Late to the party here, but I’d caution against buying sets. They often come bundled with lots of superfluous pans that your giftee might not use. If you know their normal cooking habits, I’d purchase individual pieces to make your own set. To that end, I’d probably say that you want to pick up just two skillets, a saucepan, and a pot, unless they’re starting from scratch and tossing all their other cookware.

For the pan, I think that a regular cast iron is a good choice. Cheap options here for a brand new pan are Lodge and Victoria, and they work as well as the more expensive boutique cast iron brands. You’ll likely have trouble finding nicer antique cast iron at thrift stores because it’s become rather popular to buy and resell Wagners, BSRs, and Griswolds for the price of new Lodges or more. If your giftee doesn’t mind used antiques, these three brands are all quite nice if you know what to look for. Definitely check for any signs of pitting if you look for a used one. If you really wanted to though, Field, Stargazer, and Butter Pat all have more expensive pans that are polished to have a smooth surface. This will not affect the performance of the pan in any way, shape, or form. If they cook with tomatoes or other acidic foods a lot, you’re going to want to opt for an enameled skillet. Le Creuset and Staub are the default answers here, since they have a long history and lifetime warranty. However, if you want something cheaper, Tramontina and Lodge also make enameled skillets. As for size, a 10-inch skillet should be sufficient for a family of 2-4, while a 12-inch skillet or larger would be necessary for larger families. These skillets get much heavier as you increase in size, so there are some downsides to just picking up the largest size available.

Personally, I find that I only ever need one cast iron skillet, because I just don’t ever cook two separate dishes at the same time that would take advantage of the main advantages of cast iron (great heat retention and the ability to go from stovetop to oven). If you think they’d like it, I would suggest going with stainless steel for a second skillet. It’s capable of handling acids, heats quickly, is oven safe, and can be used to build fond. It’ll also last a lifetime with proper care. Here, almost any fully clad skillet is suitable, but some of the splurge options are Demeyer and Hestan. I have no personal experience with them, but the lack of rivets does look rather nice. I use All-Clad skillets myself, but the handle shape can be unwieldy on some of the lines so they aren’t for everyone. Great Jones is a direct to consumer brand that makes some pretty looking cookware, but aren’t necessarily cheap. More budget options that still do the job perfectly well are Calphalon and Tramontina. I’m sure many other fully clad options out there are also great, these are just the ones that I could think of off the top of my head and believe are worth taking a look at. Given the sloped edges of most stainless steel skillets, you’d probably want something in the 12-inch range. Alternatively, a stainless steel saute pan could be good. A 3qt size could bridge some of the gap between a skillet and a pot.

On the topic of stainless steel, I also think it’s the material of choice for a small saucepan. In my opinion, cast iron is just too heavy and changes temperature too slowly to be suitable for a saucepan. All the same brand recommendations apply when looking for a saucepan. I like the 1qt size and it’s probably what I use the most, but anything from 1-2qt is probably good. Too large and you end up with something too similar to the dutch oven

For a pot, I wouldn’t recommend anything other than an enameled cast iron dutch oven if you must have cast iron. It provides more flexibility to cook with acids and liquids without worrying about ruining the seasoning. As above, Le Creuset and Staub make beautiful pieces that carry a lot of social cache, and they both feature a lifetime warranty. I have experience with the Le Creuset warranty, and was able to get a free replacement dutch oven after mine suffered some chips in the enamel. However, Tramontina and Lodge both make perfectly good options at a much lower price point. Here, I’d buy a dutch oven that’s anywhere from 6-8qt, depending on personal need. I’d err on the side of larger, but they can take up a lot of space.

These four items should be enough to cover 99% of a home cook’s needs without taking up a bunch of storage space. You can always add more if you’d like, and I’d be happy to make more recommendations if you know what sort of cooking your giftee likes to do. I know that personally, I’d be happier with a curated selection of nicer pans than a set that comes with more pans than I know what to do with. Best of luck, and I’m sure your giftee will love it no matter what!

If you don’t mind using Meta services, you may have some luck with big discounts. I’ve seen BNIB Pixel 9’s for as low as $475 on Facebook Marketplace, though most of them are $500-$550. I’ve purchased my last two Pixels through Marketplace and haven’t encountered any issues.

That being said, I like my Pixel 8 Pro and the performance has been great, so I’m not sure the price difference for a brand new Pixel 9 direct from a retailer as opposed to a Pixel 8 is worth it unless you really like the squared off design of the 9.

This was happening to me until I repatched and reinstalled the app. I didn’t change anything between installs so I’m not sure what happened.

Personally, I’d just keep cooking with it. I wish someone had told me that when I was getting started with carbon steel. In my experience, keeping the seasoning visually even across the pan is much harder on carbon steel than cast iron. I was restarting constantly because it would look splotchy, but eventually gave up on that. As long as it performs fine and there’s no rust, there’s nothing to worry about. Eventually it’ll all even out.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, I think something hearty like a braise would go nicely with the weather. I recently braided some short ribs in stout and some homemade beef stock and it turned out wonderfully. I had it with some simple roasted veg with balsamic condiment drizzled over and mashed potatoes, so that the reduced braising liquid could do double duty as a sort of gravy. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere though, I think a fancy salad would be a good way to beat the heat.

Just chiming in to say thanks for the update and all the hard work!

I’ve had success with this recipe, which is in grams. I just made a baker’s % out of it and mostly use that now for flour tortillas since the recipe made more than I wanted.

Most recently, I used this flour tortilla recipe and was happy with the results. I found having a video helpful as another form of feedback to see if I was following the recipe correctly.

Why would the clause be unenforceable? It doesn’t violate any of the general principles of contract law. If you intentionally contract around these terms that don’t violate any existing body of law and don’t run counter to public interest, a court would have no problem enforcing the terms of a contract. They probably wouldn’t sue you or me in our individual capacity if we circumvented. There’s a much greater chance of recovery if they go after a company which is pretty clearly using their service in a bad faith. If ByteDance wanted to use their LLM to train their own, they could’ve negotiated such a license.

Sorry for the late reply, but this doesn’t really seem like it’d come close to invoking any of the US’s neutered antitrust enforcement. Open AI doesn’t have a monopoly position to abuse, since there are other large firms offering LLMs that see reasonable amounts of usage. This clause amounts more to an effort to stop reverse engineering than stifle anyone trying to build an LLM.

I can’t speak for every jurisdiction, but I’d be hard pressed to see why it wouldn’t be legal in the US, especially in these circumstances. ByteDance is a massive legally sophisticated corporation, so they should’ve been expected to fully read and understand the terms and conditions before accepting them. They probably won’t bring a legal challenge, because they know they don’t have a particularly strong legal argument or a sympathetic angle to use.

They did fully not exclude it from legislation yet. Apple simply contested their iMessage’s as a gatekeeper under the definition used in the act, and the Commission is in the process of determining whether or not that is true. If iMessage is determined to be a gatekeeper, Apple will only have bought themselves a few more months before they have to comply with the DMA.

Internet Shaquille is something that hasn’t been mentioned yet that I think really resonates with what you’re looking for. All of his videos are short, focused, and aimed at helping regular people in the kitchen (with the exception of his April Fools videos, which satirize clickbait videos). There is some humor, but the information density of his videos reflects his ethos of not wanting to waste your time. To this end, sponsor reads appear at the end of the video (if they’re sponsored at all), so you can completely skip them.