Weapon of Choice: Non-Stick Cookware

I got sick and tired of Teflon pans and their short little lives. Bring them home and they were great...for a week or two. Then the surface would start to deteriorate and in a few months more the pan was in the garbage.

Ten years ago I did a lot of research on non-stick cookware and the name that kept rising to the top of the heap was Scanpan. Scanpan cookware is made in Denmark. The pans are made from aluminum and then they are coated with ceramic titanium. Talk about slippery....throw a little olive oil in the pan and that chicken breast will slide along the surface like a charging rhinoceros on a wet clay bank.

What I like is that these pans really last. I have about 7 of them and the oldest is 10 years old and still going strong. Judy and Sean swear by them for cooking eggs and omelettes. I even bought a Scanpan Dutch oven and use it to cook all my stir-fry meals in. Works a heckuva lot better than any wok I have ever tried. And Scanpan cookware is oven-safe up to 500 degrees!

Scanpan cookware is on the expensive side, but well worth it (every pan comes with a lifetime warranty). To preserve the cooking surface, always hand wash these pans and never use aerosol cooking sprays. The chemicals in those aerosol sprays are mortal enemies with all non-stick cooking surfaces. [Note: If those chemicals deteriorate ceramic titanium, do you really want them on your food?] Stick with liquid oils and butter. Scanpan cookware is available at most stores that carry fine cookware. I've found that Chefs has one of the largest selections online:   http://www.chefscatalog.com/catalog/search.aspx?scommand=search&search=scanpan