That’s my pronouncement for the week.

Last year, after reading a ringing endorsement of this pan on Cook’s Illustrated, I ventured to Wal-Mart and bought one of these 6.5 quart Tramontina enameled cast iron Dutch ovens. My winters are full of soups, stews, and other things that call for slow cooking, sometimes on top of the stove, sometimes in the oven, and I wanted a pot that would serve me well. The truly amazing thing is how well this Dutch oven performs, and how (relatively) inexpensive it was — this year, Wal-Mart’s website lists it at $45 (still a bargain), but I think I might have paid $40 for mine.

The enamel coating on this pan is great because it allows you to brown things very nicely — you end up with a nice fond on the pan bottom which will serve your dish well if you deglaze the pan with some wine or broth. I like to make giant batches of tomato sauce with meat in this, and it’s also great to make chicken in a pot. I brown the chicken on top of the stove, remove the chicken, add some aromatic vegetables to the pan to brown them up a bit, return the chicken to the pot, add a little wine or stock, and stick the whole thing in the oven for an hour and a half. I also trot this baby out when it’s time to make a pot of kielbasa and sauerkraut, or corned beef.

It’s easy to clean, too — the enameled interior cleans up almost like a nonstick coating, and on those few occasions when you’ve got something really stuck, you just need to put some water in the pot and soak for a couple of hours and it’s good to go.

The one drawback? It’s heavy. It’s really heavy. It’s so heavy that once you put a few pounds of ingredients into it, you don’t want to pick it up if you don’t have to. It’s heavy enough that when you wash it out you’re very careful not to drop it. Not in the sink (it’d probably chip the porcelain off your sink), not on your foot. Other than that, it’s a relatively inexpensive workhorse, and it looks pretty on the stove.