Category Archives: food

Kitchen Gadgets

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I enjoy kitchen gadgets and have several friends that do as well.

Lori just got a ‘newish’ coffee maker with a bunch of buttons:
http://chikblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/i-am-trying-out-my-new-coffee-maker.html

Some of us spend a lot money on fancy kitchen things, and then people like me get them from the thrift store.

I still am sad about the death of my four dollar thrift store electric iced tea maker. It met its untimely demise when it was plunged from the top of the refrigerator where many things lived due to having a very, very tiny kitchen.

RIP iced tea maker. Maybe I’ll find you reincarnated in a thrift store some day, and I shall again enjoy your iced lazy beverage.

Because I refuse to spend a lot on my kitchen gadget habit, some kitchen gadget friends can’t even cook in my kitchen. How do I get by without a fancy peeling device? Where is my flour sifter? (It’s in the studio being used to sift ceramic material… you don’t want to use it for flour). I didn’t have a garlic press for the longest time.

I like the gadgets because I find them fun much more than I find them a necessity. I got a very nice food processor this past Christmas, but before that I was more than content to use my blender or just chop finely in times where I did not have one.

If I could have a very expensive kitchen, I’d probably have one, but I really don’t mind using what I have.

I have a kitchen gadget friend who doesn’t have a lot of money but has always found money to spend on Stuff. For her, Stuff makes her happy, so much that I feel like I should capitalize it. Kitchen Stuff is one such category of happiness. She has a small toy car you can place garlic into to be chopped. There are rice molds to put sticky rice into fun shapes. A very tiny frying pan is a perfect size to cook a single egg in it.

I guess the flower carrot cutter does make the dish look like it came from a restaurant. A julienne machine certainly speeds up the cutting and likelihood of losing a finger, but a knife suits me fine.

She has a bamboo cutting board shaped like a fish, and I have a wooden one shaped like a cutting board. The only reason I own a bento box is because she gave me one out of her bag-full.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re fun toys, but they’re toys and I don’t need them in my kitchen to cook or bake to my heart’s content and enjoy the food produced. The basic tool gets the job done.

…however I do hope to plug in an iced tea maker again some day.

Brits Eat..?

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spotted dick in a can
My original thought was that I needed to come up with something in honor of Gary Gygax now that he has passed on to that campaign setting in the sky. This may still happen after I’ve finally come to accept its truth. Until then, I’ve made some startling discovery at what our friends the British apparently eat.

As a disclaimer, yeah, McDonalds is from over here and it’s gross. I’m sure there are other nasty things that make it out of our borders that I don’t eat, like Jello. As far as I’m concerned, none of it comes even remotely close to what I have discovered…

1. Spotted Dick: This is one I’d actually heard of. What I didn’t know is that it comes in a can. Also horrifying is that on this can it says you can microwave it. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, because last I checked metal cans and microwaves don’t mix. I knew this, but didn’t know the extent of it until my little sister blew up the microwave trying to make Jello one day.

I have not tried spotted dick, but one of my friends has (see photographic evidence). Let’s see what she has to say on the matter:
eating spotted dick

“It’s as good as can be expected considering it’s cake from a can cooked in boiled water…”

I think that’s as good a review as we’re going to get.

2. Mr. Brain’s 4 Pork Faggots in a Rich West Country Sauce: I barely know where to begin. I am trying to figure out what about this meal is a faggot. I am searching my definitions… homosexual man? No. Bundle of sticks? Nope. Measuring those bundles of sticks? No again. Cigarette? Uh-uh. All right… I’m just going to have to assume that one of these weird meatballs is also known as a faggot.

Pork Faggots

My next question is what is so west about this sauce. The spotted dick friend tells me: “…the West Country (where my Brit ancestors originally hailed from) is a region of England.” This is good to know, but it tells me little about the sauce. Another friend who tried the ‘faggots’ recalled the experience like a horror story. She had this to say on the matter:

“I shudder to remember. This was back when I was eating meat, but no amount of creepy processed fast-food spaaaaaaaaaace meat could have prepared me for this. Pork faggots are basically these meat balls made not out of what we would typically define as “meat”, but instead is ground up pig’s liver and possibly some other organs covered in some disgusting gravy. Ugggh!”

So far, spotted dick in a can is better than microwavable Mr. Brain’s pork faggots.

Toad in the Hole
3. Toad In The Hole: So… you put sausages in “Yorkshire pudding” batter and bake ’em. Now I’m out of willing candidates to try these things, but my spotted dick friend did have this to say:

“Oh, SHIT, Toad in the Hole? That looks terrible. TERRIBLE.”

Brits need to stop taking their sausages and putting them in everything! …

…!

…we’ve already mentioned spotted dick, so I’m sure that couldn’t have sounded much worse.

Also on the subject of Brits and sausage…

4. Black Pudding: It’s sausage made with congealed blood. Brits like sausage apparently, and need variations.

5. Brawn apparently is a sausage form of head cheese. This has nothing to do with cheese, but everything to do with a head of a calf, pig, or sheep. It also can contain meat from the feet or heart. It’s even eaten cold. At least then we won’t smell it if someone reheats it. Thank heavens for small favors. I am not posting a picture as I’m afraid to try and find one.

Alright. This is about as much on the subject I can look into right now. If any Brits are out there reading this, we could use some insight into your cuisine. I for one, don’t get it. This is coming from someone who loves sushi, so I’m thinking the average American would be even more lost.

I guess my biggest questions are, do you actually eat this stuff, eat it often, and like it? …or is this just food propaganda that makes it across the borders to frighten us? I mean, there’s fish and chips, and that’s great.

Inquiring minds in the U.S. want to know!