Since I started developing my online store for cookware and bakeware, I decided it might be time to start replacing the old cookware. Sort of a walk the talk thing.

Since I have aluminum, copper, copper bottom and stainless steel cookware (along with cast iron and some specialty items), there should be some comparison among them before I restocked the kitchen.

Copper bottom was quickly remove from the selection by my wife. They did not fit the décor scheme. Copper cookware we use for some special uses such as sauces, candies and other applications where heat control is really important but we chose not to consider this for every day.

So we decided to compare stainless steel cookware to aluminum.

The first step in the comparison adventure was to see what the stores had to say. As expected this was mostly a waste of time. Many of the sales associates in the stores were of little help. First, most are not trained in the uses of the cookware and have little knowledge of the different properties. Second, they were more interested in selling the items where they got the best commissions

So the next step was to do some research at home to try and narrow down the options. There are a multitude of sites and resources to help on this quest. In fact, there are too many. Getting the good sources of information without getting overwhelmed can be a problem. Here are some choices:

Some of the things to consider in the evaluation include: what do you want to do, how easy is it to clean and care for, what does it look good, and life of the product.

This evaluation took a lot more effort that I thought it would when I started. So I have a better appreciation of what people have to go through before they select my products. It also became evident that there is no one right answer. Each cook has different preferences and should select the products that like.

Our choice is to add clad stainless steel cookware in our kitchen - some from Gourmet Standard and some from Paderno (a couple of our suppliers of course).