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In-Depth Product Reviews: Silicone Spatulas, Turners, and Scrapers Comparison

BACKGROUND

In a busy kitchen, nothing beats universal utensils for ease of use; you don’t want to think about whether a spatula is going to scratch nonstick cookware or not. Thus I’ve gone almost 100% silicone.  Plastic and (most) wood utensils won’t scratch up your nonstick pans, either, but they generally don’t tolerate heat and/or moisture as well as silicone.  In particular, nylon plastic utensils can soften and melt when exposed to temperatures above 400 degrees Fahrenheit (the exact temperature depends on the plastic).

Furthermore, some manufacturers coat their entire utensils in silicone, instead of just the head of the utensil. A seamless silicone covering does a few things:

  • No seams = no place for food/grime to build up
  • Makes the handles impervious to heat as well. (Uncoated plastic handles can melt if you rest them onto the rim of hot pans.)

DEFINITIONS

Let’s get definitions out of the way.

  • Turners are for cooking.  The head of a turner will be angled, to allow you to reach the bottom of a saute or fry pan more easily to flip food.
  • Spatulas are mainly for baking and food prep.  They are relatively straight from end to end and allow you to scrape the sides of bowls/jars/cans/etc. effectively.
  • Scrapers are small spatulas you can use to scrape food from the insides of narrow jars.

WHAT MAKES FOR A GOOD SILICONE SPATULA/TURNER/SCRAPER?

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In-Depth Product Review: Bottega Del Rame (Mazzetti copper cookware) – 30 cm diameter tin-lined 3 mm copper skillet (frying pan)

Bottega del Rame - Mazzetti Copper 30 cm 12 inch frying pan
Bottega del Rame – Mazzetti Copper 30 cm 12 inch frying pan

Note: If you have an induction stove, see De Buyer Prima Matera as well.

THE COMPANY

Bottega del Rame (Italian for “Copper Shop”) is the workshop of Mr. Cesare Mazzetti, located in the town of Montepulciano in central Italy (between Florence and Rome in the Tuscany region).1

Cesare’s grandfather, Bernardo Mazzetti (1863-1909, born in Montepulciano), was a farmer who was injured from falling out of an oak tree.  He returned to his birthplace of Montepulciano to pursue his interest in metalworking, buying rough copper from a foundry in Gran Sasso and forming them into copperware for his wife to sell at marketplaces in the nearby towns of Chianciano, Pienza, Petroio, and Torrita.

Bernardo was a competent coppersmith in his own right, but he decided to send his son Giuseppe (1903-1982, born in Montepulciano) to apprentice with the master coppersmith Ghiotto of Porta Farina.  When Master Ghiotto died, Giuseppe bought all of Ghiotto’s tools, stamps, anvils, forges, and lathes which dated back to 1850-1857, some of which are still in use today.

Guiseppe had two sons, both plumbers, but eventually Cesare (1936- ) returned to help his father’s increasingly famous Montepulciano copper workshop.  Since 1982, Cesare has made copper cookware, plates, and other housewares at the workshop.  Like his grandfather and father, Cesare makes copperware by hand (using tools like hammers) rather than by hydraulic presses.  Says Mazzetti: “To be a coppersmith has been and is for me a dream come true…. I derive great satisfaction doing what I love. I work with passion and integrity and my life is peaceful and full of love.”

Cesare’s son is an engineer, so it appears that Mazzetti’s copper shop will close when Cesare retires (he is 80 as of 2016).  In the meantime, Cesare continues to make heirloom-quality copperware for sale.  Mazzetti even made a plate for Pope Benedict XVI.  And you can get a Mazzetti copperware piece of your own, too.

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In-Depth Product Review: KitchenAid KCH112KLKD Hard Anodized Nonstick 12″ Skillet with Glass Lid Cookware – Black Diamond

KitchenAid KCH112KLKD Hard Anodized Nonstick 12 Inch Skillet with Glass Lid
KitchenAid KCH112KLKD Hard Anodized Nonstick 12 Inch Skillet with Glass Lid

THE COMPANY

In 1897, Clarence Charles Hobart started the Hobart Electric Manufacturing Company (Troy, Ohio). The company sold motorized coffee mills, meat grinders, and (starting in 1908) stand mixers for commercial bakeries.

In 1919, after World War I, Hobart formed the KitchenAid division, which produced smaller-scale stand mixers for residential customers. Hobart continued to sell non-residential products under the Hobart brand. The overall company remained profitable and independent for decades, occasionally adding new product lines to the KitchenAid brand, such as dishwashers.

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In-Depth Product Review: Iwatani ZA-3HP Portable Butane Stove Burner

Iwatani ZA-3HP 12000 Btu Portable Butane Burner
Iwatani ZA-3HP 12000 Btu Portable Butane Burner

BACKGROUND

Iwatani Corporation of America is a subsidiary of the Iwatani Group of Japan, a conglomerate of over 250 companies employing 11,000 people worldwide.1  Iwatani is the market leader in Japan for liquefied petroleum gas, hydrogen, and helium, so they know their gases well.

Iwatani sells various consumer, commercial, and industrial products.  On the industrial side, Iwatani makes gas valves, hoses and pipes, heat-resistant paints, piezoelectric igniters, oxygen sensors, etc.  Some of Iwatani’s well known consumer/commercial products include the Iwatani butane cooking torch CB-TC-PRO (which uses the same 8-ounce (227g) butane canister/cassette size as the stove) and the Iwatani ZA-3HP Portable Butane Stove Burner, which is the subject of this review. (NOTE: as of 2020, it’s been cosmetically redesigned and renamed the Iwatani VA-30 butane stove; still performs the same and is still made in Japan.)

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How to organize pots and pans (and dishes, cutting boards, and lids) with racks and shelving

 

Chrome-plated steel wire shelving
Chrome-plated steel wire shelving

We buy lots of cookware, to the point where we had to figure out new ways to store it.  This How To article will show you the things we considered and tried.  Ultimately we went with wire shelves with pan organizers sitting on those shelves, in addition to giving away excess pans to family and friends (including readers of this site–for more information, subscribe to our monthly updates via social media or email).  But there are other methods that work, too, if you have fewer pieces of cookware to store.

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