Some of you noticed that All-Clad’s Stainless Steel line had significant discounts over Boxing Day. These sales were pretty rare for All-Clad and the reason is that they were clearing out that line in order to introduce the new d5 Stainless line.

The new d5 line is a 5-ply design of  stainless steel and aluminum. In addition to the new cooking surface, they feature redesigned handles that are more comfortable and less likely to heat up, and a pour lip that allows less dripping.

The copper and brushed stainless lines have not been updated.

At Williams Sonoma, they are running a sale on select All-Clad items. Specifically the 8″, 10″ and 12″ non-stick stainless fry pans are on sale. The 10″ was $115 with a cover and the 12″ was $149. I didn’t get the price of the 8″, I already have one.

Prices aren’t bad, the sale prices on the American website are $80 and $100.

They’re running out of stock in the stores, so if you’re an All-Clad fan, get these quickly.

A lot of people have asked me what I bought at the Pepper Mill from my post. Initially I considered the Williams Sonoma 14 piece set which included:
10″ and 12″ fry pans
3qt and 6qt saute pans
2qt sauce pan
4qt sauce pan
5.5qt dutch oven
7qt tall stock pot

After looking at this set, I soon realized that it’s just too big. The 6qt saute pans and 4qt sauce pans are HUGE! Way to big for the majority of my cooking. Plus I would never use the dutch oven – a cast iron one would be way better.

Instead, I chose the following:
8″ nonstick fry pan
2qt saute pan
3qt saute pan
1.5qt sauce pan
3qt sauce pan
12″ chef’s pan (wok)

This is much better for the home cook, the smaller pieces are easier to wield and won’t take up as much space (which comes at a premium in a condo).

Great cookware is hard to find in Toronto. Choices are usually limited to big retailers like Williams Sonoma and small independents – both sell at full retail price. My favorite brand of cookware is All-Clad especially their simple Stainless line. They just introduced their MC2 line which features brushed stainless steel exteriors.

Not willing to pay full retail, my search on the internet led me to Cooking.com which uses Canada Post’s BorderFree service for easy shipping to Canada. Unfortunately, they cannot ship most All-Clad products due to a limitation in their ordering system (specifically, if your order qualifies for a free gift, it cannot be shipped to Canada, even with BorderFree). Placing an order was frustrating and even after spitting a 5-item order to bypass the limitation, the combined shipping fees made barely feasible.

I searched for a local independent retailer that would be more apt to provide some better pricing. My search led me to the Pepper Mill. Owned by a Parisan named Albert, he ordered me up the All-Clad items I wanted and provided me with pricing that I was agreeable too. I also noticed that they had 20% off all their in-stock Global Knives.

Pepper Mill has two locations – Hazelton Lanes and in Summerhill, across the street from the LCBO.