Favorite Cooking Pot

I like to cook; my husband likes to cook. Luckily we work well as a team in the kitchen, having lots of fun and rarely squabbling. Like many enthusiastic home cooks, we have an arsenal of pots and pans. I made a count and came up with quite a ridiculous abundance of pots: five frying pans, four saucepans of graduated sizes plus a tall stockpot/pasta cooker and a wide soup pot. Most of these have their own lids. There is also a roaster with cover, a pretty oval "cocotte" or casserole, and a griddle. We have a vertical chicken roaster and perforated wok for the grill. And let's not even get into bakeware.

The best of all is the big braiser (that sounds like a tough guy). Tim gave me this beautiful pot one Christmas and it is definitely the one I would choose if I could have only one pot. It works as a saute pan, but has a snugly fitted domed lid that sends all the nice braising juices back to the pan. It goes happily from the oven to the table. Food doesn't burn in it. We both agree that everything we cook in it turns out well. When we prepare a dish like chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, I like to wait and raise the lid at the table, releasing delicious aroma to the gathered guests.

As Julia would say, "Bon Appetit!"