I Broke My Big Skillet

Kitchen Consternation's...


For the past few months I've been limping along in my kitchen with the handle on my big deep wall 12" stainless steel skillet slowly cracking away from itself.

I made a couple of temporary repairs using a high temperature epoxy called "Liquid Metal" that seemed to hold for a while, but a couple of weeks ago the handle finally broke off...fortunately in a condition where it didn't splash hot grease or a giant portion of scalding food all over me and the kitchen.

I love that skillet.

I really learned to cook using that big skillet.

It's nothing fancy, just the sort of slightly better than average home kitchen skillet like you could buy at Macy's or Rich's back in the 1990's, but still...

I just refuse to let it go to the scrap heap, but at the same time it's a pain in the butt to pick it up by the little handle on the opposite side from where the main handle was using a pot holder in one hand so today I'm forced to make a decision on a critical piece of Kitchen equipment and the choices are daunting.

It's easy to spend over $100 on a stainless steel skillet of this size, but I'm not sure that tossing out much over half that amount yields anything other than "snob factor" satisfaction for people that watch cooking shows on Food Network but never ever manage to actually lay the TV remote control down and get into the kitchen to cook.

If my old skillet were a car or a car tire, it would have over 100,000 miles on it right now.

Actually, I'd like to replace my old skillet with not one but TWO new skillets, a 12" x 3-1/2" deep straight wall skillet and a 14" sauce/saute pan that can double as a Wok when I get the urge to stir fry something...anything...shrimp...scallops...or just vegetables to keep my ever expanding girth under control.

I don't even care if the new stuff comes close to "matching" the things already laying around in the cabinets here, the idea of a "matched set" of cookware being a concept rendered obsolete years ago when I realized that you naturally wear out certain size vessels in cooking routinely while others sit gathering dust on the sidelines.

Knives are another source of interest here on the kitchen front.

Years ago I gave away an entire set of German Hienkel's to an angry ex-wife in another life. I found the brand to be functional and lovely to look at, but way overpriced.

Again...the snob factor entered into that equation also. I think that good sharp knives don't have to cost a week's pay and they, like your pots and pans, don't have to match to do a good job in the kitchen.

I grew up watching my grandfather on his farm sharpen everything from plow shares to axes, with the kitchen cutlery and his pocket knife thrown in for good measure.

The man could put a sharpened edge on a dried piece of cow dung that would cut your head off if you weren't paying attention.

I figure the same goes for knives today.

I want to buy some new ones, but I don't want to drop the cost of a decent used car into the process.

I've got a couple of sizes of fairly inexpensive chef's knives and some annoying crappy paring knives laying around here that I use a steel on occasionally, and once in a while I drag them down to the basement and get after them with my Dremel grinding tool.

I think I'm going to look into a moderately priced Japanese Sushi blade and a good pairing knife and another 8" Chef's knife, and then spend the rest of my money on a good set of sharpening/whet stones and be done with the process.

I'll leave the "Ginsu" Knives and the other stuff from Ron Popiel to the amateurs and late night TV watchers.

Regards Y'all...