Jeff wrote:

This thread seems to be edging towards gas vs. electric. That's a valid
enough topic for discussion but I'm assuming not really what the OP was
looking for.

I don't regret it. Ours is 12 years old and still looks pretty good. Of
course we try not to drop stuff on it but it has held up much better than I
had hoped for. Ours is a Whirpool with dark grey top.

It is a bit harder to clean now than when new and a small spot where a
platic bag melted onto the surface seems to be irremovable. On the other
hand it took much less than 12 years on our previous ring top stove to get
to the point where the bowls and chrome rings were beyond the ability to
bring back to fully clean.

The pots and pans they sell around here tend to have pretty flat bottoms
anyway so I think this limitation tends to be overdramatized. Here again I
think any limitation on types of pots used, round bottom woks or griddles
for instance, is related to gas vs. electric stove top as opposed to
electric cermaic vs. electric ring top stove.





It is easy, through a little carelessness, to get pans warped a little
bit, and that keeps them from
cooking properly. I hate glass top, would rather have gas burners.
When I had a gas range and
bought new anodized aluminum cookware, I discovered that I could cook
the same amount while
using about half as much gas - kept the burners turned very low in
comparison to former cookware.
It's taken me about 5 years to get used to my glass cooktop and a few
good fights with hubby
about why pans with warped bottoms are no good ) On old stainless
with warped bottoms, I
can burn part of the food black and not even thaw the other half )

As for cleaning, a razor scraper gets the hard stuff. Denatured
alcohol gets the grease, even
burnt on. Barkeeper's for the rest.