Ciao dear friends and blessings on your day,

This beautiful item is the handle of a new (used!) frying pan, which I recently purchased in the Usatopolis thrift store in Telese Terme.... Like many secondhand objects that arrive in such stores, this had a couple of issues, which I had to resolve before using.

There was a gluey mark on the inside - it took extreme scrubbing, soaking in aqua raggia, and a acraper, before it (mostly!) was removed. In the middle of these processes, I doubted that it was worth the €6 I'd invested - which is quite a chunk out of my monthly budget!

But my instinct that this was a perfect pan was correct! It's a proper skillet, without any of these horrible layers of 'non-stick' which have a short working life and eventually end up in our digestive system... This is a lifelong pan, which naturally doesn't allow things to stick - the kind of kitchen item I've needed for years.

Then there was the handle: first time using, it was obviously not practical, as it overheated almost immediately and would cause burns if grasped - but my trusty rope and string collection had this great stuff in the photo, which I can buy in my local general store for not much more than €1... Wrapping it around in two layers, and tying it firmly as in the first photo at the top of the post - it was ready for happy-hands action.

This is all such a firm reminder to me that, even with the lowest of incomes, it really pays off in the long-term to invest in the right equipment; to be patient and wait for tge right things to turn up, and to be willing to work on them if necessary.

I'll never go back to buying a cheaper pan, especially for frying things: only natural surfaces which compliment natural cooking!

Many blessings on all your fixing, recycling and domestic alchemy!

Clare.