When our daughter left for college last autumn we sent her off with lots of used furniture, bedding, sheets, towels and things for the apartment she was going to be sharing with three other girls. We also bought her a low cost quality cookware set to use. As much as she wanted better cookware there just wasn’t any reason to spend the money. The cookware we purchased will work just fine for her in her apartment with room mates.
I knew this because we have a vacation home on Deep Creek Lake where we also use low cost cookware. I found a set from Sabatier that was a 10-piece set. It’s called Sabatier Precision Stainless Steel Cookware. Now, it’s far from as heavy as the cookware I use at home on a daily basis so I do have to remember to keep a close eye on the foods that I’m cooking and use a lower heat to prevent burning, but it works just fine.
We looked around for the right cookware set for my daughter to take to college. We sent to KMart and to Target, and even stopped into Tuesday Morning, where we found a great buy on glassware and dishes. When we stopped into KMart we found their brand called Essential Home. It’s a hard anodized non stick cookware set. It has tempered glass lids for see-through cooking. The set has a 1 qt. and 2 qt. saucepan, 5 qt. Dutch oven, 8″ and 9.5″ frying pans. It’s very reasonably priced at $50.
Target has a low cost cookware set manufactured by Calphalon called Kitchen Essentials. These are heavier gauge aluminum than the Essential Home brand from KMart.
What we found was that cookware manufacturers like Calphalon, Sabatier and Hoffritz offer a variety of different quality cookware under their name. Hoffritz Platinum Cookware 10-piece stainless steel cookware runs about $90 and Sabatier Precision 20-piece stainless steel cookware runs about $100.
So we ended up buying the Essential Home cookware from KMart. It’s a cast aluminum cookware constructed of heavy gauge cast aluminum that is non-stick. We were able to get a 10 piece set for $50.00 Our daughter chose a black color and really liked the soft comfort grips on the pots and pans. They should work very well for her.
A lot of people who consider themselves somewhat “gourmet” cooks and well heeled homeowners like to spend a lot of money on cookware, and cookware can make a difference, but a good cook will be able to use any type of cookware to make a tasty meal.
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