Still have my mineral pan and still loving it. This set of non-sticks must be something new. Different concept. The more you use the mineral, the better it gets. It retail high head so easily too, if that’s what you want to do, sear.
Stuart - do you feel the same about high temps for pizza if you’re using a wood burning oven? We get spectacular results out of our wood burner and the temps are over 700 on the bottom and over 1000 on the top. My husband makes the best pizza I have had anywhere in the world.
We are in Philly, so perhaps a test is in order sometime? The burg cellar here doesn’t suck either. 
Sarah…might be a good suggestion. Thanks.
Pizza, like wine, art, you name it…is subject to taste and ideas of the “ideal”. Mine is a thin, crisp crust. Those are never made at those high temps.
For me, all the newer pie places in Phila and elsewhere are fungible (even if they don’t reuire “fresh” mozzarella, which I think sheds too much liquid and can mar most pies). They are all tasty, bready, small (mostly because they have to be in that bready style) and eat best with a knife and fork. I like them all, though I think most are overpriced and too focused on catchy ingredients (pizza to me is all about crust).
I don’t distinguish among high heat powered by wood, charcoal, coal or (as in New Haven, at Moderne Apizza high-heat oil; I love modern’s pies, though they are floppy rather than crisp.) The result is mostly the same: seared dough, often with leopard spots. More bready than what I like as an ideal. (And, when someone talks about “spectactular results” for pizza…the only thing it tells me is that they like it: and that I probably wouldn’t dislike it myself; I dislike very few pizzas.)
The lower temp cooking (which virtually all “commercial” and traditional US places outside of the coal ovens in NYC do, promotes that cooked evenly all the way through texture I prefer. I look at pizza as mainly the “sum of its slices”, I guess; I’m a slice guy. High-heat pizza doesn’t lend itself too well to focusing on “slices”.
FWIW.
There is certainly no right or wrong on this issue. But, I prefer the traditional, US version of the food…rather than an imitation of the “verra Neapoleatano” pizza so many new restaurants are chasing…and many home cooks are trying for. (I was talking to a cousin last weekend who is an architect in NYC and is renovating a high rise loft building of 20+ apartments. They all will have wood-burning ovens in them! The code requirements for them are sensible, but insane: each requires a water hose in the structure, among other things. I think it’s mostly a trend, a la hot tubs and other luxury fads that everyone had to have …in the past. )
i hear you…oven safe to 350F, so would certainly work on your stove top, but not ideal for in the oven. but I can’t think of a dish I’d use a non-stick pan and then oven. you should still get one, i’m shocked how slippery it is with eggs, etc.
Yaacov - will likely get one for eggs, you suggest. Very difficult to get the perfect pan for eggs. We do make one or two dishes where we want non-stick and oven finish, but you’re right there aren’t that many.
Stuart - I hear you on pizza preferences - all are valid, and if yours is for low-temp cooked NY style pizza, then what we make, no matter how great, won’t equal it. I do think, though, that there are objective standards of quality within a particular category, so that my calling a pizza “spectacular” encompasses both my own tastes and an evaluation of how successful our pies are when it comes to qualities generally associated with pizza from a wood burning oven. The validity of my objective evaluation, of course, is largely dependent on my knowing what I’m talking about. Knowing nothing about a person, I agree that words such as “spectacular results” tell me little other than that they like it. But if I know that person to have experience, knowledge and background which makes them able to objectively evaluate quality, I do think it can mean more.
Cheers.
In my experience, they’re no more durable than any others I’ve used, and I babied mine. I think all brand new non-stick pans seem like the best thing ever because you’ve gotten used to whatever aging ones they’re replacing.
If I didn’t already have a couple of Le Creuset and a couple of Demeyere that I found on eBay, all of which I love, I’d probably go for a de Buyer, but after a while too much stuff is just too much.
My understanding was that the Tefal pans in Europe are different than their US distribution under the TFal name and are considered less durable…is that not the case?
i don’t know. they’re like $25 here. can’t imagine doing any research for something so cheap.