Good start. A name on the cutting board doesn't make it better.
They're cheap. Get all three. 8" is basically eggs for one. 10" is omelettes and all sorts of utility. If you're serious about omelettes, you'll want a dedicated pan. 12" gets a lot of use for two, but a real workout when you entertain.
You can't go wrong with Vollrath. The handles don't look as French as Bourgeat (no surprise), but Vollrath makes a stout pan.
Woks are one of those all too rare pieces of equipment where cheap means good. You're looking for something not too light but not too heavy. Hammer marks are cool, but no big deal one way or the other for cooking. Curved bottoms and fire rings are less stable but wok better than flat bottoms. Tough choice. Cast iron is also good.
Pain to use around the house, but you gotta do what you got to do. Brand, most emphatically, does not make a difference. Messer's probably the most common.
Hmm. Still a good idea to have a cheap one. You never know, someone may show up with a batard and a bottle of vin. Speaking of frying, drop a few loonies on good wood handled spatulas, a board knife, and a fish turner. A good fish turner is important.
Chili is essentially a braise. Cast iron, especially enamelled cast (non-reactive) are a little bit of help but certainly not essential. I'd invest in a good, stainless rondeau / dutch oven before buying cast of any sort.
Have you looked at Vollrath Tribute (tri-ply) prices? Worth it if you can afford it. Vollrath is ... well .. Vollrath.
Yes to the 10" and 12" skillets. "Saute pan" is another name for "chicken fryer." With a 10 and 12" stainless skillet to handle all the reactive jobs, I'd go with plain aluminum for the saute pan -- or vice versa. I'd also go 12" fwiw. Plain cast iron (like Lodge) is really the ultimate chicken fryer, but you can't store and afford everything right off the bat. As another fwiw, 14" is a very useful size chicken fryer. Good to have a wish list.
Sauce pans -- you'll know what sizes you need when you see them. I don't know your quantities or how tight or roomy you like to work. Consider at least one saucier or Windsor shape for stirring/reduction. Don't forget that if you're doubling on sizes to get a different shape you can always buy commercial aluminum. Aluminum rocks as long as you don't use it for what you shouldn't use it.
Get an inexpensive, plain stainless, generic stock pot. Once the walls get that high you don't need the fancy construction -- the sheer volume of liquid will take care of even conduction. That saved you a little money, anyway.
All you really NEED for sharpening is a 1000# (JIS). But you'll want something coarser for profiling and thinning, and something a little finer for polishing. King makes a lot of different grades from lousy to very good -- a good choice in waterstones for learning. Norton waterstones are better than all but the best Kings, very consistent, and also a great choice for a beginner.
The knives you're buying don't need waterstones. You can use oil stones if you like. They're slower, but generally less expensive and need considerably less maintenance. I'll give you some sample sets and you can price them out yourself.
But before I do, let me mention the Norton IB-8 combination India stone. "India" is Norton's trade name for aluminum oxide. The stone is 8x2x1 with a very coarse grit on one side, and a medium coarse grit on the other. You can use it without oil (in fact you should, and if you get one I'll tell you how to do it), so you can use it as part of a set which includes waterstones. The coarse side is very forgiving as coarse stones go with less of a tendency to scratch up your knives than waterstones of similar speed. The fine side, while relatively slow compared to waterstones of similar (nominal grit) raises a burr VERY quickly. The stone is extremely useful and relatively low priced.
Also, before getting to specific recommendations, let me explain why I'm staying away from some really good and popular stones: Shapton Professionals are too unresponsive, penalize an uncertain angle too strongly, and are too expensive, for anyone who isn't already a good sharpener. DMT diamond stones are expensive, wear quickly (making them still more expensive) and at the XC and XXC are too aggressive. You WILL scratch your knives. They have their uses, but hold off awhile. I don't have enough experience with Shapton GS to say whether they're really a good choice for a beginner or not -- in any case the Naniwa Super Stones (Set 5, below) are an excellent choice.
Set 1: Norton IB-8; Norton combination 1000/4000 waterstone; Norton flattening plate.
Set 2: Norton IB-8; Ice Bear (King near top of the line) 1000#, Ice Bear 4000#, stone holder; piece of glass and sandpaper for flattening. Ice Bears are excellent traditional water stones. They're "traditional" in the sense that like Norton, they need lots of soaking and frequent flattening. Better quality, more expensive than Norton.
Set 3: Norton kit: 220/1000 and 4000/8000; Norton flattening plate (comes with + boxes make decent sharpening stands); synthetic nagura. By the time you're good enough to use the 8000 you'll probably have gone through the 1000 -- but who knows? They were my first waterstones and it's an excellent kit.
Set 4: Norton IB-8; Hall's soft Arkansas; Hall's surgical black Arkansas. The kit I use. Love the feel and the polish of that surgical black. This is a great set but not a great set for upper end Japanese stainless knives, or for carbons like Aogami and Shirogami -- too darn slow. It's reasonable, but not cheap. The big upsides as far as you're concerned are zero maintenance and tons of feedback from the sharpening grits.
Set 5: Naniwa Super Stone 400#, 1000#, 5000#; flatten on glass and sandpaper; no nagura. Excellent set, if you can afford it. I actually like it better than Set 3, and wish I'd known Naniwa SS were available from a good e-tailer because I'd have been recommending these a lot sooner. You won't outgrow the stones. They don't need soaking either, just splash and go. The downside is the bases on which they're mounted. But you'll have gone through the 400 and the 1000 by the time you've figured out why they're a problem. So, no problem.
You can get most of the stones at Tools for Working Wood, and they're definitely the right place for the Naniwa Super Stones. Sharpening Supplies has good prices on Norton. Japanese Knife Sharpening is the best source for Shapton GS. Stay away from Shapton Pro, you're not there yet.
