It has been a long time since I owned a stainless skillet, so there was a bit of a learning curve. After reading several posts, I decided to season the pan with a high temperature oil. The process went very well, but the first time I subsequently used it, I wanted to make sure it was hot enough. Unfortunately, instead of contact device, or a few drops of water, I used a non-contact pyrometer, and neglected to take into account the low emmissivity of SS (which is about 0.09), so I burned the chicken breasts. Just a word of caution: if you decide to use a non-contacting temp device, add oil before you take the measurement, since oil has an emmissivity of about 0.95, which is the default for most of these instruments. Other than that, the skillet provides very even heat and is a joy to use