(Guest blog from a diminutive friend who wishes to remain anonymous )

Aside from the dreamy rustic look of copper cookware, why would I want it? I have my stainless steel and I think it works fine.

I took my cookware on a trial run to see what worked best with what pieces. Because of my itty bitty kitchen, I need the best tools for the job and no extras. There just isn’t room to keep the backup selection. After the tests, the results were in…

At least for me.

The stainless steel skillet is great for quick cooking or slowly reducing sauces. Because it keeps a nice even heat, I didn’t burn the food and it was easy to control. It is light enough to hold so sauteing is easy. I will use this for my every day easy cooking: eggs, reheating, stir fry, etc. It is also easy to clean.

My cast iron skillet is great for griddle to oven cooking. It gets very hot, but the temperature is not easy to control. I sear off meat on the griddle and finish it in the oven with some added sauce. Any stew is great in this skillet. Also, for the sweet tooth among us, cobblers and crisp are great in cast iron. Cook down you fruit with water and sugar over the griddle, sprinkle with your crumble topping , and finish in the oven.

My stainless steel pot with the strainer is the best for cooking pasta. Quick to boil and light to carry, this pot is great for soups as well. It doesn’t have the most even heating, so I went to copper for the sauces and braising.

My copper pot with lid is the master of sauces, braising, cooking lean meat and stews. It has the most even distribution of heat and hearts up the quickest. Lean meats don’t have time to dry out and sauces come together balanced with even cooking. The heaviness of copper is why I don’t use a copper skillet. I don’t have the wrist power to saute with it. However, my pot is perfect.

These are the players on my kitchen team. Let’s get cooking!

Editors Note: Following this article I have convinced this writer of a few changes. First I added a non stick skillet to her kitchen for eggs and omelets. I suggested Swiss Diamond for quality and the inert surface. Second, I got her a smaller copper saute pan from Mauviel for her sauce reductions. It is light enough for her and does a much better job in reducing things and the heat is evenly distributed up the sides of the pan to accelerate evaporation. I also added another pasta pot just of the heck of it.