This photo shows a black stovetop with a bell-shaped silver pan on top.

Handle This: New Pots and Pans

This photo shows a black stovetop with a bell-shaped silver pan on top.

If my pots and pans were cats, they’d be on their ninth life, their handles/tails dangling curiously close to hot, boiling danger. Still, I figured those pots and pans would have a little more life left in them—one more roll in the catnip, perhaps—but Nate disagreed. One day, while I was lifting a pot of noodles from the stove to dump it over the strainer in the sink, Nate’s eyes grew wide—and he sucked in his breath and gripped his chair, as if I were driving.

“Hey, I think that handle’s on its last leg,” he said. He feared it would just break off—the equivalent of a cat coughing up a hairball, but much more life-threatening.

The pots and pans we had before were cheap. So, off to the store we went to upgrade, just a bit—and the entire set we bought is wonderfully weird—just how I like everything to be.

It’s not really that weird, but the pot that I normally use to boil noodles, soup, or cook rice in is now shaped like . . . a bell. When I first put it on the stove, I wondered how all the food would fit inside, but it does. And everything cooks well—usually. The rice I made last night was still crunchy, which hasn’t happened before in that pot—but, hey. Don’t blame the cat when the owner’s at Betty’s house, throwing cake at the wall. Whatever that means—which means I just made it up, but feel free to use it whenever you think there might be an occasion to do so. Example: Boss at work: Hey! Where’s that expense report I told you to write? You: Don’t blame the cat when the owner’s at Betty’s house, throwing cake at the wall. (Accentuate with finger snaps.)

In any case, the pots and pans are much heavier to lift, but I guess that means their tails won’t fall off any time soon. And maybe, just maybe, my days of throwing cake at Betty’s house are over. (But don’t count on it. Betty’s a hoot.)

Your Turn: What kitchen appliance of yours has lasted the longest?

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Published by ckennedy

Author of the DIY blog: Fixin' Leaks and Leeks. Paper/Rock Writing Consultation, Sole Proprietor.

27 thoughts on “Handle This: New Pots and Pans”

  3. When my daughter was about two, she’s now 42, I bought a Delia Smith cookery book ( she used to be on television ) and she told me to buy a good solid aluminium saucepan with a tight fitting lid to cook the brown rice in the way she suggested. I’m still using it and her recipes. Non stick lightweight pans have been and gone since then.

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  7. I’ve moved so many times in the past decades that things tend to get thrown out. However, I do have a French press coffee maker that I can’t stand to part with, even though I rarely use it. It’s a memory thing, I suppose…

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  10. I guess my mixer lasted a little more than 25 years, other gadgets I’ve had to change when we shifted home.

    But I don’t think many would be able to beat my record when it comes to vessels – I have a heavy round steel ‘dabba’ (box) with a lid which my mother’s grandfather gave her when she was around 10! She will celebrate her 88th birthday this year. I have a few more – lids, ladles, spoons, all very old, not often used, but stuck firmly in the heart.

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