Farberware Dishwasher Safe Aluminum Nonstick 12-Piece Cookware Set

()So, you are thinking about buying a nonstick cookware set?And you're wondering if you should buy a more expensive set or a less expensive set?Well, let's compare two sets to help you decide.We will use this less expensive Farberware set, and the much more expensive Anolon Advanced Hard Anodized Nonstick 11-Piece Cookware Set.

Okay, first, you need to ask yourself who will be using the cookware, and will anyone possibly mistreat your new pots and pans?For example, this Farberware set is suppose to be used with only plastic utensils, whereas the Anolon set can be used with metal utensils.But the Anolon is suppose to be hand washed, whereas the Farberware can be put in the dishwasher.Apparently, neither are suppose to be used with a really high heat setting on the range.( And if you are worried about PFOA, which the EPA does not seem to be where nonstick cookware is concerned, never use the pans on high heat, and toss them if the nonstick surface begins to flake.)In the oven, the Anolon is good for up to 450 degrees, and the Farberware up to 350 degrees.Of course, the question here is who puts these type of pots and pans in the oven and why?

Next, how important is appearance and weight to you?The Anolon set is a truly beautiful black set.The Farberware not as pretty . . . only because it's much cheaper . . . but still a lovely brushed silver color.The handles on the Anolon are padded with silicone and are dual riveted.That means they are attached very tightly and you see no screws.The Farberware handles are not padded, and are attached with one visible screw.This means you can easily tighten any handles that become loose with a screwdriver.Now, for all you weight conscious cooks:The 10 inch skillet in the Farberware set weighs 1 pound, 2.8 ounces, whereas the 8.5 inch skillet in the Anolon set weighs 1 pound, 11.6 ounces.The 3 quart Farberware saucepan weighs 1 pound, 2 ounces, while the 1.5 quart Anolon saucepan weighs 1 pound, 1.2 ounces.One of the Farberware lids weighs 1 pound, 4.4 ounces, and an Anolon lid of the same size weighs 1 pound, 6.2 ounces.

Most importantly, does the much less expensive Farberware set work well on the range?Well, I have encountered no problems at all using a ceramic glass radiant range top .Nothing has stuck to any of the pots and pans, and I have used the highest heat to make omelets.I have also used the highest heat to burn the edges of bologna . . . a leftover childhood thing. . . only we didn't call it bologna back then . . . we called it baloney.I've also repeatedly washed the pots and pans in the dishwasher with excellent results.

So, which set to get?Well, if you have kids who you fear will destroy your nonstick cookware, you might want to get this Farberware set.Or, actually, you could get three sets of the Farberware for the cost of one set of the Anolon.Then, if a pot or pan is destroyed by the kids, you can just pull out an exact duplicate from one of the other two sets.(This will teach your children that they will not make you cry!)Or, if you really like beautiful, heavyweight cookware, you might get the Anolon set for yourself, and a Farberware set for the kids.Or, if you can't quite fit the Anolon set into your budget, have no reservations about getting this Farberware set.I don't know how long it will last compared to the Anolon, but the Farberware does a really good nonstick job of cooking, especially omelets in the 10 inch skillet.And after you finish cooking your omelets, you can just rinse the skillet and toss it in the dishwasher, along with the included plastic spatula ... which, by the way, weighs exactly 1.4 ounces.

()This set of pots and pans (with utensils) is ok for a starter set Someone who just got their own place, just starting out cooking on their own, college students, not sure how they will take care of them, etc. I would not recommend it for someone who is cooking full meals daily for their family. I don't feel this set offers the quality/durability to stand up to daily use. It reminds me of the cheap sets you can get for about 40 bucks or so.

I do like the color. It is like a pale beige color. It's different, neutral, will match any decor.

The utensils are your basic plastic/nylon(?) utensils. Cheap, but get the job done without harming the nonstick surface.

I like that the skillet is a bit deeper and doesn't have the slanted sides. The cook area is as wide as the brim of the sides, so grease, food, etc is less likely to splatter or slosh out.

