Kitchen

[Perkup]

---

@momtochloe wrote:

---

@Perkup wrote:

I definitely go back a little further.  I remember getting our first Frigidaire.  I missed the ice man coming by every day, but it was really great to get cold water out of a little jug in a refrigerator. Really something special - white with a round motor on top, and it was set up on legs.  Wow!!

And after I got married I remember getting my first electric mixer.  It was not a KitchenAid obviously, but it was like a miracle worker in my kitchen. Actually it's still working some 62 years later, but I like my new KitchenAid a little better.  

---

Thank you for this happy memory.  My mom would often talk about the ice man and his deliveries but the one that really stuck with me was when we moved into our house in the early 60's and my mom wanted a wringer washer . . . she and my dad had quite a discussion over it but finally she relented and agreed to an automatic washer . . .

And my mom had a Sunbeam mixer that I wish I had . . . what a workhorse that was!

---

Fun remembering. Our ice man drove a mule drawn wagon. He would come up the street and the women would yell out to him how much ice they wanted. It came in 25 pound blocks, and he carried the blocks in with big black tongs. Our parrot, who sat in a cage on the front porch, learned to yell "25 pounds" and sounded like my grandmother. The poor ice man would drag that big block up to the house, only to hear that we didn't need any ice that day. That's where I first learned a few choice curse words, which only earned me a swift condemnation.       We did finally acquire a wringer washer. Before that it was a wash board and a big aluminum tub in the back yard. I loved to put the clothes through the wringer and everyone was afraid I'd lose a finger . . . never did.  You could tell a lot about the neighbors from their clothes lines - I won't go into that!!   And my first mixer was also a Sunbeam Mixmaster. It was wonderful. Not even my KitchenAid can whip potatoes the way that Sunbeam did. Never a lump!  How I miss those wonderful days! 

[house_cat]

@Perkup

Just when I think the stories can't get any sweeter, they do!  What great memories.

[INDIANA BONES]

Fun subject.  Thanks!   As always with any new appliance be it microwave, DVR, Camera, Cell, Computer etc.  we paid top dollar to get them when they first came out.  If only we knew to wait a year and the price would come down to almost 1/2.  

Thankfully, so many appliances do more than one thing now and we need fewer appliances than years ago.

I remember Mom using a roller to get the water out of items from the washing machine. 

We always had toilets but I have moved to an area that most people in their 50's can remember not having indoor toilets.   I can't imagine.  

Regardless of what we may think some days, LIFE IS GOOD (unless you have health problems).

[bebe777]

---

@JAXS Mom wrote:

---

@house_cat wrote:

---

@JAXS Mom wrote:

I think my immersion circulator/sous vide is my most cutting edge kitchen appliance. I find it much more impressive than the microwave we got when I was kid. 

---

I'm ashamed to say that I don't know what this is.

---

Here is one http://anovaculinary.com

It's a device that heats and circulates warm water so that you can cook food at a low temperature and slowly so that it retains all it's juices and doesn't over cook. So for example, chicken breasts are put into a bag and that bag is put into a hot water bath that is about 139 degrees for 2 hours. Because the food is never exposed to heat higher than the goal finished temperature it can't overcook, it doesn't get dry or stringy. You can quickly sear the outside to develop caramelization for flavor either before or after cooking it sous vide. You can also use the immersion circulator device for maintaining food for long periods of time at the temperature you plan to serve it without degrading the texture or over cooking. You can pasteurize eggs in the shell in it also or perfectly cook soft eggs. Some people mistakenly think it's boil in the bag cooking, it's nothing like that. 

I've done roast beef for 24 hours at 131 degrees and it's tender and perfectly rare. Just let is chill overnight in the fridge and then slice thinly for roast beef sandwiches and it's rare all the way from edge to edge. Not overcooked on the outside and then medium rare in the very middle. The low temperatures allow for very precise control of the finished product. 

---

@jaxs mom, last winter I was invited to a small dinner party. The host had just received his sous vide a few days before, and this dinner party was the first time he was trying it out. It was an amazing meal. 

