Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThis
NASA's Cookware
Ed shifted tactics. He began explaining the various high-tech virtues of this brand of pot, which was called All-Clad Stainless. The name refers to a process whereby steel outer layers are bonded to an inner core of aluminum. This way, you have the benefits of stainless steel, which is pretty and durable, as well as the benefits of aluminum, which is neither but redeems itself by heating up quickly and evenly. "So you get uniform heating," said Ed learnedly.This made sense, except that we were talking about boiling water. "So, the idea is to make sure the boiling water in one-half of the pot isn't hotter than the boiling water on the other side?"
Ed was humming to himself. "I can't hear you."
Later, I read on the Web that the All-Clad "molecular bonding" process was developed by NASA. The man who answered the NASA telephone had not heard of All-Clad. His name was Bill. I asked him how the astronauts make pasta. Bill said they put the pasta pouch into a warmer. "Then they take scissors and cut it open and eat out of the package." These were my kind of people.
To make Ed feel excessive and wasteful, I told him the sum total of the cookware on board the space station is a warmer and a pair of scissors. Then I felt bad. Because what it came down to was that Ed simply wanted a decent pasta pot with a lid that fits. The one we have came without a lid. It was an All-Clad that Ed had got half price, thinking he could order a lid to fit it. And the reason he bought this half-price, lidless pot in the first place was to avoid arguing with his harpy of a wife, who is reliably, pointlessly, tediously cheap. When Ed called to order the lid, he was told they did not make a lid for this pot. "It was an experimental pot," the woman said enigmatically.
In the end, we compromised. We bought a nice, new pot with a lid that fits, and made do without the cashmere colander insert.
9 Medical Myths Busted
Video: How to Eat Healthy While Traveling
10 Great Gift Book Ideas
How to Cope With a Depressed Spouse
Joke: I was leading a tour through Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico…
Advertisement 
