Merry Christmas To Me

After a fair bit of research, I finally went out and bought this one. There were others with great reviews - Borsch, Electrolux, but they also seemed very pro-baker; the sort for folks who need to bake 50 loaves of bread and 20 batches of ultra-chewy bagels per day. I just need one loaf every 2 weeks or so. And that temperamental sugee (semolina) cake every now and then. Wish we had Kenwood (what Mum has) here. I think it used to exist, but it's been reacquired by somebody else, and given a new name, and a new uh... reputation, so... pffft. 

Fancy, but still infinitely cheaper than the Pfaff Industrial Sewing Machine that was also on my Covetousness List this year. I want to sew neoprene and vinyl so bad. But we have no room for a industrial machine in the house right now, so a stand mixer it is. If we can't outfit the family in wetsuits, at least we can feed them bread now.

It's still in its box, by the way. Too many cookies on my counter right now to share space with a mixer. I'll unbox it today and take more photos of it later.

My Life As Defined By Gadgets - Sewing Machines

This post was inevitable, really. I mean, I sew so much 

nowadays. The only time I sewed more fanatically than this 

was in college when, with the help of three friends who did 

an excellent sales pitch for me, I ran a lucrative little side 

business making bags and wallets to order. Ah, fun. 

Since it was an actual business, I observed business hours 

and shut myself in my room, sewing, emerging only for 

food and bathroom breaks. Perhaps this is part of the 

reason I am not wholly convinced I should start "selling 

my stuff", as people have suggested, again. 

It was once a job, see, and while I loved it then,  I'm not 

so keen on jobs now. I like my hobbies to be... untainted.  

But I thought I'd introduce everyone to some of the 

machines that have worked hard for me. Meet my old 

Pfaff treadle, that has been in my family before I was 

even born. We always had at least two sewing machines 

lying around, and as early as I began sewing, mum taught 

me maintenance and simple repair. Useful, considering 

those old treadles needed a lot of realignment from 

time to time. This is a poor photograph of the original 

poor photograph, but it brought back such memories. 

There's nothing quite like sewing with a treadle machine-

I couldn't make the transition to electric when mum first 

switched over. I was terrified at how little control 

I had and how impersonal it seemed. 

This is my current workhorse, and the first one I really own. 

A housewarming gift from mum and dad when I moved here. 

It's electric (grrr) and modern and has none of the charm 

of the vintage models but we get along swimmingly.

And here is my overlocker/serger, a birthday gift from 

Auntie Laura and UKK. Like the machine above, this is the 

basic-est in its range. Absolutely no frills. Any simpler 

and it would be running on wind power.

Just for discussion's sake, here are some of the more 

quaint accessories I still use. I remember the white 

tear-away pencil from when cinema tickets were sold 

by humans who, after consulting with a paper seating plan, 

used these pencils to mark seat numbers on patrons' tickets. 

I use these pencils now to mark my nylon fabrics 

for when I sew bags and wallets.

The two-ended color pencil and tailors' chalk are the 

stuff of homec class nightmares. Or rather, they were what 

I illegally used when we were supposed to be using archaic 

tailor's tacking/basting in homec. Don't tell on me.

Then there's the little red needle threader sold for 

peanuts in haberdashery shops in Chinatown. 

And finally, the very vintage needle case that belonged 

to grandma and which somehow found its way 

to my sewing box. It's old like that Pfaff treadle 

and reminds me of my childhood.

In all, I've used at least 9 machines since I began sewing. 

These include the tiny green metal toy one I had as a 

small child and the two my mother-in-law lent me here 

when I was having acute sewing withdrawal symptoms 

in grad school. I have fond feelings for them all, but I 

want that old treadle and I shan't rest till I figure out how 

to get it to come live with me here.

My Life As Defined By Gadgets - Kitchen Edition Part II

A short post tonight. We've been away for the weekend 

and had a lovely time at Thanksgiving with family. We 

ate a little too much. And we all got a little sick so we're 

taking the next few days to slowly get back to normalcy, 

whatever that looks like in our household! This also 

means a late start to Christmas preparation for us. 

We're putting off buying our Christmas tree, for instance, 

till well into the first week of December. Will post 

pictures of our Thanksgiving trip soon.

In the meantime, here's an addenum of sorts to the earlier 

kitchen gadgets post, to include a somewhat underrated 

gadget from our kitchen - the electric frying pan.

