Gift Guide 2018: World's Most Beautiful Pans

You find old copper pots in antique stores all the time, and you stand looking at them, coveting their heft, their color, their sheer coolness in the kitchen. But then you look at their battered state and know you’ll never bother to have them re-tinned.  Which pretty much makes them useless.  And so you buy a new copper pot - which doesn’t make you nearly as happy.

If you want a vintage copper pot, one filled with both beauty and history, go to East Coast Tinning. Jim Hamman not only finds breathtakingly beautiful cookware, he also re-tins it.  So your friends can start cooking on copper right away.

I love this little covered gratin pan so much that I've suggested Jim copy it and sell it new.

Jim makes his own gorgeous line of hand-made copper pans.  Some are lined in sterling silver - which is a better conductor of heat than even copper. And now, in an extremely bold move, he's making a line of solid sterling pans with leather-covered handles.  They're sexy and gorgeous - kind of like jewelry for the kitchen - and if you have a lot of money and want to give someone a gift they will never forget, consider this incredible solid sterling saute pan.

Want to know how to cook in it?  Here's Jim's suggestion.

"I have perfected a process eliminating eggs sticking to tin- and silver-lined copper pans.  Here it goes:

1.)  In your favorite egg pan, set on Medium heat

2.)  Add about a tablespoon olive oil

3.)  Add a thin butter pat - coat the cooking surface

4.)  Heat only until a drop of water dances on the pan (crucial point)

5.)  Add eggs - Scrambled for Omelette - Whole for fried

6.)  Cook....while still slightly wet on top (they should not stick),

     -  Flip fried eggs

     -  Fill and fold an omelette - flip

7.)  Slide off onto a warmed plate

8.)  For the second set - slightly LOWER the heat add a 1/2 pat butter - Repeat.