"aluminum" news and stories

It is not clear what the people at Berndes, a German cookware company, were thinking when they designed this pan. It is clear, however, that they did not agonize over the name, calling it simply the Fat Bug Cake Pan. This is not the usual shape you expect to find in a cake pan. You expect roses, hearts and maybe even a butterfly. You definitely do not expect to see a cast aluminum larvae mold. I give them full credit for originality, and the pan is no doubt of high quality, but I still can't see spending $25 to buy a pan shaped like, to put it generously, a "fat bug."

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Heart-shaped cake pans are great for Valentine's Day. After all, anything shaped as a heart - cakes, cookies, mashed potatoes - is automatically perceived as romantic being romantic. The problem with heart-shaped bakeware is that it isn't terribly practical. You have to store it and probably will not be using it nearly as much as more traditional square and round pans. But Reynold's has come out with a line of shaped aluminum mini cake pans. Usethe Fun Shapes pans to bake heart-shaped mini cakes and then simply throw out the tin as you would with an ordinary cupcake wrapper. The company recently started marketing these, but plans to put them out for most holidays. I paid $1.49 for this pack of 24 at my local grocery store.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Like so many other people, I've been using my nonstick frying pans for many years now, in addition to my other pots and pans. With cancer concerns relating to the toxic perfluorochemicals coming to light, it's time for some new cookware. After all, the EPA is only "phasing out" these chemicals to avoid shutting down very large portions of very large companies. PFOA has been shown to cause cancer and, like mercury and lead, build up in the body over time, so there is no reason to continue our exposure to it.