When we were living in Singapore, we bought one on our 

first visit back here, along with a voltage transformer 

that cost as much as the pan itself. 

Because it has a temperature-callibrated dial (rather than 

the Low-Medium-High dials on the ones in Singapore), 

it is wonderful for cooking when the temperature needs 

to be specific and constant. It is also wonderful for recipes 

that begin with stove-top cooking and end with time 

in the oven: we just set the temperature, fry, 

put on the lid and let the food bake. 

Sadly, we hardly used it in Singapore, but we shipped it 

with us when we moved, with hopes that it would be put 

to better use here. Since then, it's been given a new lease 

of life as a wok for stir-fries, a fryer for chicken, and a 

skillet for french toast and these very 

evenly-golden-brown pancakes!

My Life As Defined By Gadgets - Kitchen Edition

Well, I hope that first installment of goofy gadgets was 

entertaining! Someday I might do a post on the CRO-  equally 

fun and silly. I now spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Some 

days it is a necessity more often than I might want, since what 

used to be a hobby (baking, anyway; cooking was never a 

chosen pastime) has now become a means to feed the family. 

Here are some of the thingamajigs I use a lot of 

in this season of my life:

1st row L to R:

Nut mill: turn the crank and it chops nuts, rather than using the knife-and-chopping board method.

Egg timer: ingenious invention which I use every time I boil eggs. It sits in the pot with x number of eggs and its color change indicates when they are done. Perfect eggs every time, irrespective of the value of x. 

2nd row L to R:

Garlic press:  recent acquisition- why did I not own this earlier?

Cheese slicer: better than the wire guillotine boards.

Mini cookie scoop: I never bake a chocolate chip cookie without it.

Flexible spatula: silicone, high-temperature-withstanding omelette- and pancake- flipper. Also indispensable for removing freshly-baked afore-mentioned cookies from their trays.

Jar spatula: I've gotten the last bits of sauce, mayonnaise and goodness knows what else out of jars and bottles with this.

3rd row:

Candy thermometer: I bought it to make , well, candy (specifically pralines), but I now use it exclusively to get the water temperature just right for yeast bread. 

4th row:

Good old knife sharpener. Sharp knives are so nice to use. And because one uses very little force when cutting with a sharp knife, Mum used to say they are also safer than blunt knives.

My digital scale

which I use just as much for food prep as for 

weighing parcels bound for the post office.

And the electric oven that made a convert out of this gas-oven 

bigot. That ceramic range top is so easy to clean that I am 

ashamed it is as filthy as it usually is. 

My Life As Defined By Gadgets

While using this nifty device yesterday, it occurred to me that, were it not for the appliances in the house, I probably wouldn't be able to cope with the mountain of mind-numbingly routine and necessary daily tasks that make up my current job as Domestic CEO. 

Yes, we are tottering precariously on the rim of geekdom but I thought it would be a bit of fun to pay tribute to some of the more interesting electronic thingamajigs that have made my life richer.

First we revisit the past a bit.

This digital multimeter was a 2006 Christmas gift from my parents-in-law. I'd had it on my wish list and and I still remember their somewhat quizzical looks when I unwrapped it and declared how it would forever improve my life. It's hard to explain but it is SO useful! 

For instance, batteries: if they appear dead in a particular toy, do we toss them? Might they still have enough juice to work a lesser appliance? This gadget takes the guesswork out of voltage and the guilt out of environmental pollution!

Then there are the made-in-China toys whose packages promise that they "Have Light And Sound!" but when unpacked, lack either light, sound or both. Where did the wiring go awry during shipping and handling? No need to hurl said toy against the wall! The digital multimeter reveals all! Use it with the equally amazing soldering iron to resurrect dead toys and fill your home with Light and Sound (and headaches)! And those strings of Christmas lights - which is the rogue bulb that killed off a whole string of them? Oh those series/parallel circuit examination questions: why bother with theory? Let the digital multimeter do the thinking for you!

How funny to remember carrying these multimeters around the labs with me in the days when I taught high school Physics. It seems like a completely different life now that I spend my days with board books and diapers. Someday the girls will find out that their sleeplessness-dulled, food-smeared mother used to be trusted around high voltages and corrosive acids. Might as well lessen the shock with some hints of my former life by walking around with this geek-accessory now!