Gadgets and Gizmos

Years ago, shortly after Walt and I were married, I was in a store and overheard two girls talking.  One had a little gadget in her hand.  It was this little metal thing with a little plastic box on it.   Apparently you put a chunk of cheese in the box and moved the box along the metal track across a grate that grated your cheese.  I had a cheese grater -- I still have it; I got it before we got married -- but this girl spoke so glowingly about this little box grater that I decided I couldn't live without it.

I just checked my junk drawer in the kitchen to see if I still have it, because I almost never throw anything away, but apparently I finally got rid of it.  I never used it.  Not once.  The cheese grater was my go-to thing to turn blocks of cheese into grated cheese and I never had a chunk of cheese small enough to fit into my new gadget.

But I've always been a sucker for the newest gizmo to come down the line (I thought there might be a different definition for "gadget" and "gizmo" but they are essentially the same, "a usually small mechanical or electronic device," though "gadget" adds "with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty")

What has saved me from being really bad is (a) I never watch QVC or any other selling channel, and (b) I feel guilty when I spend the money.  But I do watch infomercials and often succumb to the lures and the promises. To tell the truth, I have rarely been disappointed.

I didn't buy the "Magic Bullet" mixer, though I saw the infomercials a lot and was tempted, and then surprised when I received it as a Christmas gift from someone.  That was a gadget I used almost every day and loved.  When my mother moved to Davis and I cleaned up "all this crap" out of her house, I took her mini Cuisinart chopper, which duplicated so many of the Magic Bullet features that I finally donated the Magic Bullet to the SPCA Thrift Shop.  I sometimes miss it, but mostly am happy with the more powerful Cuisinart.

I bought something called "Heeltastic," which was a cream guaranteed to reduce callouses on the foot and I have to admit that works great.   In fact, I have found it for sale at our local CVS, which makes me very happy.

Those pedi-eggs were less successful.  Not a bust, but I used one twice and never again.

I have been torn about those Orgreenic cooking pans and was almost going to buy one until I read the reviews and learned that after the first few things you cook in it, it doesn't have the non-stick quality that I would be buying it for.

One of my favorite gadget that I bought recently is my Wonder Bag, that pillow-looking thing that will cook your dinner, without any energy source, in a few hours.  

It was designed to help women in 3rd World Countries (specifically now in South Africa) who spend most of their day cooking over open fires.  The idea is simple.  You mix ingredients, boil on the stove for about 15 minutes, then cover and place in the bag, which closes tightly.  Then just leave it until you are ready to eat -- usually about as long something would cook in a crock pot.  Everything I have made with it has turned out great and actually preferable to the crock pot.   Rice is the best, much better than my rice cooker and no sticking to the sides of the pot.  I mainly bought it because I was curious, but also because for every bag sold, another bag is given to a woman in So. Africa and I figured it was a good way to contribute and get something myself.

My latest gadget is a StoneWave.  I think I saw this on Amazon. It's a little stoneware pot with a lid that you can make one serving dishes, everything from meatloaf to chocolate mousse, and you can cook more than one in the microwave at a time.  It's small and will fit in the palm of your hand.

Actually, I thought if it really worked it would be a great way to split meals for Walt and me and cook mine with and his without onions.  After nearly 50 years, a perfect compromise!  

It came a few days ago and we've been having fun playing with it.   Walt loves poached eggs and this is an effortless poached egg without having to wrestle a raw egg into some sort of shape in a pot of boiling water.  Another dish they call an omelette, but it's really just scrambled eggs with your choice of things in it.  I've only made a cheese omelette so far, but it turned out great.

I made a dijon salmon the other night that was perfect.  I almost never cook fish so I'm pleased to add this to my repertoire.

I can think of all sorts of vegetable dishes with and without onions that I will be cooking in this little pot (which is also non-stick and dishwasher safe).   Last night I made a banana thing with rum and brown sugar, since Walt wasn't home.   It turned out fine.  I still want to try the "chocolate mousse," (which, from the pictures, I think is more a chocolate cake).  I'm searching the web for recipes designed for the StoneWave or which can be adapted and I am pleased that I succumbed to media pressure and bought my latest gizmo.

Pesky Technical Difficulties

Well, finally, it's finished.

Every time we go on a cruise, I come home and first publish my journal entries, so I have an illustrated narrative of the trip and then I sort through the photos and put together an album of the best of the photos (or the ones I like best, quality notwithstanding).  It has taken me months to get around to choosing the photos for this cruise book.

I could make this a really boring entry by telling you all the problems I encountered trying to make the book, but suffice it to say they were all of my own making and inability to figure out instructions, but required 2 on line chats with nice customer representatives named, first, Sameer and then Rakesh, who managed to help me figure out my questions.  

Part of the last problem was that I had a Groupon for a really good deal on the price and I wasn't sure how to let the order form know that, but ultimately that part I did figure out myself and my ~$50 book cost a little over $12.  It should be here in a week and a half.

After I got that sorted out, it was time to address my Audible.com problem.  I needed to find out how I could download two books I had purchased in the proper format, since the format Audible assumed I wanted was too advanced to play on my antiquated iPod.

This required a phone call to Audible and the nice man there (whose name I didn't get, but who did not speak with an Indian accent) walked me through the procedure, which was, to quote the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, so simple I should have been able to figure it out myself.  In an instant, I had my previously ordered books downloaded in the right format and the default setting changed so I don't have that problem again.

Then I ordered a new David Baldacci audio book.  With Audible, I get one free book a month, and today was the day that my account was credited with my free book.  I downloaded the book I wanted, only realized too late that I had ordered the abridged version and I didn't want the abridged version, I wanted the complete unabridged version.  So I called Audible again and the nice person this time just did it all over the phone for me.  In seconds, my first order had been deleted and the complete version was now ready for download.

About this time the two previously purchased books had downloaded and it was time to move them to my iPod, only iTunes wouldn't let me because it said that they had been purchased on two different accounts.  That prompted an e-mail to Audible, and I just got the response now, which I am going to need to contact them about because I tried what they suggested before, and it didn't work.  But I will leave that for tomorrow!

Sometimes I think I just have too damn many gadgets, but I enjoy them all so much (when they do what I want them to do!)

Tonight we went to the Sacramento Community Theater's Broadway series so I could review Rock of Ages, a musical I had zero desire to see.  It's shows like this that make me wish I had paid attention all those years when my peers were dancing to rock music while I was collecting the crooners.  Even my lively musical likes were novelty numbers like "Lollipop," or folk songs (of the Kingston Trio variety, not meaningful singers like Pete Seeger).

I still remember the first time Elvis was on TV.  I was staying with Peach and we went to her friend's house.  She was 16, I was 13.  All her friends were oohing and aahing about Elvis (they may have screamed--I don't remember), and I was sitting half in and half out of the house petting a dog, totally uninterested in the man who would become the King of Rock and Roll.

So when shows like this come around I feel woefully inadequate to give it a really comprehensive review, but I'll give it the old college try.  After fearing that I was going to end up with a headache from the noise, in the end, I liked it more than I expected to -- though admittedly that isn't saying much, since I expected to hate it.