My Ex Mother in Law Strikes


 
LMichaels

LMichaels

TVWBB 2-Star Olympian
My ex mother in law worked for the Brachs Candy Company in Chicago. She had an employee discount for stainless mixing bowls. Being "stainless steel" I assumed all was well. Well, now some 40 years later I happened to be looking at the bowls and realized they're pitting and rusting. Is she striking back 40 years later? Hmmm
So now I am wondering what bowls I can buy that are truly stainless steel?

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The term “stainless steel” can be quite misleading. I was always fighting pits and mild rust spots on the stainless steel rails and such on my boat.
 
Being these came from a food company I never dreamt I had to check them. I always assumed they were "safe" for food storage and such. Never dawned on me to look until the other night.
 
These bowls came from food service? I'd bet those things were expected to live a short unhappy life. In your hands, they've lived much better.

I picked up 4 bowls, in 2 sizes better than 10 years ago from a restaurant supply (in Rochester, MN.) Very thin, very light, but amazingly enough, I haven't managed to dent any of them, they see very frequent use, and <knocks wood> no signs of any corrosion.
 
About 40 years ago I was a project manager for a hospital expansion in charge of expanding their PBX system in the new enlarged cafeteria / kitchen. The person doing the kitchen expansion was upgrading all the fixtures and cookware. One day he came up to me and asked if I wanted any of the old SS bowls and pots as the were going to get rid of them. I grabbed about 15 of them and still have them today and they still look like new. The guy I got them from said that all the cookware at the hospital has to meet very high standards for the protection of the patients.
One of them is a big bowl which has been our dogs water bowl for the last 40 years always filled with water and no rust or corrosion at all.
Don't know if things have changed but that may be something you could look into.
 
There are multiple grades of stainless steel. Some will rust. 304 which is common in kitchen equipment is prone to pitting.

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Well 304 these are not. Totally magnetic. I have never seen 304 pit like that unless on cooking grates and even then not this extent
 
I have some Tramontina stainless bowls I got at Costco a few years ago when they had a section of Tramontina commercial stuff. Can't say what grade stainless they are and they're nowhere near 40 years old, but they've had a fair bit of use and still look decent.

I also have some Cuisinart stainless mixing bowls I got at Amazon. They've held up well. They came with some plastic lids that have turned out to be far more useful than I thought they'd be when I first got them.
 
Larry, there's a Gordon Food Service outlet a half mile northwest of I90/US20 (State Street.) If you're down that way, I'd take a look there. I shopped at GFS several times a year when I still lived in IL, but have only been in one a couple of times since.
 
My girl actually found some nice mixing bowls at Target.

A while back she was telling me she needed some new ones, while we were out we were looking at every store we went to. One of those stops was Target and just happened to look at their selection, she found a few sizes she wanted. Liked them so much we went back and she picked up other sizes.

Worth a look next time your out.
 
Target (like Walmart) is one of those stores I don't just "go to". I think I can count on my hands the number of times I have gone into Target in the close to 30 years I have lived here LOL
 
LMichaels said:
I see the Tramontina commercial grade 18/10 grade IIRC on Amazon. Not cheap though
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Costco had a set of three "prep" bowls of varying size, with the largest big enough to toss salad for about a dozen people. I want to say the set was about $12. It's been a while so I might be off on the price but I'm sure they were under $20. I wouldn't have bought them if they were more than that. Ended up buying a second set when it was clear they were closing out that whole section. One of the benefits of Costco are these special buys. Their closeout deals are amazing sometimes. A couple years ago I got a really nice outdoor roll up blind, 8'x8', for $10. They were $60 earlier in the year. I'd have bought all they had left but I only had use for the one.
 
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