The Caphalon cookware I have does not have plastic handles, they are solid
riveted stainless steel. The non-stick Teflon coated Caphalon pans I have
are a breeze to clean by hand. The older ones that are not non-stick are
not that hard to clean. A scotchbrite cleaning pad and a little elbow
grease will take care of any mistakes I made cooking. Of course, I can add
water and boil for a little while too to loosen everything up and then I
wipe it out.

I suspect you have confused the pans I have with the cheapie hard anodized
pans made in no name factories by slave labor in other parts of the world.
There is a real difference in a good heavy piece of cookware compared to the
thin cheap counterparts.

I have used my Hard Anodized pans on my natural gas grill and my natural gas
cook top in the kitchen, in addition to poor quality electric stoves in
apartments that would burn the same food in Revere ware pans. I really
couldn't tell any difference on the natural gas except I didn't heat up the
kitchen, smell it up, etc. I suspect it would work well on my Coleman stove
too if I had a reason to try that but, Lodge cast iron seems more
appropriate for those cooking adventures ;-)

If you have a bad electric stove, a good set of premium cookware will go a
long way to masking the poor and uneven heating of the cooktop heating
elements if you are in an apartment and can't fix the stove top.

Sid

"jmcquown" > wrote in message
. ..
> I guess it depends on from which college you graduated. I despise
> hard-anodized cookware. It's terrible to keep clean and has those awful
> plastic handles.
>
> Love my cast iron. I do have Revere stainless which I bought 20+ years
ago
> and works perfectly well for everyday cooking. Mom has Revere she's owned
> for over 50 years.
>
> The one thing I love about cast iron is, if your electricity goes out for
a
> number of days, you can cook just as easily on the grill or over a wood
> fire. I realize this is not a normal situation. But it happened to me
back
> in July when Memphis was hit with a freaky storm and even the office shut
> down for days. I was without electricity for 5 days. Cast iron saved the
> day! I was cooking breakfast on a cast iron griddle on the grill, first
> bacon, then eggs, then baking hot water cornbread with the bacon
drippings.
> I steamed rice and grilled veggies... Imagine if Y2K had actually been an
> event... would Calphalon have made the grade?
>
> Jill
>
> >
> > "June Oshiro" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >> I was browsing the Kitchens Etc. store today looking for egg cups,
> >> but I took a quick stroll around the pots and pans. My cookware of
> >> choice is All Clad (stainless steel, have 4 pieces to date, think
> >> they're fabu), but I notice a lot of manufs. have a stainless steel
> >> line.
> >>
> >> Tonight, I saw the Viking line of ss pans, very impressive looking,
> >> shiny and heavy. (I knew Viking made ranges and other kitchen
> >> appliances but never knew they made cookware, too.) I know Cuisinart
> >> has a line of heavy ss, too.
> >>
> >> Do you really think there's a major difference between top of the
> >> line items? I was just thinking that I have cast iron pans made from
> >> different manufacturers, and they're more or less identical in
> >> performance.
> >>
> >> -j.
>
>
>