The fry pan was a bit too shallow for my liking and seemed to have a small cook area in general. I found it hard to cook off 1 lb of hamburger in it without making a mess meat spilling over when trying to move it around for even cooking, etc. Alot of grease splatters.

The set is very lightweight, which some people may like for certain reasons, but I myself like a bit more heft to my pots and pans. These slide around way too easily on the burner while you're trying to stir or move around whatever it is you're cooking in them. It gets to be annoying. They have a "cheap" feel to them since they are so lightweight/thin. Handles are basic plastic. Lids are ok, with same plastic knobs.

I found the bottoms discolored easily even though not used on high heat. I have a gas stove/oven in case this makes any difference.

This is an ok set if you are on a budget, however there are other sets in the same price range that are more durable and have a better heft to them. For that reason, this is not a set that I would specifically recommend to anyone. I didn't find anything about them to be all that impressive. The non stick surface has me wondering how long it will last, as it is not your typical black coated surface. With as thin as the pans are, it makes me think the coating will "cook" off or bubble off etc. You can tell it is not a thick coating. It almost seems like a light layer of (powdercoating) paint.

If you like Farberware products and/or are looking for a great set under 100 dollars, I'd recommend this set http://www.amazon.com/Farberware-21391-Performance-Dishwasher-Nonstick/dp/B005DXPYNMIt feels better in your hand, it is not as lightweight, the pots and pans aren't thin, they have that bit of heft/solid build feel, and the non stick surface is great. You can tell it's really coated.

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()These pots, you get what you pay for.The price is low and the pots reflect that, but they are not bad for the price.The saucepans are VERY small, and I cannot see cooking for more than 2 people in them, and the frying pan bottom is so small it might cook one grilled cheese or 2 eggs, and it is also a very shallow pan.So, if you want something for a larger family, I suggest looking at other sets.That being said, these are of average quality, and they performed well.The metal is on the thin side (the plus side to this is that water boiled very quickly!,) and the handles are not substantial enough to feel "right" in my hand.The handles are flimsy and short.The tops fit well, but because of how the handles on the tops are shaped, you need to use a pot holder to remove them or else you might touch the glass with the side of your hand or fingers and will get burned. The handle on the stock pot cover was also loose and had to be tightened back down.A loop design on the cover handles would have made more sense.A big plus...the non-stick is truly non-stick!I cooked scrambled eggs, with cheese, and used no cooking spray or oil.Not one bit stuck to the bottom!I was highly impressed.The outside is also non-stick, which is a plus for cleanup.The rim of the pots is not non-stick, however, and it took some scrubbing to get the melted cheese off.The champagne color is a beige/gray, which I find different and pleasing.The plastic cooking utensils that come with it are low quality, but adequate for having something to start out with.These are also dishwasher safe, which most non-stick pots are not (at least not better quality ones) and they are oven safe to 350, which might be good for keeping something warm, but at least for me, I cook most things at a temp over 350 so I don't see a big use for the oven safe feature.I think this set would be great for a single person or a college dorm, but not something I would choose for my family kitchen.

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()...the quality is not great. If you're looking for a decent price on a large set of cookware, then this is an excellent deal. I love the glass tops so you can see how it's cooking for things that you shouldn't lift the lid like rice and popcorn especially fun for kids :-) And speaking of the tops...they fit well and have a plastic handle, although it does get to hot to handle is some situations.

The quality concern i have is the pots are not very heavy duty. If I was looking for a wedding giftit would be better to get a higher quality single-pot that the newlyweds will cherish forever. If you're just starting out with homemaking and buying for yourself, you might want to visit Bed, Bath, and Beyond or any cooking store to really inspect and find the cookware you love.

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()இ Fuzzy Wuzzy's Summary:

ѾѾѾѾѾ Highly recommended with warm fuzzies!

