Tag Archives: Gadgets

Cuisinart Soup Maker – Hot & Cold Blender – 2

John | 4 June, 2011 - 12:32 am

When I wrote my first post about the Cuisinart Soup Maker / Hot & Cold Blender, there is no doubt that I was thrilled by it.  All I had to do was put veg into the blender, add stock or stock powder, spices and herbs if desired, top up with stock or water to the 1400 ml mark, and set the blender timer to about 28 minutes, then start heating to bring the contents to the boil, which took about 8 minutes or so.  Once a vigorous boil had been reached, I would press the “Simmer” button, adjust the timer to 20 minutes if need be, and the blender would then very gently simmer the contents.  Several times during the process I would press the “Stir” button for a few seconds.  When the timer reached zero, the blender would then turn off.  Any time after that I could use the blender to blend the soup to as near as I could get to a puree.  Unfortunately, there would always be some lumps in the soup, be it potato, parsnip or mushroom stalks.  I tolerated the lumps because they were, after all, little pieces of good healthy cooked vegetables.  However, I was disappointed in the performance of the appliance as a blender, because I did my best to make sure there were no lumps by using pulse, and all the speeds the blender has to offer.

Almost four weeks ago, my honeymoon period with the Cuisinart Soup Maker / Hot & Cold Blender came to an abrupt end.  I was making a soup and had set to the timer to 28 minutes as usual.  When the timer got close to the 20 minute mark I stood in front of the blender to keep a very close watch on it to be ready for the moment it came to a vigorous boil, and press the Simmer button.  However, as you no doubt know, there is an old saying that a watched pot never boils.  And this proved to be the case.  The liquid just wouldn’t come to the boil while I watching it.  Then I got distracted for maybe 30 seconds, or a minute at most, and the next thing I knew the liquid was shooting out of the top of the blender and making a terrible mess on the counter-top.  It took about 15 minutes to clean up the mess which got into and under everything within reach on the bench.

To add insult to injury, the final soup had more lumps in it than usual, and I found that it gave me some tummy discomfort every time I had it.  In the end I threw the remainder out and haven’t made soup since.  To be fair, I should mention that I had been having tummy discomfort since the week before Easter, and I had to be very careful what I ate.   Simple food worked best.  My tummy discomfort after having the soup could have been from the wholemeal or multi-grain bread, toasted, that I’d eaten with the soup.  I soon afterwards switched to light and white breads such as Vienna loaf, and my tummy has been fine since.

Today I read somewhere that the old food pyramid showing how much we should eat of what, each day, is changing.  Grains are no longer held in such high regard, because for some people they cause sickness.  I don’t want to get into that, but it struck a chord with me because of my recent experiences.  My tummy troubles ended when I switched from Brumbies wholemeal and grains breads to their white breads such as Vienna loaf, French Stick, and Ciabatta.

Coming back to the Cuisinart Soup Maker / Hot & Cold Blender, I have to say that after the overflow four weeks ago when it came to the boil, and the lumps after blending the cooked soup with the blender as best I could, I’ve concluded there are better, quicker, cheaper and surer ways of cooking soup.   I’ll make a post on this when I find the time.  But in short, using the Cuisinart Pressure Cooker to cook the soup and the Kenwood TriBlade Hand Blender to blend it, is the answer.

Just put the ingredients into the pressure cooker, lock the lid on, set the timer for the cooking time – maybe 8 minutes (instead of 20 minutes) – and the cooker will take care of everything, and switch off when it’s done.  The cooker doesn’t start timing until it reaches the desired pressure, then it reduces the heat to maintain pressure throughout the cooking.  The Kenwood TriBlade blending attachments with plastic feet are ideal for the non-stick interior of the pressure cooker.  They can blend everything without any lumps.

