My new car was awaiting me in the showroom.

That’s me with Bernard (accent on the second syllable, please, as he’s originally from France) in front of the new are. It’s Bernard who managed to convince me to make the changeover, only 12 days ago. I had taken my car to Lexus of Brighton for its annual service. When I returned in the early afternoon to collect my car after its service, I wandered over to the showroom to see the latest IS250 model. I said I was “just looking” but Bernard explained to me how I could upgrade to the latest IS250 for a relatively modest cost (far less than I expected).

The thing is that 2006 there were only 3 Lexus IS250 models, and the top model Sports Luxury was the only model with the features I most wanted – satnav, reversing camera with parking guides for all types of parking, and front and rear parking sensors. So I had to buy the Sports Luxury to get those features. It did of course come with a wealth of other luxury features, but of en help you get from A to B. In 2010 the base Prestige model can be optioned up with various packages (EMV). I chose the EMV pack with the satnav, reversing camera and parking guides for all types of parking, and front and rear parking sensors.

Bernard and me. The lovely Jessica, the delivery co-ordinator, took the above photos with my Canon 5D MkII and L series 24-105mm lens.

Bernard took the photo above.  He chose an interesting angle to take the photo, which I like.

I’m trying to help Bernard create his own blog site, as he has many more interesting things to write about than I do.

For the record, part of  the delivery process included spending time with Mary who looks after the finance process (bank cheque in my case) and she arranged the car changeover to my motor car insurance.   I get a $148 refund from AAMI.

Then, young Josh spent about an hour with me explaining all the features of my new car, the differences between the new car and my previous car.

Finally, I was presented with a huge bouquet of flowers, and a bottle of Box Stallion 2008 Red Bar Pinot Noir.  So tonight I’m drinking the  bottle of Box Stallion 2003 The Enclosure Pinot Noir than I was presented with when I took delivery of my 2006 Lexus IS250.

You might be getting the message that owning a Lexus is an experience.  I now have another four years of Encore Privileges - theatre tickets, valet parking at the Arts Centre, sports events, dining events, magazine, free loan car when my car is serviced, and a monthly car detailing inside and out, by appointment. And I won’t have to pay for a car service until June 2012.

Now for some photos of the car taken next day – 30 June 2010.

The turn indicator lights on the side of the car near the front have now been moved to the door mirror housings.

At first glance the tail lamp assembly looks the same as the 2006 car, because it has the same overall outline, but in fact it’s a completely new assembly.

The interior colours are very different to those of my previous car, and the materials used are different to those in the Sport Luxury. Not a sign of polished wood veneer in the Prestige EMV.

The rear view camera has higher resolution. The parking guides shown above are for reverse parking into a kerb parking space. There is a choice of other parking guides for different situations. Some show where your car will end up based on your current position and the way you are turning the wheel, and will also show if your car will fit in the space.

This shows the satnav screen in night conditions, with a black screen background to make it easier to view at night. In daylight hours it has a white screen background suitable for daylight viewing.

I was thrilled with the car, but also very nervous about driving it. Here’s a photo of the interior – which is the same as the car I took for a test drive. I’ve really liked the interior colours in the 4 years since I took delivery of the car.

I hope you can see why I liked it so much.

I’ll finish off with a photo of the driver’s door.

I’ve never been good at reverse parking, and sadly, over the past 4 years, the alloy wheels on the passenger side (the side next to the kerb) have suffered some scrapes which happened while I was trying to get used to the rear camera parking guides.  The dashboard has had an infrequent rattle over the past two years which I didn’t report until my last service, 10 days ago.  It will take two days to fix, as the dashboard has to be removed to fit new clips.

The 4 year warranty will expire next month, as will the Lexus Encore Privileges.

Time to upgrade?

It might seem a little odd, or at least conflicting, that I’m writing about the new iPhone apps I bought last Saturday night, on my blog pages, when I have a page dedicated to iPhone apps on my home website.  The difference is that in my blog posts I mostly write about current or recent happenings and thoughts, such as the purchase of two new iPhone apps a few days ago.  By contrast, in the iPhone Apps page on my home website, I’ve mostly written about apps after I’ve used them for many months and find them invaluable, or especially interesting (such as the Remote control for iTunes on the computer).

