara sauce and cheese, and popped the whole darned pan in the oven to bake! It came out great, and with only one dirty pan! Ahhhh, bliss! (I soothe myself by reassuring myself that this is the kind of stuff everyone gets excited over once they’re certified “grown ups”).