Despite the above, I still think the Cuisinart Soup Maker (as called overseas) or Hot & Cold Blender (as called in Australia) is a fine product.  I was so pleased with it that this is what inspired me to buy the Cuisinart Pressure Cooker.  With the benefit of hindsight, I think the pressure plus Kenwood TriBlade blender set is the better combination to make soup.  The two products together are about the same price as the Cuisinart Hot & Cold Blender, and they are of course much more versatile.  I cook my corned beef in the pressure cooker, and it’s great for cooking rice in 3-4 minutes, or risotto in 7 minute (with no stirring).  But again, I’ll make a post on that when I get the time (and inspiration).

 

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Cuisinart Soup Maker – Hot & Cold Blender

John | 26 March, 2011 - 11:51 pm

Today, the Good Weekend supplement to The Saturday Age contained a full page advertisement for the Cuisinart Hot & Cold Blender (called Cuisinart Soup Maker in many other countries).  The photo above is from that advertisement – the rest of it is at the bottom of this post.

The first I heard that such an appliance existed, was almost five weeks ago, when I received an email from Kitchenware Direct in Perth, WA, with a photo and details of the product.  I think it was love (or desire) at first sight for me.  I wanted it. But I resisted buying it for a few weeks, as my brain told me that (1) I can cook soup in a saucepan or pressure cooker, and (2) puree it in the pot with a hand held blender.

My resistance faded when a few weeks later I received a card in the post from David Jones advertising discounts for card holders that week.  The offer included 20% off all electrical kitchen appliances.  That offer was too much to resist.  I decided to trust my instinct and give the appliance a try, so I bought one.

The featured image on the home page of my blog shows two onions cut in half at the bottom of the blender.   The image below shows a segment of pumpkin, like the one in the advertisement photo above, in the bottom of my blender.

In the past two weeks I’ve made soup four times using the Cuisinart blender, and it’s been a taste delight each time.  That’s full credit to me because of having some experience over the past year in making my own soup, and also thinking about what I’m doing, as to how it might affect taste.  But in my mind, it’s also a major credit to the Cuisinart appliance.  The glass blender and 1400 ml limit for soup is for me, a great guide as to how many vegetables pieces to add to achieve the result I want.  I can see through the glass what I’ve added, and then how much stock, or water (with stock powder already added) to reach the 1400 ml level.

Over the years I’ve enthusiastically bought many appliances, pots and pans that have turned out to be a poor choice, and of no use to me after the novelty has died off.  But this appliance is looking like being a winner for me.

It has a lot going for it.  The results are enjoyable.  It’s very easy to use.  And it’s very easy to clean.  That does it for me!

Check out the videos at the end of the above video.

In the coming weeks I’ll make posts about another Cuisinart appliance that has won my great respect.

The Cuisinart pressure cooker.

 

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Olive O4HD

John | 30 January, 2011 - 12:27 am

If one has been collecting CDs for as long I have (about 25 years), the collection can grow to unmanageable proportions. I have CDs in various plastic cabinets, and on shelves and in piles scattered throughout 3 rooms in my unit, and even in places I’d forgotten that I’d stored CDs – until I did a thorough search last week. My concerns over the years have been that I have no idea where to find most of the CDs if I want to play a particular one, so it’s too daunting to do a search. I find that getting up to put on a CD and changing it when it finishes, is tiresome, so I don’t do it often (and especially in the case of works that spread across several CDs. And perhaps the biggest concern of all, at my age, is that I will probably never get to hear most of my CDs again. It’s just too hard: and it’s not so easy and convenient to play them that I’ll do it because I can, and can quickly and easily explore the depths of my collection.

Enter the second exciting gadget I came across on Thursday. In this case I read about it in an article in The Age Green Guide headed “Music lovers don’t cut corners” (see featured image).  For the record, I didn’t read the article in the physical newspaper.  I read it on my iPad in the digital edition, which is a 100% facsimile of the actual newspaper.

I’ll quote parts of the article that aroused my interest:

Music lovers — those who can pick Pavarotti in 1965 from Pavarotti in 1985 — have always had a love/hate relationship with iPods and the electronic music storage they represent.  Most of them wouldn’t touch an iPod with a five-metre baton.