The thumbnail image for this post is a scan of the front cover of the Mark Bittman book “How to Cook Everything” which I’ve had since it was first published in 1998.  It’s a big book – 944 pages.

Mark Bittman is a columnist for The New York Times who writes under the heading of “The Minimalist.”  You can read about him on his blog at http://markbittman.com.

In the past year or so when I’ve seen his book on the shelves at Borders and other bookshops I’d noticed that the cover was now red instead of yellow, but I didn’t pay any attention to it.

Well, not until last Saturday night, when I discovered that the Mark Bittman book is available as an app on the iPhone.

It’s not the yellow cover book that I bought in 1998.  It’s the 2008 completely revised 10th Anniversary 2nd edition, with a red cover – and 1056 pages.  There are whole chapters of the 1998 book that are not in the 2008 book – such as the chapter about Beverages and other drinks.

You can read more about Mark Bittman at the New York Times website at

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/mark_bittman/index.html

* trying recipes

* app features such as search, filters and shopping list

The iPhone app is great and a delight to use, and it has features that the books can’t have, such as searches with filtering, and a built-in timer in the recipes.  When the recipe calls for you to heat the frypan for one minute, you click on the time in the recipe,  and up comes a timer set for 1 minute.  The timer alarm sound is worth the price of admission.  A very useful feature is that if you’d like to cook a recipe that sounds tempting, you can click on an icon to add its ingredients to a shopping list.

So far I’ve tried three recipes.  One was for fried eggs, which I’ve been cooking for 45 years, but Mark Bittman’s way of doing it was different to the way I’ve always fried eggs in the past.  It’s such a simple dish, and I’ve always loved bacon and eggs for breakfast since I was a child (when Mum did the cooking).  But in my retirement I’ve only cooked bacon and eggs a few times a year because it has always given me indigestion for a few hours and has tended to ruin my day.  I always vow never to have it again for breakfast, but months later I forget the discomfort and try it again.  Perhaps it’s the way I’ve fried the eggs, so I’ll try it again one day using the Mark Bittman method, as the result of my first trial was very pleasing and tasty.

The second iPhone app I bought last Saturday was Things.  It’s a task manager with a difference.  It’s also a project manager, in which your tasks can be broken down into all the steps needed to implement the project.  Things is the iPhone app of the week on the iTunes App Store this week.  However, it’s the type of app where I wouldn’t post a review until I’ve been using it for many months to see if I’ve found it genuinely useful – or whether I don’t bother looking at it and have, in effect, I’ve stopped using it.  For example, MS Outlook has a To Do list section which I entered all my task into last year – and this week was the first time this year that I looked at it.

Tonight I used my Kuhn Rikon  frypan pressure cooker to cook rice in 4 minutes, and then use it to cook stir fry beef and vegetables.  It’s so convenient and time saving.  It reminds me that one day I must write a blog post about pressure cooking.  Perhaps I should make a note about it in Things.  

This evening I cooked a 926gm piece of Virginia beef in my Kuhn Rikon frypan pressure cooker on top of the gas stove.  This is the first time since last October that I’ve cooked beef in the pressure cooker on my gas stove-top.  I’ve been using the Breville Ikon Induction Cooker during the past seven months when I’ve used the pressure cooker.  At other times I’ve used the microwave oven.

I made a number of observations.  The Breville portable induction hob brought the pressure cooker up to full pressure much quicker than the gas stove.  Perhaps less than half the time.   But I’m only talking about bringing 250 ml (1 cup) of water to the boil, so it’s only 3 minutes instead of 6 minutes sort of thing.  Not a huge deal.

Once the pressure cooker was up to the desired high pressure (15 psi), it was much easier to keep it close to that level with the gas stove, than with the Breville.  This is almost certainly due to the fact that the gas stove has very gradual adjustments to the burners, whereas the Breville can only be adjusted in 20C steps.  The gas stove burners can also go much lower in temperature than the Breville.

One thing I noted when bringing the pressure cooker to high pressure or bringing a saucepan to the boil to make soup on the gas stove, as compared to doing it on the Breville induction cooker is simply this:

On an induction cooker you can apply full power at any time, when desired, to the utensil.  But on a gas stove, the maximum burner power should be confined so that the flames do not extend beyond the base of the utensil.

So after all this time and experiment with gas and induction, what is my preferred way of cooking 600gm-1500 gm pieces of beef or corned beef?

