When it comes to cookware, there is definitely a proper pan for every purpose. Finding the perfect pan is as easy as knowing what you like to eat and exploring where you want to take your cooking. Well made cookware tailored to your cooking style and needs is preferred over a one size fits all set.
Cookware
Staub
STAUB gathers people around good food in the kitchen and at the table. Each of our heirloom pieces comes with a story. Born in Alsace, a French region known for its craftsmanship and cuisine, our cast iron cookware brings a taste of authenticity to every meal. Just look for the STAUB seal on every product. Our name is our promise to you that you’re cooking with the best of France…wherever your kitchen may be.
Hestan
As a company, Hestan is built upon a shared love of food and innovation. From what you cook on to what you cook with – even the wine to complement the meal – Hestan delights in the details of cooking.
Hestan Culinary is born from Hestan’s longstanding culture of culinary innovation. Hestan founder Stanley Cheng pioneered hard-anodized aluminum cookware in the 1970s – the breakthrough that ushered in nonstick cookware.
Hestan worked with America’s greatest chefs to reinvent the kitchen – elevating form, function and execution with thoughtful innovation. That’s why you’ll find Hestan appliances in Chef Thomas Keller’s acclaimed restaurants, The French Laundry, Bouchon and Per Se. And now, that level of true chef-proven performance is available for your kitchen from Hestan Indoor.
Smithey Ironware Co.
Smithey Ironware is a backyard story. Our founder, Isaac Morton, hatched the idea for Smithey while tinkering around his woodshed admiring the smooth surfaces and timeless logos of vintage ironware. Here, he developed an expertise in restoring beautiful old cookware pieces, which he would then gift to friends and family.
After years of studying collector’s books and bird-dogging rusty old pieces to restore to their 1890’s glory, the prospect of creating something new piqued his curiosity. Creating and sharing a cast iron cookware line that honored the classic style of vintage pieces, but also harnessed modern technology and processes, just felt like a good idea. And from that idea – that a lost art might be restored into a modern icon – Smithey Ironware was born.
We labor over design, obsess over our manufacturing process, and always look around the corner for ways to improve your cooking experience. The result is cast iron cookware with a glassy-smooth surface that is not only naturally non-stick and simple to clean – it is artfully crafted.
Cookware Makers
CAST + SPUN IRON
Combekk – Holland
Finex – Oregon
Le Creuset – France
Lodge – Tennessee
Nest – Rhode Island
Netherton Foundry – England
Smithey Ironware Co. – South Carolina
Staub – France
We are experiencing a Golden Age of cast iron, with new manufacturers making some excellent, well-crafted pieces. Cast iron is an alloy of iron and carbon. It’s the carbon that gives cast iron its characteristic gritty feel, and it also makes cast iron more brittle, hence the need for the pans to be thick. It’s ideal for most cooking because it can go on the burner and into the oven, under the broiler and onto the grill. With proper seasoning, cast iron will develop a nearly non-stick cooking surface. Care is easy: a quick swish with a little bit of soapy water will take care of most food residue, after which the pan should be thoroughly dried. Cooking acidic foods such as tomato sauces can wear down the pan’s seasoning, but it’s easy to re-season a piece of cast iron with an oil that has a high smoke point, such as grapeseed or flax seed.
Enameled cast iron is cast iron’s glamorous sister: it has the same heat retaining properties and ability to sear and is coated in 3 to 5 layers of enamel inside and out. Because the pots are coated with vitreous enamel, you never need to worry about seasoning the pan. You can cook anything in an enameled Dutch oven. The downside? They take longer to heat up, and because they aren’t seasoned, they’ll never develop the non-stick properties of their plainer siblings.
Care is easy: if you glue food onto the surface of the pot, you can let it soak with soapy water to loosen things – something you cannot do with seasoned cast iron. But don’t heat shock it, the enamel might crack.
Netherton Spun Iron cookware is 99.1% iron, with traces of magnesium, carbon, phosphor, and sulfur. It is much lighter than cast iron, so it heats up quickly and is great for sautéing food.
Care: Netherton pans are pre-seasoned with flax seed oil, if you should need to re-season a pan, the procedure is the same as for cast iron. It is not recommended that soap or detergent be used with spun iron; just hot water.
STAINLESS CLAD
Cuisinart French – France
Demeyer – Belgium
Hestan – Italy
People love stainless steel cookware because it’s non-reactive and easy to care for. The stainless brands we carry at Goods are multiple-ply cookware; that is, the outer and inner layers are stainless steel, and sandwiched in between are layers of aluminum or copper. Why all the layers? On its own, stainless is not a good heat conductor, but when a better-conducting metal is bonded to stainless, you get the best of both worlds. Aluminum and copper are reactive; covering them with stainless eliminates that issue. An important consideration when buying multi-ply cookware is the weight of the pan – it should not be light, which makes it more likely to warp. The bottom of the pan should be flat, so that it heats evenly.
Care is extremely easy: soapy water and a scrub pad will take care of these pans. If you really stick something to your pan, you can soak it. You can even use powdered cleaner on tri-ply cookware.
COPPER
Baumalu – France
Hestan – Italy (special order)
CARBON STEEL
de Buyer – France
An alloy of iron and carbon, this cookware actually has a higher iron content than cast iron. It’s also lighter, with a slicker surface than cast iron. Once it has a good layer of seasoning, it’s wonderful for everything from paella to eggs, even pizza. Carbon steel heats up more quickly than cast iron and heat is distributed more evenly, with fewer hot spots. Because it’s so much lighter that cast iron, you can sauté in a carbon steel pan.
Care is similar to cast iron: a little bit of soapy water, then thoroughly drying will take care of things most of the time.