This is because the signal is compressed so more music can be squeezed onto the hard drive and in this compression process, much of the original signal is deleted, especially in the upper range. The music sounds similar, yet is not the same.   It sounds as if it’s all there and yet it no longer brings tears to your eyes. All the nuance has been lost.

But what music lovers secretly like about iPods is their convenience.  An album, or a particular track, can be found in seconds and played immediately.

The music is categorised and indexed automatically. And it’s all in one place.

Now those serious about their music can have it all; the music quality of a CD with the convenience of an iPod.  Modern solid-state hard drives have the capacity to make electronic music storage a viable option for people who refuse to compromise on sound quality.

The unit is shown above.  Here’s a further description:

Store up to 20,000 high-resolution HD tracks (6000 CDs) in 24-bit on this award winning music server – with more than 250 times the resolution of CDs, you’ll hear the HD difference immediately. Experience it right out of the box, the Olive O4HD includes over an hour of music with 12 of the best Chesky Records’ HD Tracks for Free!

Everything from 24-bit HD files to 16-bit converted CDs will be at your fingertips. Convenient storage, easy touchscreen access and the ability to play it all in any room of your home with the addition of an Olive 2 (see below). Now you’ll enjoy your music collection more than ever.

You can even turn your screen into an oversized color display and use the Olive remote control to see music details or select songs from across the room. It’s a great alternative to navigating with the touchscreen or our iPhone App.

Why does it sound so good?

The Olive O4HD will deliver exceptional sound quality from all of your digital music sources. Maximize your signal transfer with the 24k gold RCA connectors and use the Olive O4HD as an outboard DAC. With 24-bit/192kHz oversampling, noise and distortion are ultra low resulting in incredible purity in both high frequencies and low-level detail.

A quote from a review:

Exceptional sound; approachable and easy to use; quality build and finish; sheer value…this is 21st century hi-fi: the Olive O4HD is superb to live with and listen to’ (What Hi-Fi magazine February 2010)

All this plus a free iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad app to control playback (as well as the supplied remote control).

The Olive O4HD has a wonderful final trick up it’s sleeve.  You can add a slave to every room in the house where you have a system through which you can play audio – and you can do it wirelessly with your Wifi network.  Wunderbar!

For this feature you need an Olive Melody 2 in each room where you want it.

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Fujifilm FinePix X100

John | 29 January, 2011 - 12:43 am

Less than 36 hours ago, as I start writing this post, I became aware of two gadgets that I hadn’t heard of before.  The first is a camera in development, expected to be released later this year.  It interests me because I’ve had a love affair with cameras since my early years in the mid-1940′s. This new camera has a sort of 1960-1970′s retro design.

The second product of interest has apparently been around since September 2009, but I’d never heard of it because it and I don’t move in the same circles.  However, it’s a gadget that could make a very agreeable change in my life.  But so, of course, could winning a few million dollars in a lottery and buying a new home.

Here’s the first gadget – the camera:

The above photo is from www.dpreview.com – in my opinion the most outstanding site to read reviews and news about cameras, and in some cases, lenses.  The article was a preview of the camera in development.  I’ll show other photos of the camera and you might spot some differences – check the lens information, and the right side of the camera, as viewed from the front.

The above photo shows the old retro features that attracted my interest.  The lens aperture can be set from a rotating ring on the lens itself, and the shutter speed can be set from a dial on the top of the camera.   Less retro (more 2011 in my mind) is a very useful dial to apply exposure compensation.  +/- 2 stops.

I’m less clear about focus, and whether there is any manual control.  Perhaps some of the photos below and the video can throw some light on this.  In the end, of course, once the camera is released, it will be judged for what it does, and not for all the pre-release hoopla.

To me, the camera looks very classy in the photo above.  It comes with a leather case?  Optional, I’m sure.  But note the focus controls on the right, and the lens is now shown as 35mm instead of 23mm.   The 23mm lens on the digital camera at the top of this post is the equivalent of a 35mm lens on a 35m film camera.