► Packaging, Style, Appearance: ѾѾѾѾѾ Excellent 5-fuzzies rating

► Construction & Build Quality: ѾѾѾѾ Good 5-fuzzies rating

► Design & Features: ѾѾѾѾѾ Excellent 5-fuzzies rating

► Performance, Durability, Reliability: ѾѾѾѾ Good 4-fuzzies rating

► Competitive Pricing & Value: ѾѾѾѾѾ Excellent 5-fuzzies rating

փ Positives:

փ Although there are other cookware sets with better heavier-gauge construction, the economy-level budget-minded pricing of this cookware set offers excellent value for the money.

փ The exterior "Champagne" finish looks nice and the glass lids have a nice fit and finish to them.

ჯ Negatives:

ჯ The 10-inch skillet is slightly too shallow for my preference.

ჯ This 12-piece cookware set is really only 9 pieces, if you exclude the 3 very-ordinary plastic cooking utensils that are included.

The first thing that I noticed about this cookware set, long before I even received the product, was its very attractive and competitive price. You can easily pay two or three times this much for another 12-piece nonstick cookware set. Now, having said that, I do believe that the "you get what you pay for" law of pricing economics still applies here. Most of my cookware is high-quality stainless steel, including some with copper bottoms. Stainless steel is the day-to-day workhorse in my kitchen, and I like the versatility of stainless steel in being dishwasher-safe and yet also oven/broiler safe. I also use anodized aluminum. But I only reach for nonstick cookware strictly on an as-needed basis because I try to maximize the longevity of its nonstick surface, whereas some people just have one set of nonstick cookware that they constantly cook everything in.

This cookware set was shipped in a very sturdy box with numerous cardboard inserts that kept everything in a pristine condition. I like the combination of the 1-quart and 2-quart covered saucepans, 5-quart covered dutch oven, 2-3/4-quart covered saute, 10-inch skillet, and the slotted turner, slotted spoon, solid spoon that are also included in the set. The exterior "Champagne" finish looks nice and the glass lids have a nice fit and finish to them.

Unfortunately, the Amazon photos for this product currently do not display everything that you get with the cookware set. The 12 "pieces" that you get are 5 cookware pots/pans, 4 glass lids, and 3 kitchen utensils. While I would have gladly traded the three kitchen utensils for two more pots or pans and one lid, this is a fairly common practice for cookware sets to include cooking utensils that are part of the "piece" count. Perhaps if Farberware included more pots/pans instead of the three cooking utensils, they would have had to increase the total price more. But this is one of my two gripes with this cookware set: I would gladly pay more to trade the three cooking utensils for a 3-quart covered saucepan and a 12-inch skillet (only a 10-inch skillet is included). The second of my two gripes with this cookware set is that the 10-inch skillet is slightly too shallow for my preference. Some 10-inch skillets are deeper than this one, and I prefer a slightly deeper skillet; your own preference may differ from mine.

The "Teflon Plus" coating on this cookware performed very admirably. I was able to cook a variety of egg and cheese dishes without the use of any cooking spray or oil and nothing ever stuck to the surface. Clean-up of both the interior and exterior surfaces was easy too; I did not even need to use the scrubber side of the kitchen sponge to wipe the nonstick surface. At most, for the stubborn food that was stuck on, I just let the cookware soak in a tub of warm soapy water for a short period before sponging the residues off.

Even though the box for this cookware advertises that its "heavy gauge construction distributes heat evenly throughout the pan and reduces hot spots", this cookware really uses a light-gauge metal. The cookware heats up quickly enough and it is totally sufficient for various egg dishes. The good news is that you can easily lift this light-in-weight cookware when it is all loaded with food. The bad news is that, contrary to the advertisement on the box, you will get more uneven heat distribution compared to a thicker heavier cookware set. If you turn up your stove burner to "High" under a thin pot like this, you will get hot-spots because the rate of heat coming into the cookware is greater than the rate at which the cookware can dissipate the heat across its surface, and thicker cookware allows more cross-sectional area for heat dissipation, resulting in a much more even temperature in all areas of a pot. But you can work with the thinner gauge construction of this cookware by frequently stirring more to manually distribute the heat better.