The answer, without any doubt at all, is microwave.  I have a Panasonic microwave inverter oven, and it cooks the  beef or corned beef just as well, without any of the hassle.  I just put the beef in an oven bag with 250 ml of liquid (and herbs etc), and place it inside a Corningware casserole dish with glass lid.  Cooking times are much the same – but the microwave requires a 5 minutes at full power start, and then the cooking time is the same, but in the microwave at only 30% power.

With the microwave, there is no washing up afterwards.  The beef was in an oven bag with a rubber ring etc to close the end enough so that only steam escapes in the cooking process.  The casserole dish only has pure water in it.  A quick rinse and dry is all that is needed for the dish and lid.

The thumbnail and photo above for this post are of the Falcon gas stove range – an expensive range.  These beautiful stoves are descendant’s of the AGA that we had in our home at Mount Gambier in my youth.  The AGA was like no other – it had stove top hubs and ovens that were working 24/7 to use the modern phrase that was unheard of when we had an AGA.

In 2010, the AGA has a feeling of romance for me, of wonderful old times.  But in reality it was hard work (topping it up it daily with coke from our coke house) to keep it going.  If the fire went out, it took 12 hours to come up to heat again, and the heat depended on the day and whether there was wind.  It was a great relief for my Mother – the cook – when my parents visited an exhibition one night and as a result my Father switched to a wonderful gas stove with gas cylinders.

On Wednesday (two days ago) it was seven months since I bought my portable Breville Ikon Induction Cooker (model BC200). Since the day I bought it the Breville has sat on a cutting board on top of my gas stove-top and I have used it exclusively for stove-top cooking for those seven months. That’s been a good trial, so on Wednesday I removed the Breville and put it away.

Since then I’ve cooked with my 27 year old gas stove. It’s too horrible to show you a photo of it. But I have to say that returning to cooking on the gas stove-top gave me a warm feeling. It felt as though I was returning home after being away for a long time. And it was great to be able to once again use my favourite pan of all time – an Anolon Advanced 26cm Covered Chef’s Pan (3.8L) - an aluminium pan, which of.cannot be used on an induction cook-top.

The pan has heavy gauge, hard-anodized aluminium construction which provides fast and even heat distribution and is claimed to be twice as strong as steel durability.

What I like is the non-stick surface (inside and out), the glass lid, and the shape of the pan which has high sides with a gentle curve into the base which makes it great for stir frying, sautéing and pan frying.  I also use it for cooking pasta, then draining the pasta and continuing to use the pan to cook the rest of the dish – adding back the pasta  if desired.  It’s a very versatile pan.

On Thursday I went to the big Harvey Norman store at Chadstone and had a look at the gas cook-tops they had on display.  I definitely like the induction cookers, but I’m a little concerned at having my cooking 100% dependent on electricity, and in saying that I mean not only oven and stove-top, but also my electrical appliances.  I’m not sure if my electrical circuits could handle it all safely, plus air-conditioning in summer.  That’s when we start hearing news reports that the electrical grid is overloaded and many suburbs suffer power failures.

Cooking with a gas stove-top gives backup in case of electricity failure, and of course my electrical appliances give backup in case of gas failure.  Also, one of the advantages of staying with gas is not only the wider ranger of utensils that can be used, but also that my kitchen already has the gas connections for the stove-top.  There would be no disruption as would be involved in installing new electrical circuitry, with a higher power level, from the stove back to the power junction box on my front porch.

At this stage I’m undecided which way I’ll go if I replace my stove-top with a new one.  Induction stove-tops are so easy to clean and that is a big consideration for me, but gas has a certain visceral appeal for me – an emotional rather than intellectual appeal.

The following photo shows another admired Italian – the beautiful 2010 Maserati Quattroporte.  I find it more exciting than a Ferrari.

I have many reasons to want to see how much of the Italian language I can pick up this year.  But early last week it crossed my mind that as we grow closer to the half year mark, I haven’t made all that much progress.  I forget most of the words I learn about an hour after learning them (not just the Italian word, but even the English word that I’ve forgotten the Italian word for).  I can’t yet construct even a simple sentence in Italian.  And I’m still struggling with the basic pronunciation of Italian words because of the inconsistent explanations in all the sources at my disposal.

