Not long ago, I pawed through a large carton at an estate sale and found about two dozen French enamelled cast-iron pots and pans, most of them in blue or yellow, some in orange, almost all of them Le Creuset. They had belonged to the late Canadian actor John Colicos; clearly he was not just a fine actor, but a dedicated cook – his cookbooks, piled in boxes nearby, were the classics. I left the books as I had most of them already, but bought all the pots and pans for $40, gave the orange ones to my daughters (I have a thing about orange) and took the rest to the cottage where they are used every day.
Given that most of the time I'm engulfed in guilt over my expensive collecting habits, it's comforting to contemplate one area, at least, where I'm the soul of thrift and practicality. I'm speaking of kitchenware, that humble backwater unknown to those who are interested only in front-of-house glamour. And because I like to cook, almost all kitchenware appeals to me. Almost all. Not things like salt shakers with orange tomato shapes. Not Pyrex or Corningware. Not Bakelite or Melmac.
What is wonderful is the vast array of pots, pans, steamers, kettles, roasting pans, cookie sheets, wire cooling racks, pie pans … all you need to cook just about anything. And much of this you can find second-hand, in flea markets, junk sales, auctions and antique shops. I like to think of the men and women who have cooked for hungry families and friends with these pieces.
One of my great treasures is my great-grandmother's plum pudding steamer, a massive three-piece thing about two feet in diameter, with a grand domed lid, that will steam up to five puddings at once. I love my mother's chipped enamel berry pans, her cast-iron frying pans kept just for picnics, her angel-cake tube pans. Battered and stained, they still remind me of very happy times, and I use them frequently. I keep a collection of ancient muffin pans both at my city house and at the cottage – ones for cornmeal muffins in corn stick pans, some for tiny muffins only an inch or so across. I even have pans for 'patty-pans,' the little cornstarch muffins my grandmother made at Christmas. I love the shapes, so at the cottage where they look best, my husband attached pegboard to the walls of my galley kitchen and everything, including the Colicos pots, hang in a well-ordered still life.
When I was at cooking school in Paris in the 1970s, I bought about a dozen commercial-weight copper pots; over the years I have often visited the same old kitchenware stores and bought more. This kitchenware is mostly hammered copper with tin linings and cast-iron handles that balance the weight of the pan. It never changes in its manufacture so it's quite possible to find antique pieces everywhere in Canada. What you'll need to do, most of the time, is have it relined with tin. Don't let that put you off: I've had my copper pots for 25 years. They've only had to be relined once, and I use them every day. It is almost impossible to scorch anything in them because the bottoms don't have the 'hot spots' you find on cast iron, aluminum and stainless steel, and the tin linings don't affect the colour of delicate ingredients, such as eggs and cream.
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