[Let’s ignore that it’s been two months since I’ve dusted off the blog. It was a crazy, off-kilter two months anyway & you have enough train wrecks to watch on reality TV].

Anyhoo, because of my successful Whole 30 over the summer, my realization that I need to do another like yesterday, and my increased time spent in the kitchen, I realized a majority of my cookware was in pretty sad shape. Some of my items had been around since the commencement of my first marriage in 1994 [I know!] and could only be introducing awful flecks of God knows what into my family member’s systems.

So, when I saw the Today’s Special Value on QVC on a late September day, I decided to go for it and purchase a set of cookware that looked right up my alley. It arrived October 1st and I couldn’t wait to put it to use.

11 pieces of hard anodized goodness. I washed & dried each piece lovingly. Threatened each family member with bodily harm if I ever caught them using a metal utensil on any of the cookware or putting it anywhere near the dishwasher. I think I scared them so much, many of them skipped using the cookware altogether or asked 100 questions & requested specific supervision when they did use it. Whatever. As long as it kept the pans nice, right?

I will say, I loved the glide-y pan performance and the clean up was amazing. But, by October 21st, I noticed some disheartening signs. Things like deep nicks inside the pans where I KNEW no metal utensils had been used. It didn’t stop me from conducting a personal interviews with all potential culprits, though. I mean LOOK AT THOSE SCRATCHES!!!

It wasn’t just the insides of the cookware that were causing me angst, as the outside of the cookware wasn’t dealing so well with being in my household either.

I was seeing lots of scratches [likely from sitting too closely to real cookware of the Le Creuset variety] cropping up each time I went to use a pan.

I kept telling myself nothing stays new forever, blah, blah, blah, but when you use the easy pay option and you’re still paying monthly for something that already looks months old, you are over it rather quickly.

The idea of boxing up and returning the cookware seemed onerous on its face, even though it’s guaranteed forever & ever and a quick scan of the QVC comments section showed many others were taking the company’s offer & replacing their sets. Apparently, this dreamy cookware used to be excellent and in the recent batch or two, not so much.

I thought about returning the cookware for a replacement until I noticed that for things that “sat” in the pan to cook or bake, the bottom would be covered with a gray color. Um. Not for nothing, but if this color is coming off on my food, I don’t want a replacement set.

To that end, I’ve printed off the return label and these bad boys will be returned to QVC. Once my money is refunded I’ll be looking for new stuff and I’m thinking of going with a lot of cast iron pieces.

What do you use and like? What’s performed best for you? What do you like about it? What are your complaints about what you own. I have a Christmas list to write, so hurry because I want Santa to have plenty of time to procure my new cookware!