This week I went into the city CBD for the first time this year, and as fate would have it, twice.  I took this opportunity to visit the Foreign Language Bookshop in Collins Street where I became interested in two books on my first visit.  I ended up buying them on my second visit, after researching their reviews on Amazon.

It did cross my mind that I already had enough books and iPhone apps about learning Italian, and I didn’t need any more.   But these two books each had a different “teach yourself” approach that appealed to me.

As I mentioned above, my main concern has always been pronunciation, as I’ve noticed many variations in my different books when it comes to vowels.  And quite often the words spoken by supposedly native Italian speakers in my iPhone apps have confused me even more.

One of the new books explains where your tongue should be when pronouncing vowels and consonants.  That’s taken me back to primary school days when one of the subjects was English.

The other book talks about language similarities on page 1, and in doing so, it struck a chord with me for the first time, when I realised that there is often a pattern between English and Italian words that would help me understand the Italian words in print (but not in speech, as the pronunciation is greatly differently).

These patterns are helping me to remember many words, such as the Italian for “slowly” which I first learned in January.  I’ve tried to recall it many times over the past four months (to use in the phrase “please speak slowly”).  I’ve looked it up every time, but I’ve never been able to remember it afterwards, even at the beginning of last week.  But now I’ll remember it always, as I’ve known the Italian for “slow” since the age of eight in my pianoforte and music studies.  Lento.

The pattern to turn the adjective “slow” into the adverb “slowly” is to add “mente” to the end of the Italian word.  Lento becomes Lentamente.  The o changes to an a,  but that doesn’t matter as it reminds me of the actual word.

Correct pronunciation of Italian remains my greatest stumbling block, as I want to get this sorted out before I proceed further.  But in the past few days I’ve now begun to wonder if this is really as far as I want to go.  I get a great kick out of my new found ability to pronounce all Italian words reasonably well, even if I have no idea what they mean.

I’ll be very surprised if I’m ever able to speak or understand spoken Italian, but I’ve totally enjoyed my studies so far.  However, I’m currently thinking that my real interest is not in learning Italian to be able to converse in Italian, but to get an understanding of another language.  I’ve found that this fascinates me.

So, I’m now thinking of doing some basic German and French studies to get a bit of an inkling into those languages and their pronunciation.  I’d like to be able to pronounce German and French words better than I can now.

I’ve seen a book on Amazon about French pronunciation that I’ll keep a lookout for in local bookshops, as it goes very deeply into pronunciation, which I expect applies to all languages.  It explains the complexities of pronunciation whereby the mouth and tongue change shape and position for, say,  c or k, which have the same sound, in expectation of what follows in say, cool and keel.

This send me looking up barista in English dictionaries.  The big Shorter Oxford defines it as someone who serves coffee.   The big American Heritage does not list the word.  The Australian Oxford defines it as someone who makes coffee (especially espresso) professionally.

The 20 volume OED (Oxford English Dictionary) has the following entry:

barista, n.
Brit. /ba“ri;st@/, /b@“rIst@/, U.S. /bA“rist@/, /b@“rIst@/  Plural baristas, (rare) bariste, (irreg.) baristes.  [< Italian barìsta (plural barìste; 1939–40) < bar (see bar n.¹ 28a) + -ista -ist.]

A bartender in an Italian or Italian-style bar. Also spec. (orig. U.S.): a person who makes and serves coffee in a coffee bar (the more frequent sense in English).
In spec. sense, a proprietary name in the United Kingdom.

1982 P. Hofman Rome, Sweet Tempestuous Life 24 A good barista can simultaneously keep an eye on the coffee oozing from the espresso machine into a battery of cups, pour vermouth and bitters+and discuss the miserable showing of the Lazio soccer team. 1988 Boston Globe (Nexis) 13 Dec. 61 A feisty but cordial competitor to the larger caffeine chains the [Boston Coffee] Exchange has unfurled a help-wanted poster titled ‘Learn to be a coffee barista’. 1990 Atlantic Nov. 157/2 This ritual unites all the baristas in Italy. But not everyone accomplishes the layer of light-colored crema, or foam, that is the pride of an expert espresso-maker. 1999 Dominion (Wellington, N.Z.) (Nexis) 24 Feb. (Business section) 24 New bariste undertake an intensive training programme which covers the philosophy, history, and science of coffee, and the psychology of service. 2001 Times 7 Mar. ii. 5/1 The key to a good espresso lies in the barista+and whether he or she cares enough to do it right.

