The Mexican Kitchen by Rick Bayless Tortilla Steamer/Warmer with Lid, Red

My wife loves cooking shows and she enjoys Rick Bayless, so we were looking forward to this item. We frequently have tacos, wraps, and other dishes using tortillas.What a surprise! It is another useless item marketed at a premium price by a TV personality. All you get is a stoneware pot...what a joke. This is no more a tortilla warmer than you would call a Corning Ware casserole with a lid a tortilla warmer. It is 10" in diameter, fairly shallow with a lid that doesn't quite sit level all around. I guess with stoneware you don't expect perfect fit and finish...we have none, so I am not sure. The same "warming of tortillas" could be done in any casserole dish that has a lid for less than $50.We expected this to be the sort of appliance you plug in or was "self warming". It comes with 0 (ZERO) instructions as to how to warm anything. Do you put it on the stovetop? Do you put it in the microwave? Do you put it in the oven? For how long? Hot hot should the oven be if that is used? Do you use a damp paper towel as we do now when heating tortillas in the micro?Dumb! Silly! Way too expensive for what you get unless you particularly want a rather attractive red stoneware pot.

Several times in recent months I have made tacos for the families and had to improvise a solution for putting tortillas on the table - usually two plates, one inverted on top of the other. Not the most elegant (or stable) solution. So I was quite interested in this product. I give it an average rating because it does the job, but it has one or two significant flaws.On the plus side, it's an attractive pot. The ceramic feels high quality and the finish is nice. It is indeed microwave safe, and that's how I warmed my tortillas. I nuked them for about 45 seconds after adding a few sprinkles of water for moistness. This kept them at least lukewarm throughout the meal. The pot was also easy to pick up, the heat was localized at the bottom.My big problem with this pot is that the top was not flush with the bottom. There is a gap of about a millimeter that takes up about 30% of the circumference. As such, it rattles a bit, and obviously has a place to let hot air/steam out. My lesser problem is simply the size of the thing. It makes storage a hassle.If you use or make a lot of tortillas for your family dinners, something like this might be a boon. If you're a bit more casual in your tortilla consumption, I'd give this a pass due to its aforementioned flaws.

I already own, and use, the Norpro Tortilla Pancake Keeper, which is lightweight, dishwasher safe and warms a significant amount of tortillas quickly and easily, though I don’t think it keeps them warm a substantial amount of time. Still, that turns out to not be that big of deal when they can be so quickly reheated in the same container. The main downsides of the Norpro is that it's not very attractive, and it's basically a one-trick pony.I use the simple method of a slightly damp, clean kitchen towel with tortillas wrapped inside, within the tortilla holder. Then pop the whole thing in the microwave for 1:30-2:00 for warm, steamed tortillas. The Norpro works great with that method and, if the tortillas cool off, I just throw the whole thing back in the microwave for another 30-45 seconds.Still, despite being mostly happy with the much less expensive plastic Norpro, I was wooed by this super pretty stoneware holder that looks identical to one I’ve admired for a while in Williams-Sonoma, though that wasn’t the Bayless brand model.This bright red piece is heavy-duty, dishwasher safe glazed stoneware (interior is cream colored), but much shorter than the Norpro, making it hard to fit a useful amount of tortillas, plus the damp towel inside. It also suffered from becoming a bit too hot to handle when I tried to microwave — though it is perfectly microwave safe — it for as long as I was used to heating the Norpro for.Not, burn-yourself hot, but a little warm for comfortable bare-handed handling, and I feared someone dropping the hot(ish) stoneware lid and breaking it. Of course, it does cool down relatively quickly (>5 min.), so this is a fairly minor concern.I did find a few easy workarounds for actually warming tortillas by my preferred method in this … First, I ditched the towel altogether and just misted the tortilla stack itself lightly before putting the lid on. This made the top tortilla a tiny bit soggier than I prefer, but left the others nicely fresh and steamed, though the warmer itself still got a little hotter than I’d like.Next, I went back to the damp towel, but just set it on a plate to warm, and then transferred the tortillas to the Bayless warmer for serving. This method worked quite well, in that the tortillas warmed/steamed even faster than in the Norpro, and the Bayless stoneware kept them warm longer once inside, but was still cool to the touch for serving.The other option is placing it in a warm oven (~ 200 degrees), something the plastic Norpro can’t do, to hold pancakes or already steamed tortillas at temp until serving. I found this very handy when serving for a crowd.It could also be used, unlike a dedicated tortilla warmer, for a covered casserole, or other general serving options, making this one a bit more multi-purpose, which I liked.All in all, this a lovely piece, that does work for its intended purpose, as so do lesser priced options. Still, this is a beautiful bit of serveware I’m happy to have.

My daughter loved it.

I like Rick Bayless, and - not that I would ever buy something based on a celebrity endorsement - hoped that his line of goods would be a great deal higher quality than that of recent TV chefs to launch their lines of kitchenware.I will say that this is much nicer looking in real life than it is in the pictures. It and its color reminds me of something that would fit in with Fiestaware and other enameled kitchenware. And it is clearly much nicer and higher-end than the plastic tortilla holders you often get at restaurants (although, frankly, that's normal even at a classy joint in Mexico or Central America, to my experience).However, I was disappointed in the number of flaws in the coating. Most are under the lid or on the bottom, but some are in plain sight. Were this Le Creuset (including items less "active" than their Dutch ovens), just one of these flaws would be enough to relegate this item to the outlet stores. The other thing is, the lid does not fit very snugly, nor does it fit flat all around on the main body. For the premium price, I find this unacceptable.I still like it, and will use it, but it could have been better.You can bake in it up to 425, and it is dishwasher and microwave safe, so it may prove more useful than just holding tortillas.