In the first place, I had been invited by one of my best friends and her husband is an oenophile and has an amazing wine cellar. So, of course, he brought around ten killer bottles of wine to go with the various courses. And he's good friends with the local cheese monger, so the cheese was amazing. 

The quality of the wine and cheese were really important because the ingredients for the sou vide were first rate. This was my only sous vide meal and I just loved it. I really don't like overcooked food. I like my veggies just barely steamed and my meats on the rare side. The sou vide was perfect for this. We had all sorts of vegetables and they were all marvelous. I have never had vegetables that tasted like this before. 

The meal did take 3-4 hours because essentially they had to cook each course at the table. It seemed like a lot of work but they carried it off really well. 

How often do you use your soud vide? 

-- bebe

[jaxs mom]

@bebe777 Sous vide has been used in restaurants for quite awhile so lots of people have probably eaten food cooked sous vide but didn't know it. 

As far as how often I use it, it depends. Sometimes 3-4 times a week, sometimes not for a few weeks.  There are a lot of things I haven't tried cooking sous vide yet. 

Sorry if this is short, I've been sick for a week and I have a raging headache at the moment so my brain isn't working at it's best. 

[bebe777]

@jaxs mom, I'm sorry to hear that you've gotten either a bad cold or the flu. I really hope that you are on the mend soon. Thank you for your reply.

I had heard of a sous vide before and had seen it done on the occasional cooking show, but it didn't seem real to me until I got to watch the process.

Enjoy experimenting with your sous vide!!!

-- bebe

[151949]

We got our first microwave oven in 1983 as a wedding gift from my uncle. It was very large - could have fit a turkey in there. It had it's own stand and everything. It took up tons of space in our kitchen. As soon as they started making the small ones for on a countertop we donated the big one to our church and bought a small one. The church is still using that large one though, 33 years later.

[bebe777]

I was probably one of the very first Americans to have a Cuisinart (or Cuisinart prototype) in my family's kitchen probably sometime around 1969. 

I did a quick google search and was puzzled because evidently the Cuisinart wasn't officially launched in the US until 1973. But I was sure that I had a Cuisinart type piece of equipment in our kitchen around 1969... lol, and I'm probably correct. 

My mom generally didn't buy us desserts, but when around 1967-8 I found her Fanny Farmer Cookbook and discovered that I could make all sorts of treats with just flour, sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder and baking soda... and that just about every kitchen (including ours) had all of these ingredients. -- So I taught myself how to bake and I was pretty darned good at it for a kid.

Mom was very impressed with my baking ability. One afternoon she brought home this kitchen appliance which had a round container... but without any instruction book or explanation as to what it was (mom had no clue). -- One of her best friends (who was Julia Child's PR rep) had loaned it to her.

For the next 4-5 years I regularly made all sorts of baked goods and regularly stared at the curiosity on the kitchen prep table. Then one day my mom took it back to her friend who had asked to have it back. lol, and that was that. 

Only much later did I recognize the devise as being a Cuisinart and I'm fairly certain that our prototype did have the Cuisinart logo on it. 

The worst of it was that I never got to meet Julia Child (I had no clue as to who she was) and my mom had been a guest at a few of her dinner parties. 

-- bebe

___

Information on the history of the Cuisinart...

In the 1960s, Julia acquired a French prototype of the Robot Coupe, the Magimix, and used it in demonstrations in America. An American modification of the Magimix/Robot Coupe was introduced by Cuisinart in 1973. Chefs began to refer to these machines as the new French revolution. "When I first started out, everything was done by hand. I think it's very important for the home cook--that's what I'm interested in--to have things like the food processor...to make fish mousse in a few seconds." The food processor, a KitchenAid, in her kitchen at the time of the Smithsonian acquisition was one of many commercial models available to an American cook. "I want you to know (she said to a reporter in 1974) that we have no commercial tie-ups with anyone...But this thing (pointing to her Magimix) is one of the greatest breakthroughs since the mixer...It 'll even reduce a wet fish to a puree...And you know how hard that is to do."