But take a closer look.  The main author is Julia Child but the co-authors are different in the two books.

The red book is Volume 1 which was first published in 1961.

The blue book is Volume 2 which was first published in 1970.

I bought both books in a set from David Jones at Chadstone at a cheaper price than Borders.

I also bought the DVD of the movie Julie & Julia starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child.

I’ve long wanted to see this movie since I first heard of it, as I have a keen interest in cooking.  But I’ve never had any interest in Julia Child’s cookbooks until now.

Last week I watched the DVD movie Julie & Julia and apart from the story and the food, I wondered if the way Meryl Streep spoke was camping it up or playing a caricature of Julia Child.  But I’ve now seen the late Julia Child on YouTube and the following video answers that question.

The AWW Cooking School says that you should equip yourself with the right pan for cooking an omelette  if you don’t want the result to resemble a dish of scrambled eggs (which my omelettes have in recent years).  That advice and the above video caused me to buy a new omelette pan as my previous pan only had a 5 inch base and it was not smooth (a Circulon pan) to allow the egg mixture to slide in the pan.  My new Analon pan, with a copper/stainless steel/aluminium bottom has the 7 1/2 inch flat base recommended by Julia Child.

Yes, the larger pan makes for a different cooking experience because much more of the egg mixture comes into contact with the pan straight away to start cooking.  But I wouldn’t shake the pan on top of the stove like Julia does, as it’s like scraping a fingernail on a blackboard for me, and not good for the pan or the induction cooker surface.  I lift my pan off the cooktop when I shake it.  This of course causes the induction cooker to start beeping as there is nothing on it which it can cause to heat.  In this respect a gas stovetop would be better as it the flames would still heat the pan.  But in any event, I prefer the method of tilting the pan and pulling the egg mixture back during the cooking process to allow the runny mixture to run down onto the bare pan surface.

This video will show you why induction cooking impresses me, and is still on the wish list for my kitchen. The second half of the video shows a new item for my kitchen wish list which half impresses and half frightens me.

If you had these appliances fitted you’d want to be sure that the electrician knows what he’s doing – unlike the ceiling insulation installers that drew a lot of adverse publicity this year, because of problems with some insulation being in contact with electrical wiring – causing house fires. I’d expect the dangers from poorly fitted insulation would not be in the same league as the danger from these high powered electrical appliances if the wiring was not done properly.

But enough of that concern. Watch and enjoy. Pause the video once you start it, to give it a few minutes to download so that you can watch it as it was intended to be seen. You can pass the waiting time however it suits you, or right click on links to open them in new tabs or windows and check them out to pass the time.

Of course, your computer and Internet link might play the video smoothly all the way through without pausing the video to give it time to download the file.

Update: 30 March 2010

The following video demonstrates the Fagor portable induction cooker (as seen in the “thumbnail” image for this post. The demo seems to indicate that the Fagor portable induction cooker can get down to the really low setting needed to melt chocolate without a double boiler or whatever it is that is needed. If this is true, I’d buy the Fagor as soon as I could, if it were available in Australia.

It’s not that I want to melt chocolate, it’s that my Breville ikon portable induction cooker’s lowest heat setting is too high to allow me to maintain a constant pressure level with my Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker. I have to turn the Breville off several times during a 30 minute cooking to stop the pressure rising too high. it’s such a pain that I’ve reverted to using the microwave to cook my beef and corned beef.

Near the end of the above video, please note the Fagor pressure cooker sitting on the Fagor portable induction cooker.  Choice magazine Australia, and some overseas surveys have rated the Fagor as best buy pressure cooker.

I don’t have one so I can’t comment.  But they are certainly great value and very impressive.

You’re not into pressure cooking?  Well, you don’t know what you’re missing, and you could be living in the past as far as your concept of pressure cookers goes.

In my opinion, the reality is, and Fagor knows this, that modern pressure cookers and induction stovetops were made for each other.

I’ll be making post in the future to show why I believe this.  For example, tonight I cooked perfect rice in 4 minutes.

It wasn’t very interesting so I decided to have a look at the motoring section.  I was instantly fascinated by the content.

