Not the person you're replying to, but here's my $0.02. We have a couple stainless frying pans that we've had for a long time, and I've never been much a fan of them. I find they stick pretty bad no matter what procedures you use. Our main pan is a 12" cast iron that I smoothed out the bottom cool surface with a flapper wheel on an angle grinder. It's been used thousands of times over at least a decade and never gives me any trouble. I usually clean it with a stainless steel scrubber and hot water, and then either wipe it clean with a paper towel, or just put it on a burner on low to dry out. I'm not afraid to use soap if needed, but I find it rarely is. We also cook anything in it, including tomato sauce or whatever, and have never had a problem related to that. I find that most of the conventional wisdom around cast iron is just a bunch of voodoo. Just use it and don't worry about it. Beyond the cast iron, we have some ceramic coated cast iron dutch ovens/pots (including a real Le Crueset and a couple knock offs) and stainless steel pots. I'm real happy with our setup. No teflon, no grief, lots of thermal mass for even cooking. I don't feel like we've had to make a tradeoff. With the right equipment, it's really all upside from my point of view.