As a Christmas present to myself, I bought some more Piazza cookware from
one of their US distributors. Included were cookpots, saucepans, and frying
pans.

My first experience with Piazza was with their "brazier" (at least that's
what Williams-Sonoma called it. Piazza actually calls it a "two-handle
frying pan"). I love the two handles, but I figured I'd pick up a
conventional frying pan with one handle also.

Last night, I decided to break in my new "one handle" frying pan by making a
quick stir fry. Nothing fancy...just some cubed chicken breast, garlic,
ginger, sliced red bell peppers, and sliced onions that I had on hand.

While making the stir fry, I found that this new frying pan I bought was the
most comfortable piece of cookware I've ever used.

The pan itself is sized at 28 cm (about 11 inches). Like other Piazza
stainless steel pieces, the pan has a big, thick metal disk welded to the
bottom.

The thing that gets me though is the HANDLE. Welded to the pan is a
polished handle that's almost 10 inches long.

Tubular in form, the handle is about 1.25" wide, and 0.75" thick. It's not
round...more oval in shape. The "top" and "bottom" of the handle is flat,
and the "sides" of the handle are rounded.

The handle itself is sealed at both ends. One end is welded to the pan, and
the other end is flattened with a hole cut into it for hanging.

During cooking, the handle was extremely comfortable. It didn't get hot at
all, and picking up the pan was really easy.

An added bonus was that I didn't have to worry about the pan tipping over
when I picked it up. With some pans, the handles are small and narrow, so
that the pan can twist in your hand when you pick it up (and dump the
contents as it twists). No problem here though....the pan was totally
stable as I picked it up.

I just thought it was cool...many thanks to Sheldon for recommending this
line of cookware. I've never seen cookware that was built like this.

-Dennis Spexet,