DEAR DAME EVELYN , While rummaging around at an estate sale in my neighborhood over the weekend, I came across some lovely copper pans – an omelette pan, I think, a large sauté pan, and a saucepan. (The sauté pan is missing the lid.) I paid $50 for all three, which seemed like a pretty good deal. The issues: the copper is pretty tarnished, almost bronze, with patches of weird blue-green. And it looks like somebody burned something in the sauté pan and didn't bother to clean it up or maybe couldn't. (Obviously, it's not a nonstick surface.) I scrubbed for quite a while with a scouring pad and some Comet, but the burned black stuff is stubborn. Help.

Cinderella

Cindy, Dame Evelyn hates burned black stuff in sauté pans! You are pushing a big fat red button there. Luckily, the remedy is easy: pour a half inch or so of water into the pan, bring it to a boil, and then let it sit for at least 30 minutes. The offending cinder patch should come right off. As for the tarnish: that is just life with copper pans. I like tarnish better than the store shine, actually; whenever I see all that glittering copper in a display window, I wonder about the slave labor required to maintain it. But I do get rid of the blue-green business. That is verdigris and is poisonous. Polish it away with a combination of kosher or other coarse salt and lemon juice. And yes, Dame Evelyn would have to agree that $50 for a trio of copper pans in good shape is a pretty good deal, at the very least, even if you have to perform some minor restoration. One never tires of copper pans.