BDL
They're cheap. Get all three. 8" is basically eggs for one. 10" is omelettes and all sorts of utility. If you're serious about omelettes, you'll want a dedicated pan. 12" gets a lot of use for two, but a real workout when you entertain.
You can't go wrong with Vollrath. The handles don't look as French as Bourgeat (no surprise), but Vollrath makes a stout pan.
Woks are one of those all too rare pieces of equipment where cheap means good. You're looking for something not too light but not too heavy. Hammer marks are cool, but no big deal one way or the other for cooking. Curved bottoms and fire rings are less stable but wok better than flat bottoms. Tough choice. Cast iron is also good.
Pain to use around the house, but you gotta do what you got to do. Brand, most emphatically, does not make a difference. Messer's probably the most common.
Hmm. Still a good idea to have a cheap one. You never know, someone may show up with a batard and a bottle of vin. Speaking of frying, drop a few loonies on good wood handled spatulas, a board knife, and a fish turner. A good fish turner is important.
Chili is essentially a braise. Cast iron, especially enamelled cast (non-reactive) are a little bit of help but certainly not essential. I'd invest in a good, stainless rondeau / dutch oven before buying cast of any sort.
Have you looked at Vollrath Tribute (tri-ply) prices? Worth it if you can afford it. Vollrath is ... well .. Vollrath.
Yes to the 10" and 12" skillets. "Saute pan" is another name for "chicken fryer." With a 10 and 12" stainless skillet to handle all the reactive jobs, I'd go with plain aluminum for the saute pan -- or vice versa. I'd also go 12" fwiw. Plain cast iron (like Lodge) is really the ultimate chicken fryer, but you can't store and afford everything right off the bat. As another fwiw, 14" is a very useful size chicken fryer. Good to have a wish list.
Sauce pans -- you'll know what sizes you need when you see them. I don't know your quantities or how tight or roomy you like to work. Consider at least one saucier or Windsor shape for stirring/reduction. Don't forget that if you're doubling on sizes to get a different shape you can always buy commercial aluminum. Aluminum rocks as long as you don't use it for what you shouldn't use it.
Get an inexpensive, plain stainless, generic stock pot. Once the walls get that high you don't need the fancy construction -- the sheer volume of liquid will take care of even conduction. That saved you a little money, anyway.
All you really NEED for sharpening is a 1000# (JIS). But you'll want something coarser for profiling and thinning, and something a little finer for polishing. King makes a lot of different grades from lousy to very good -- a good choice in waterstones for learning. Norton waterstones are better than all but the best Kings, very consistent, and also a great choice for a beginner.
The knives you're buying don't need waterstones. You can use oil stones if you like. They're slower, but generally less expensive and need considerably less maintenance. I'll give you some sample sets and you can price them out yourself.
But before I do, let me mention the Norton IB-8 combination India stone. "India" is Norton's trade name for aluminum oxide. The stone is 8x2x1 with a very coarse grit on one side, and a medium coarse grit on the other. You can use it without oil (in fact you should, and if you get one I'll tell you how to do it), so you can use it as part of a set which includes waterstones. The coarse side is very forgiving as coarse stones go with less of a tendency to scratch up your knives than waterstones of similar speed. The fine side, while relatively slow compared to waterstones of similar (nominal grit) raises a burr VERY quickly. The stone is extremely useful and relatively low priced.
Also, before getting to specific recommendations, let me explain why I'm staying away from some really good and popular stones: Shapton Professionals are too unresponsive, penalize an uncertain angle too strongly, and are too expensive, for anyone who isn't already a good sharpener. DMT diamond stones are expensive, wear quickly (making them still more expensive) and at the XC and XXC are too aggressive. You WILL scratch your knives. They have their uses, but hold off awhile. I don't have enough experience with Shapton GS to say whether they're really a good choice for a beginner or not -- in any case the Naniwa Super Stones (Set 5, below) are an excellent choice.
Set 1: Norton IB-8; Norton combination 1000/4000 waterstone; Norton flattening plate.
Set 2: Norton IB-8; Ice Bear (King near top of the line) 1000#, Ice Bear 4000#, stone holder; piece of glass and sandpaper for flattening. Ice Bears are excellent traditional water stones. They're "traditional" in the sense that like Norton, they need lots of soaking and frequent flattening. Better quality, more expensive than Norton.
Set 3: Norton kit: 220/1000 and 4000/8000; Norton flattening plate (comes with + boxes make decent sharpening stands); synthetic nagura. By the time you're good enough to use the 8000 you'll probably have gone through the 1000 -- but who knows? They were my first waterstones and it's an excellent kit.
Set 4: Norton IB-8; Hall's soft Arkansas; Hall's surgical black Arkansas. The kit I use. Love the feel and the polish of that surgical black. This is a great set but not a great set for upper end Japanese stainless knives, or for carbons like Aogami and Shirogami -- too darn slow. It's reasonable, but not cheap. The big upsides as far as you're concerned are zero maintenance and tons of feedback from the sharpening grits.
Set 5: Naniwa Super Stone 400#, 1000#, 5000#; flatten on glass and sandpaper; no nagura. Excellent set, if you can afford it. I actually like it better than Set 3, and wish I'd known Naniwa SS were available from a good e-tailer because I'd have been recommending these a lot sooner. You won't outgrow the stones. They don't need soaking either, just splash and go. The downside is the bases on which they're mounted. But you'll have gone through the 400 and the 1000 by the time you've figured out why they're a problem. So, no problem.
You can get most of the stones at Tools for Working Wood, and they're definitely the right place for the Naniwa Super Stones. Sharpening Supplies has good prices on Norton. Japanese Knife Sharpening is the best source for Shapton GS. Stay away from Shapton Pro, you're not there yet.
BDL