MILANO – L’annuncio è allettante: vendesi Jaguar Daimler Majestic V8 praticamente nuova (22.500 chilometri accertati), unico proprietario, condizioni perfette (a parte qualche pelo di corgi sui tappetini posteriori), color verde patriottico e full optional (compreso bracciolo personalizzato per la borsetta, console speciale per il controllo dei fanali, luce di emergenza blu e linea telefonica diretta con Downing Street e Ministero degli Interni, oggi non più funzionante). Certo, il prezzo di listino non è proprio abbordabilissimo: quasi 73mila euro. Ma, del resto, la macchina in questione non è una semplice berlina extralusso, bensì l’auto privata della Regina Elisabetta, usata dalla sovrana fra il 2001 e il 2004 più che altro nei dintorni del castello di Windsor e per fare la spola con Buckingham Palace. Da qui, i pochissimi chilometri percorsi e le condizioni immacolate, peli di cane a parte.

I’m sure you can work out what much of this means yourself.  One of the delights of Italian is that so many words are so close to our own.  The Italian news report lead me to the following:

and the video.  Note the selector for 360p, 480p and 720p (HD).

If you want to read more, or place a bid, go to hmthequeensdaimler.com

Sometimes, of course, the Queen travels by horse and cart (so to speak):

As usual with embedded YouTube videos, if you click on the video you can see it full size on the YouTube site.

I’ve seen this audio set at Borders for the past two months but have resisted buying it.  I finally decided that it would be helpful.  I half expected that the CD set I’ve seen at Borders for two months, would’ve been sold since my last visit.  But instead, the set was almost everywhere I looked.  Borders had a Dummies promotion going on.

What surprised me was that Italian for Dummies (a normal size Dummies book) was in stock for the first time this year.  I pounced on it.  It comes with one audio CD.

I’ve only been studying the book for three days, and only in small doses, but I’m very impressed with it’s totally different way of explaining pronunciation.

This has led me to a better and more confident way of pronouncing Italian words.

To follow up on my last post, a typical problem I’ve had is how to pronounce the word “giorno.”

The Complete Idiot’s book says that all vowels in Italian are pronounced, but are slid together in the case of dipthongs (two vowels slid together to form one sound. So technically, giorno is pronounced jee-ohr-noh.  But the jee-ohr part should slide together quickly to form johr.  Hence,  johr-noh with a rolled r.

The Dummies book explains this in a totally different way.  It states that an e or i after a g indicates the g should be pronounced the same as j in jam, instead of  the usual g as in get.  Where the Dummies book differs is that it says that to obtain the “j” sound before a,o or u you have to insert an i.  But it then goes on to say, and this is the big difference, that the i serves only to indicate the proper sound of the g, and you do not pronounce it.  Hence giorno is pronounceed johr-noh (and not jee-ohr-noh).

So in words with “ge” or “gi” the g is pronounced with the “j” sound.  To get the “g” sound (as in get) when the g is before an e or i, you insert an h.  And of course h is not pronounced in Italian.  And so we have “spaghetti.”

It’s interesting, but this totally different way of explaining the pronunciation has made it a lot clearer for me.  Instead of trying to remember lots of rules, I’ve now got a different way of looking at it and understanding it.

However, I’m still having trouble with the pronunciation of o.  The Dummies book says it’s o as in piano (which they write as oh as a guide) and leaves it at that.  An example – espresso.   But I know from listening to Italian there are two ways of pronouncing the vowel, often in the same word.  An example – giorno!

You might by now be thinking that I’ve been learning Italian for almost three months and still haven’t got past buon giorno.  That’s quite true.  But it’s just an example of the some of the confusion in my mind from the different books and sources I’ve been using.  I’d like to get it sorted out in my mind.  At this stage I’m interested to learn whether the books are either wrong in places, or different people have different ways of hearing sounds,or whether the books are dumbing it down for beginners, or even just to make it easier for the authors.

The reality is that I can say buon giorno (as no doubt can you) well enough to be understood by any Italian.  But I’ve noticed the differences between books and travel guides, and I’ve perhaps become more interested in the linguistics side of it than in actually learning Italian itself.

As an example, how would you set out how to pronounce the word “question.”

In fact, ask yourself how you pronounce it.  kwes-tee-on?  kwest-chee-on?  kwest-chon?  kwest-shun? or some other way.

I’ve looked it up in the OED and it says kwestjun.  Well sort of. The u is shown in the OED as an upside and back to front e.  That symbol sounds like a in another.