I will be writing about the food that I am planning to pack in a later post, but for now suffice it to say that my planned menu for the trip requires heat and a surface in order to pull it off. The heat I will also address in a later post, mainly because I don’t know what the hell I am going to do about making heat yet. So for this post it’s basically just the surface that I will be talking about. Nothing noteworthy, in fact, you might just want to stop reading now because its all downhill from here. Really, I am serious, the rest of this post is just pulp because I promised myself a post a day.
Many of you may not know that Texsport makes authentic adventure gear. Well its true – it says it right on the box. ”Texsport – Authentic Adventure Gear”. In fact, this phrase is copyrighted by Texsport, so that makes it both authentic and unique. Well Texsport, having the monopoly that it does on adventure gear, makes a stainless steel cook set for backpackers. Like most compact cook sets, each piece includes two metal wings that are stored folded in against the side of the pan and which can be pulled out to form a handle. In addition, all items in the set can be stacked tightly one inside the other and stored in a small blue polyester bag for transportation.
So what does this set include? A side note here, the set is called a “backpackers stainless steel cook set” but it really should be called ”backpacker’s stainless steel cook set” (for non-English majors the difference is in placement of the apostrophe – look Dad, college finally paid off…). This set is truly only large enough to feed one person, and a quite small individual at that. Which means I really need to loose weight, and this cook set will help me get there.
Here’s what the set includes:
- 5 1/2″ fry pan (room enough for one veggie burger or three white mushrooms)
- 20 oz. pot with lid (this will be my bowl)
- 24 oz. pot with lid (big enough to make oatmeal or soup for one)
- 8 oz. piece of trash with handle
- nylon pouch
What differentiates this set from the others that I looked at was that it did not use teflon, was very compact, and cost about 3/4 less than similar sets. Of course quality was the major sacrifice – the wing handles are flimsy, one of the pots came dented, and the 8 oz. cup is the very definition of cheap. But it’ll do Charlie, it’ll do.