Several months ago, when I started making major dietary changes, one of the key changes I made involved replacing the frozen cheese pitas I used to eat for breakfast with boiled eggs from pasture-raised chickens. A week or two ago, I tried those cheese pitas for the first time in over a month, and I honestly couldn’t go back – they just didn’t taste very good.
But the frustrating thing has been the actual process of boiling these eggs I eat most mornings. I have a medium-sized pot that is far too large for two or even four eggs – it just takes so much longer to start boiling. I have a smaller pot that’s great for vegetables, but it’s too small for eggs, and when you do cook with it, somehow the convection pattern causes the eggs to bounce around and make little pachinko noises.
So I bought a new one for $15, and it was the perfect size. However, the lid doesn’t have a hole for venting, and you really need that when you are boiling eggs, since it puts off so much steam. There is a slight imperfection in this lid where you can twist and angle it in just the right way so steam can escape, but I decided this wasn’t precise enough and I really just wanted a lid with a steam hole. You can buy lids online separately, and they are usually cheaper this way, but it’s hit or miss if the lid will actually fit the pot. Instead, I went to the thrift store and found a pot that was the perfect size for $8. It had two notches for pouring, and had a vent hole in the lid, so problem solved, right?
Wrong. The venting works perfectly, but it does have a little bit of a food smell from whatever the previous owners used to cook in it, and while that’s very minor, the lid has a metal handle, so you need to use a potholder to take the lid off if you don’t want to burn your fingers. Ugh. Also, the lid, like the one for my medium size pot, likes to leak steam runoff onto whatever you place it on. This…is ridiculous.
Of course, this is part of why having options is so nice: you can pick out those features that mean the most to you. But it’s also tyranny, as I can’t believe how hard it is to find the perfect pot that just, simply, works. Now, to be fair, I think the lid from the $15 pot will fit on the thrift store $8 pot, and because the $8 pot has those groove for pouring, the steam can easily escape that way. Moreover, that lid has a ceramic grip, and it won’t burn me if I use my bare hands, so that could be the win-win solution. But of course, the lid doesn’t fit perfectly, so….
And this is how it is with a lot of things, unfortunately. I realized I haven’t actually gone backpacking in several years, and I feel bad about that, but my interest just kind of waned. I would like to go camp back in my favorite valley, though. But when I think about my sleeping bag, it has the perfect shoulder width but it’s about a foot too long because I bought the XL. I would love for it to not have that extra length, meaning I should probably have bought the L, but the L also decreases the width, so…what do you do? I’m average height with somewhat broad shoulders, and sometimes fall out of the ‘average’ range companies cater to. Finding perfect gear is nearly impossible without spending boatloads of money, it seems, but you really do have to figure out what works for you. (Side note: I really want to go back to Nepal, and I love that style of long-distance trekking where you stay in tea houses for the night, but I’m not sure when I will get to return. I think I like that style of ‘backpacking’ much more than packing a tent)
I want to say that before exploring a hobby and buying the greatest gear, try the cheaper gear first to learn what you’re really looking for. However, if you go too cheap, your gear might not give you an accurate experience of the hobby itself. I also think that if you want to own a house, it’s tremendously valuable to live in different houses as a renter so you learn what you want before making the big commitment to buying your own (if I ever do buy a house, I think I will stand a much better chance buying something I actually like because of my experiences, good and bad, in this house, for example).
Hopefully this “hybrid-lid” approach will work, but I’d rather not have a ton of pots and pieces of pots lying around: only one or two that just get the job done. Speaking of, I now have 3 rice makers: one very high-quality one I picked up at the thrift store for a fraction of its retail price (and brand new!), my old crappy one that I need to donate, and a $7 one with a steamer basket I also found at the thrift store. Speaking of thrift stores, I keep swinging by my local ones hoping to find another Zojirushi bread machine, as I learned that mine is from the 90s, and finding paddles for it is nearly impossible (when it isn’t unnecessarily expensive), and although it makes great bread, it’s very loud and sometimes sounds like its struggling. I’m honestly tempted to buy a new one, but they are really expensive, and the company no longer makes machines for 1.5-pound loaves, only 1- or 2-pound varieties. More decisions. Sigh.