Celebrity Cookware - Buy It or Skip It?
It seems that celebrity chefs are hawking quite a variety of products lately, doesn’t it? Everything from olive oils and pasta pots, it’s available. But just because the product might have a familiar face emblazoned on the box doesn’t mean you necessarily need to fork over your hard-earned dollars.
The October issue of Good Housekeeping magazine put some celebrity wares to the test so you know where exactly your money is best spent. You can read the entire run-down right here, but in the meantime, an excerpt:
Nigella Lawson:
TRY IT: Dress up your dining table with a set of Nigella Lawson Living Kitchen Oven to Tableware ($16 to $40). The nonstick pieces are great for baking, serving, and cleanup. If you love her trademark color, robin’s egg blue, store baked goods in her Cake Tins ($20). For cheese prep, try her Parmesan Grater ($12), which nestles comfortably in your hand.
SKIP IT: The Mixing Bowls ($60 for four) get messy if you hold them close, as Lawson suggests, and have no extras for the price.
Rachael Ray:
TRY IT: Her oval-shaped 8-quart Pasta Etc. Pot ($80) is wide enough to boil spaghetti without snapping the noodles first. (Drawback: The elongated cookware doesn’t fit over a burner — which means meatballs and other foods can’t brown evenly unless you move them around.) The TV titan’s Commercial Frypans ($20 to $40) also performed well in our tests.
SKIP IT: The Hipster Bowls ($20 for three) are curved, so you can stabilize them against your waist as you beat a cake mix — but you’re likely to wind up with batter on your blouse. Also pass on the Froggy ($40), a cutting board and chopper. In our tests, the herbs we minced ended up mashed.
