Photo: Courtesy of Bocuse D'Or Foundation
If you’re looking for the ultimate gift for a very special someone who happens to be obsessed with food and cooking, consider the limited edition All-Clad Bocuse D’Or Cookware Set that was curated by chefs Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, and Jerome Bocuse. It comes with a worthwhile bonus: A portion of the sales will go to the Bocuse D’Or Foundation in the United States, which was formed in 2008 to support the training of aspiring American chefs for the Bocuse D’Or competition—the Olympics of the culinary world—held in Lyons, France, every two years. An American team has yet to win the prize, but there’s hope the Foundation support will help change that.
The set consists of six pieces: a skillet, four various-sized saucepans, and my personal favorite, a universal lid that fits any of the saucepans. The pieces are not sold separately. If they were, I’d be a sucker for that lid.
I have two All-Clad pieces in my home kitchen, both of which I treasure because they’re heavy and heat evenly, without hot spots. The All-Clad pieces in the Bocuse D’Or set are extra-heavy because the bottoms not only have a copper core, but that copper core is sandwiched between two layers of aluminum, which is then sandwiched between two layers of stainless steel. In assembling the Bocuse D’Or collection, Thomas Keller, chef/owner of The French Laundry in California and Per Se in New York, chose the pans he finds the most useful in his own kitchen. Williams-Sonoma has the exclusive rights on selling the set.
The 2013 competition is coming up in January, and the American team this time around is composed of chef Richard Rosendale of the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and his commis, Corey Siegel, a culinary apprentice at the Greenbrier. We’ll be rooting for you!
