Behind the Knife - tools, food, and the secret lives of chefs

To The Test: ManPans

—Contest now closed—

Do Not Hold In Hand

And now, the first in a new BehindTheKnife.com feature we’re calling To The Test. We do have a giveaway connected with the debut mentioned towards the end. But watch the video first, because there will be a quiz of sorts connected with the video.

First up: ManPans is a new line of cookware made from dark anodized aluminum.

Here, according to Product Director Robert Johnson, are the selling points. ManPans are:

• lightweight
• highly functional
• not pretty

Plus, you can taste the difference, since there are no residual flavors from the cookware.

As for the name ManPans, Johnson said, “We found in testing that men in particular liked the product. The cool-grip handle fits their hands well and they like the ‘high performance’ functionality. So to stake out an angle in a crowded market, we decided to call them ManPans.”

When we first threw down the challenge and asked if he minded if we blew his pans up with fireworks, he surprised us. “These are not ‘girly pans’,” he uttered in an Arnold voice. “We are the kind of company that likes to do things a little different! The pans most certainly will withstand a puny firecracker assault.”

And with that, the gauntlet was tossed.

When we saw in the product literature that ManPans were heat-safe up to 700 degrees, we were really determined to kick sand in someone’s face. Ergo the beach and the 2500-degree torch.

A couple of asides about the video:

Forgive the patchiness of the sound quality in spots. This was my first extended video period with my new Flip video cam, and I didn’t calculate for the wind. Next on my shopping list: a wireless mic so I don’t have to find a sign-language interpreter to stand next to Chip.

Plus, we were checking for law enforcement officials since on Folly Beach, where we shot the video, there’s a $500 fine for shooting fireworks.

You’ll hear me utter the word “Peckerhead” at approximately 4:00 in the video. I am referring to the chicken purse in the foreground, which is my constant companion, especially when traveling through airports, since in most situations TSA staffers typically want to wave a grown woman carrying a rubber chicken purse through security as quickly as possible.

As for the ManPans, we’re planning more assaults in the very near future, but we’d like to hear your ideas as well…

…which brings us to the BehindTheKnife Bonus:

BehindTheKnife.com Bonus

One lucky reader will win a copy of the new book I Know How To Cook, by Ginette Mathiot. This book is published by Phaidon Press, and follows in the footsteps of its previous surprise bestseller The Silver Spoon. This massive 975-page hardcover book retails for $45.00 and was just published on Columbus Day.

It’s easy to enter and only takes two steps. First, leave a comment below with your ideas about how we should challenge the ManPans in the future. Go crazy. It won’t help you win — we still pick a winner at random for all of our contests and giveaways — but if we feature your suggestion of cookware destruction in a future video, we will credit you…that is, if we haven’t already come up with it ourselves.

The second thing you have to do to qualify to win the book — which could also serve as a doorstop — is sign up for our new weekly newsletter The Blowtorch, which will contain many more giveaways that won’t be mentioned on the main BehindTheKnife.com site, so you’ll be part of the inner circle down here at the firing range….and yes, bullets are part of our future plans, at least when it comes to the ManPans. So we’re way ahead of you.

Read our standard rules. Contest ends October 21^st at 11:59 p.m.

And good luck!