my favorite pans

When I went on book tour in 2010 with my most recent book, “Sara Moulton’s Everday Family Dinners,” my sponsor was this elegant little cookware company called Chantal. They were relaunching a line called Chantal Copper Fusion, ” and wanted me to use it for my demos on the road. I knew I would not be embarrassed by these pans because they had a copper core and were not nonstick.

I am not a fan of nonstick. The trouble with nonstick is that if you heat it too high (which is easy to do if you want to sear that steak, or take that phone call), the pan can give off toxic fumes which have been known to kill baby birds. Did you ever lose a pet canary as a kid? I thought it was because a draft of cold air had hit it..

So, there I am doing demos in tiny little mom and pop cookware shops around the country (including Anchorage Alaska!  Nobody goes to Anchorage Alaska – I was like Madonna to them) cooking everything in these pans, and I fell in love. First of all, the pans have a copper core. Copper is hands down the best conductor of heat. The Chantal folks put the copper in the middle, sandwich it with black steel and then top the steel with a layer of enamel (aka, crushed glass, a nontoxic material) on the inside and outside. When the whole dagwood of materials is fused together over high heat the enamel becomes very smooth and essentially stick resistant.

Sauteed Beer Batter Shrimp (photo by Jessica Leibowitz)

I made big batches of crepes in these pans and did not lose one crepe. I also sauteed beer batter shrimp and other sticky items and they did not stick. And there were other good things I discovered about these pans – they go in the dish washing machine, you can use metal on them, they work well on top of the stove or in the oven, they have glass lids so you can see what you are cooking, they have a lifetime guarantee, they are attractive and, they were invented by a woman.

They have only two issues – 1. They’re heavy, so these are not pans for the over 80 or under 5 crowd. 2. Because of the copper core, they get very hot so you have to learn how to cook over medium heat. (Eggs will stick if the heat is too high.)

I had such a great time on my first book tour we partnered up for a second tour!!

You can find these pans online. If you decide to order them at chantal.com, they are offering a discount:

$50 off on one piece of Chantal Copper Fusion Cookware

To redeem this coupon go to: www.chantal.com/copperfusion/ and provide the coupon code MOULTON1 at checkout

(not valid on cookware sets or the Try Me 8’Fry Pan).

$100 off on one set of Chantal Copper Fusion Cookware

To redeem this coupon go to www.chantal.com/copperfusion/ and provide the coupon code MOULTON2 at checkout

(Valid only on 7 and 9 piece Copper Fusion sets)