Some nonstick cookware *claim* to be oven-safe. I think that using nonstick cookware in an oven to 300 or 350 degrees may be okay (and this cookware is supposedly safe to 350 degrees), but some brands of nonstick cookware even claim to be oven-safe out to 450 or 500 degrees. Frankly, I do not want to risk the degradation of these highly synthetic PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) compounds like the Teflon that is used in this nonstick cookware set because the fumes from overheated PTFE are not healthy to breathe in. So I only use nonstick cookware when I *really* need its nonstick advantage (cooking eggs is a classic example), and I throw away nonstick cookware the moment that the surface coating starts to scratch or flake off, which it always does eventually regardless of how carefully I try to not scratch the surface. So I like to invest in high-quality stainless steel cookware, but I do not care to spend a lot for a top-of-the-line nonstick set when I know that I will eventually be throwing some of them away. And this is why I think this economically-priced is great for my purposes. If this cookware set was priced at over $100, I would rate this 4 stars, but when I also take into account its very competitive pricing, I rate this 5 stars.

Some pros and cons of this nonstick cookware set also apply to ALL nonstick cookware, regardless of price. For example, if your cooking requires prolonged high heat, do not use nonstick cookware because the surface coatings cannot withstand that. All nonstick cookware, and not just this set, is best suited for low to medium heat only. Nonstick cookware is also not good for searing and browning. The best searing/browning is done in cast iron, followed by stainless steel, followed by aluminum, and lightweight nonstick cookware like this ranks last for effectively browning and searing.

This cookware set includes a "Important Safety, Use, & Care Information" pamphlet that repeatedly emphasizes to never let cookware (any kind of cookware really) boil dry. If you have birds as pets, the safety pamphlet also warns that the PTFE/Teflon coating on nonstick cookware can emit fumes that can kill birds because the birds' respiratory systems cannot handle the fumes. This also applies to the overheating of cooking sprays, oils, fats, margarine, and butter, which can be toxic to birds. While overheating or boiling dry any kind of cookware is never a good idea, the health hazards, both for birds and humans, are more acute when using PTFE/Teflon-coated nonstick cookware. Even though PTFE/Teflon fumes can kill birds but does not kill humans, this still does not provide me with totally reassuring confidence to convince me that I can use nonstick cookware to cook all of my everyday meals. This is another reason why I use nonstick cookware only when I really need its nonstick ability.I emphasize this again because it is important: never overheat nonstick cookware.Overheating Teflon can cause the release of fumes that can cause flu-like symptoms in humans, a syndrome that is called "polymer fume fever".Additionally, the journal "Environmental Health Perspectives" published a study conducted by researchers from Yale University and Harvard Medical School where they found that the perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) used in Teflon are "associated with higher prevalence of osteoarthritis, particularly in women, a group that is disproportionately impacted by this chronic disease".Their analysis showed that women who had the most exposure to PFOA had twice the odds of developing arthritis compared to women with the lowest exposures; PFOS exposure was also associated with arthritis in women, but not as significantly as PFOA.

௫ Fuzzy Wuzzy's Conclusion:

Overall, I like this cookware set. I almost rated this 4 stars instead of 5, but when I also take into account its economy-level budget-minded pricing, I became less demanding of it; it is not fair to rate this cookware's performance compared to $300 cookware. But, then again, I also sometimes do not need to use nonstick cookware for one or two weeks. If your cooking really requires daily use of nonstick cookware, then you should look for a better cookware set with a heavier gauge mass than this one. This cookware set would make an ideal gift for a college student or a recent college graduate, or if, like me, you do not need to use nonstick cookware for every meal. Just be sure to remind yourself or the person to whom you are giving this to be careful not to scratch the nonstick surface and throw away a nonstick cookware the moment that its nonstick coating starts to scratch or flake off.

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