A kitchen necessity . . .

No, the kitchen necessity I'm writing about is not a grilled cheese sandwich. Although, depending on how hungry you are . . .

Rather, I'm bragging about one of my Christmas gifts, a new Calphalon nonstick skillet.

Most of my cookware is professional stainless steel, which works great for most things. However, despite having at least a couple of frying pans in my stainless set and a couple of old well-seasoned cast iron skillets, I think a good nonstick frying pan is essential. Here's why:

1) We're very picky about our fried eggs around my house. I don't like them greasy, so a good nonstick pan with a little mist of nonstick spray is perfect. They must be perfectly over-medium. Cooked enough so the white part is not rubbery yet, but is not runny or mushy. And, even our kids don't like a fully-cooked yolk. (Am I making my kids into food snobs?) This new skillet, in addition to the nonstick properties, has a nice heavy-bottom which helps keep the temperature even, which makes it easier to get that yolk just perfect.

2) I love a good grilled cheese. I have found it difficult to do a good grilled cheese in a skillet. It's difficult to get the temperature right--too hot and the bread scorches before the cheese melts. Too cool and the bread gets a bit soggy. I used to get out my big old electric fry pan to do a good grilled cheese. I tested out my nice new pan this last week and wow. Perfect. It maintained a great even temperature and put a nice brown toasty crust on my bread. Another weird thing about me--I love cheese sandwiches dipped in marinara. It's so tasty! And a little less work to heat up than tomato soup.

Best thing about this new pan: I got a fantastic deal on it. We found a "Chef's Outlet" at the outlet shopping center near us. Because this pan was considered a "second" for minor cosmetic flaws which we have still to discover, it was an amazing steal at $32 (normally over $200). Doesn't get much better than this . . .