All coatings are strictly temporary and restrict how you can use your pans. There is one exception - even chefs who hate non-stick will keep one non-stick pan around for scrambled eggs.

In particular a wok should never be non-stick. Temperatures rise to the level where the coating starts to break down into toxic substances (actual tests by a magazine I get). I've never had trouble keeping my non-nonstick pans clean, and I'm a real stickler for very very clean.

For vegetarian cooking the first thing you should get is the Calphalon 13" wok. This is stainless - aluminum - stainless sandwich construction, practically indestructible and spreads heat extremely well. The bottom center is flat, but not too wide and the great heat conduction eliminates any problems. Fully round bottomed woks don't work well on American stoves.

Woks are great for cooking choy, spinach and other vegetables that start voluminous and wilt very much smaller. Rustle up a cover for it (I got a perfect fit cover from a local Asian market), and a grate for steaming (got it at same market).

After that a 2 quart and a 3-1/2 quart covered sauté pan. A shallow slope sided iron pan is better for actual sauté, but these are better for most uses. I also have a 5 quart which I use rather seldom but it's really handy when I do need it.

Sauté pans should be stainless - aluminum - stainless sandwich, though stainless inside and aluminum outside would work. The kind with a full wrap core is best for most uses, but you can get along with the lower cost slab bottom pan if of good quality and you are careful. With the slab bottom you'll get hot spots along the edges where the slab stops so you need to be more careful frying your onions. My 5 quart is a slab bottom but at that size it's not a problem - the edges are so far from the flame they're a bit cooler.

Slab bottom is best for long slow simmering, so my 5 and 8 quart soup pots are slab bottom.

For smaller saucepans (1-1/2, 2 quart) a full wrap core is essential - you just can't stand the hot spots at the edges, particularly when making sauces. Beware of cheap saucepans not heavy enough for their handles, they are dangerous.

A 3-1/2 quart saucepan with a steamer pan to sit on top of it is a really useful setup. Use it as a saucepan, use it as a steamer. In this size slab bottom will work plenty well enough.

For vegetarian you don't need them but for meat and fish you'd want a couple cast iron skillets (10 and 12 inch). Your sauté pans are just fine for vegetarian if of good quality.

Aluminum, anodized or not, has no place whatever in vegetarian cooking - too much acid involved and acid eats aluminum. For a while aluminum was considered a high risk factor for alzheimers, then it wasn't - but some researchers are still a bit suspicious of it. Of course aluminum is eaten even faster by alkali, but few foods are alkaline.

Personally, I don't consider aluminum cookware suitable for any purpose as I like to minimize extraneous metals in my diet.

I reject without consideration any pan with a glass lid. When I'm finishing up and ready to serve I'm moving fast and don't have time to tend to such things. Glass lids are heavy, prone to damage and to damaging other things by their weight. They're prone to slide off counters and whatever have you. A stainless lid is lightweight, easy to handle, easy to clean, tends to stay put even on uneven surfaces and is easy to clean.

. . All-Clad, the outfit that pioneered explosive welding of stainless to aluminum for cookware is excellent. I have only one by them, a 2 quart sauté pan - Amazon wasn't carrying the full wrap core line of Cuisinart when I decided to upgrade that size from the slab bottom pan.

All else I have is Cuisinart, both the slab bottom and full wrap. Their quality is excellent and it has been available at very good pricing on Amazon.

I have never had trouble cleaning these devices, except once when I practically melted one. Kitchen cleanser does an excellent job (I use Pro-Pride from Smart & Final which I prefer to Comet). I use Super Scour sponge pads which are terry cloth on one side and plastic mesh on the other.

After a while you may notice a slight dull film on the cooking surface of your wok and/or sauté pans. This should be removed with warm vinegar. I do this about once a month on the most heavily used pans. Any mineral deposits in pans used for steaming can be similarly removed by heating some water with vinegar mixed in, then washing with cleanser.

Pots used for boiling water will develop a few tiny white spots in the bottom. Some will be minerals removable with vinegar, some will be cavitation spots that don't come off, but they cause no trouble.

One thing I like about the stainless surface is that it is easily cleaned without worrying about damage, and when it's really clean you can see that it's really clean.

Previous to moving to this kind of cookware I was using enameled iron.

Even the one I accidentally subjected to extreme overheat was basically undamaged and did not come unlaminated - that explosive welding is good stuff. The only actual damage was minor pitting caused by ginger of which there was quite a bit in the pan - sulphur compounds eat metal, and at extremely high temperatures they'll even pit stainless steel.

Incidentally, if you accidentally leave a cast iron pan with water in it overnight, and there are bits of ginger in it, you will have some very significant pits in the metal by morning.

I have several pieces from that line and am entirely satisfied with them. Those faint "scratches" have no depth and do no harm, they're really just faint marks on the surface and there will eventually be plenty of them.

I do most of my work with wooden utensils but use a stainless turner and a stainless serving spoon often enough to confirm there will be no damage. My heavily used 3qt sauté has hundreds, maybe thousands of those marks and they have degraded neither performance nor cleanability.