"Acrylic pan" Is this a manufactured pan? Not this one specifically, but one like it? If it truly is a manufactured pan, some use epoxy thinset to tile over acrylic. If you can get the tile off without damaging the pan and then clean up any residual thinset without damaging the pan, then yes, you can retile it. Might just be semantics, but if you indeed have "sheetrock" as the tile backer board on the tiled walls of your shower surround, look into a code compliant and more durable product to use in it's place when you remodel. Cement board, etc. Good luck!

because there is *no gas* where they live. And these folks should maybe be running a gas line or installing LP in an individual unit in a high-rise? In a rental apartment? So unless they pick up and move, they are doomed, of course, never to cook even a palatable meal in their miserable lives. Deprived of any opportunity to achieve anything approaching culinary excellence, they may as well just dust and polish their aesthetic glasstop stoves and confine their cooking to re-warming carryout in the microwave, I guess. No kitchen nirvana for the electric peasants! It's not as if a honking professional gas range is going to automatically turn someone into a world-class cook. I've eaten too many McMansion kitchen meals that simply prove otherwise. So yes, folks can talk animatedly about gas v. electric (and then there's induction) but please, don't belittle folks who cook on glasstops as choosing aesthetics over function. FWIW, all but the cheapest electric ranges are now glasstops. The only new coil ranges you'll find now are lower/lowest end models, some costing as little as a couple hundred dollars. And having cooked on all 3: coil, gas and glasstop, let me add that glasstops aren't exactly maintenance free in the keep-clean department. That's why they come with razor-blade scrapers and special cleaner/polishers ... because nothing else will remove anything that's burned on. /flame off, so to speak. Now, on to ridged grill pans. As for ridged grill pans, it doesn't matter if they're ridged on the inside as long as the bottom of the pan - the part that touches the ceramic top of the stove, is flat. The only pans I have that are literally ridged on the bottom outside are some ~40 year old Le Creuset French ovens. I won't use those on my induction burners, which have ceramic tops. The last grill pan I owned came from WS - don't remember the brand but it did a wonderful job, and it was ridged inside but flat on the bottom. I gave it to a friend when someone gave me a Cuisinart electric griller. The grill pan was aluminum. I won't buy anything now that's not either copper or induction-capable, and it was neither.

I have the Calphalon, with the press and I like it. It does what I need it to do, I don't notice a problem with heat loss. I do heat up the press and put that on top when I do use it. The price was good and it cleans up well, and it cooks my food, can't ask for much more than that.

That's a great tip if you just want a funny-shaped pan for a one-time cake or molded salad, even! I think a foam-core bottom with poster board sides would work fine, all covered in foil. Woody and I always greet each other at the door when one of us gets home. It's required! It makes both of us feel welcomed and cherished and I think that's a good thing. Stick a drink in my hand and I'll think you're the bomb! (Actually, if I'm coming in from work, there's usually a glass of wine waiting for me, I love that. Sit, sip, watch the news or visit and unwind a bit, it's wonderful. I don't know how that could be a bad thing.)