"This little something is what could save millions of lives from waterborne diseases after the tsunami," says the painter and sculptor. She is speaking of the cardboard planes of the solar cooker, which she finds visually appealing. She unfolds the silvery wedges of her cooker like an origami puzzle, very carefully. Only this is simpler than any origami puzzle. "It's like a kid's toy," she marvels, "and yet it can pasteurize water. It can cook without wood. It's low-tech." Mary has unfolded the solar cooker on the ledge of her New York loft's south-facing windows, on the porch of her home in Woodstock, New York - practically any place she could get a few people together and demonstrate. She's a cook's activist and an activist's cook.