Dealer's Choice -- An Ode to My Pots and Pans

About 30 years ago, when I was (fairly) newly married, my husband and I bought a set of Farberware stainless steel pots. The original set we bought had 12 pieces -- 1-quart, 2-quart, and 3-quart sauce pans with lids, 4-quart and 8-quart pots with lids, and 2 skillets that could be fitted with lids from the other pans.

That is a picture of those very same Farberware pots and pans 30 years later. Okay, there are a couple of changes. We had to replace one of the skillet handles about 15 years ago when it became really loose for some reason. (Perhaps my sons had been banging it a little too vigorously?) And the smallest (1-quart) saucepan was replaced because of a kashruth error (non-kosher food heated up in it by someone who was not clued in to the ins and outs of keeping kosher). There was nothing wrong with the pan otherwise; we put it in a Goodwill collection box and it's probably still in use today.

We have also made a few additions over the years. First of all was the double-boiler insert:

And, over time, we also added bigger and bigger pots. In addition to a much larger skillet, we have 12-quart and 16-quart stock pots.

All three of these pans use the same size lid, so one was put away where I couldn't readily reach it.

There are two things about our Farberware that I wanted to talk about. First of all, I really, really like these pots and pans. My family has used them on a daily basis for over 30 years. Not every pan every day, naturally, but at least some part of the set is used each day we are at home. They have been used for cooking and head-wear (somewhere I have pictures), for banging on by children who wanted to make noise, and on occasion for storage.

Some have even been mis-used. I remember one particular batch of tomato sauce that got burned to a crisp in one of the big stock pots because I forgot to turn down the heat. The tomato sauce was a total loss, but the pan cleaned up as good as new. I know that my daughter eyes the Farberware and hopes she will be able to take it off our hands some day. (Way down the road, I hope.)

The second thing I wanted to share about the Farberware is my mother's reaction when she first saw it. She thought the pots looked really nice and asked how much we had paid for them. I told her that they cost about $100. This was in the late 1970s and was, I suppose, a considerable sum but my husband and I were both working full time and had no children so we could easily afford them. My mother quite literally threw a fit. I'll never forget what she said: "I've never paid more than $15 for a set of pans in my life!"

Well, that's probably true, given the pans my mother used to buy. On the other hand, she replaced her pots and pans every couple of years because they would get beat up, or burned, or in some other manner became unusable. Over the 50+ years of her marriage, I'll be generous and say that she spent $15 every 3 years for new pans. That's about 17 times 15, or $255.

With the extra pieces we have bought, and the replacements we have had to make over the past 30 years, it's possible that we have also spent in the neighborhood of $255 for our Farberware pots and pans. On the other hand, our pots and pans are still in great condition and are still being used, as I said before, on a daily basis.

The lesson we learned from our Farberware pots and pans was that you really do get what you pay for.

Next week: For summer -- Strawberry Soup.