I’ve included the above photo simply because I like it.

The promotional video above hopefully might point to some features of the new camera that will result in outstanding photos. I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.

The following video is German language, but it shows the camera in use in the hands of the presenter.

The second gadget of interest will be the subject of my next post – the Olive O4HD.

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Grand Pianos – 3

John | 25 January, 2011 - 12:34 am

Goodness gracious me. It’s Gerard Willems playing a Steinway:

On Monday I drove to Chadstone Shopping Centre and from the ABC Shop bought the bought the DVD of Gerard Willems playing Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto (see the links on my 20 January post) and the CD of him playing Beethoven’s 33 Variations to a waltz by Diabelli. Both works were played on a Stuart & Sons grand piano. So it’s interesting to see Mr Willems playing a Steinway so exquisitely in the video above.

The following is a scene from the DVD with Gerard Willems playing Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 ‘Emperor’, by Ludwig van Beethoven; played on a Stuart & Sons grand piano.

The DVD, by the way, is wonderful for the main content alone – a superb sounding and filmed performance of the Emperor Concerto. It has lots of wonderful close-ups of the conductor, the pianist and members of the orchestra – and it’s all very easy and pleasing to eyes and ears with very clear video and superb sound. However, along with the main content (the concerto itself) the DVD has many more delights in the extras and special features, including a video explaining the history of the Stuart piano.

See the ABC’s dazzling promotion video at http://www.beethoven-sonatas.com/movies/movie4.html








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Grand Pianos – 2

John | 23 January, 2011 - 12:29 am

Life’s synchronicities have long amazed, delighted or bemused me, depending on the circumstances.  Take this week for example.  On Wednesday night, by chance I decided to have a look at the NPR website which I haven’t visited for a while, to see if it featured any interesting classical recordings to listen to (the site is a very good source of interesting videos and recordings of all types of music, stage plays etc).  What grabbed my attention on the NPR classical music page was an article titled Musical Innovation: A Grander Grand Piano.  I was totally fascinated and it lead to the post I wrote Wednesday night, and published in the early hours of  Thursday 20th, about the wonderful Stuart & Sons pianos.

So it bemused me that in the very beginning of my interest in Stuart pianos, that on Friday morning the parcel I’d ordered weeks ago from Amazon in the US should arrive –  1 DVD and 2 books about the making of Steinway pianos, and 1 book about the history of Steinway & Sons (the business and the family).

The history of the business might not seem that it could be all that interesting, but the story covers the difficulties encountered trying to run a business located in New York City during the American Civil War, and a business located in the USA and Germany during World War I and the USA and Nazi Germany in World War II.  During WWII, the business found itself making bed cots and rifle butts for the army in Germany, and wooden glider aircraft for the US.   But perhaps what most aroused my interest in reading the book is the following sample I read on Amazon with its Look Inside feature.  It was talking about the 1860′s and the decision to move from New York City to Queens, because of strikers:

That struck me because it was so utterly different to the impression I got of the happy and devoted Steinway employees of today, who are recognised as craftsmen, from watching the Note By Note video back in 2009.  You can see a 2 minute preview of Note By Note on my main website here.  There is also more to see on that page, including an 8 minute silent movie filmed in 1929 about making a Steinway grand piano.

My main website Pianos page was created on 30 June 2009, and I haven’t added to it since.  So what re-awakened my interest and caused me to order those books and the DVD from Amazon?

It was an email that my friend Greg, in Brisbane, sent to me at the beginning of the year with a link to a video that he had recorded, edited and published to YouTube.

The video was recorded in deference to the late Nancy Weir (Australian pianist with her Wikipedia bio here), and concerns the restoration of her Steinway.

At the end of the restoration of the late Nancy Weir’s piano, Dr. Robert Keane, an ex student and friend, had the opportunity to say goodbye before it moved to its new home.  That is what this video is about.

Please take the time to relax for 14 minutes to watch and listen very attentively to the video. It’s a truly beautiful experience.

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