A few months ago, I became the proud, and slightly sheepish, owner of what must be the world’s most expensive food processor. The Thermomix costs about $1,500. It not only chops the food but weighs the ingredients and cooks them for you while stirring constantly. Perfect hollandaise and flawless béchamel can be produced in minutes with virtually no effort.
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xjmueller
McMegan. I saw something elsewhere, but didn’t get a chance to read yet.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
That was too easy.
Alexandra
Has to be McMegan, without a second’s hesitation.
schrodinger's cat
Does the sauce need pink Himalayan salt?
ETA: I have a Cuisinart food processor still going strong after 10 years of heavy use and I got for only $100.
Baud
Shit, just when I was feeling all proud of this $2 waffle iron I just got…
FlipYrWhig
Yes, but if it weren’t for the oppressive hand of the state, she’d be able to afford a $2000 kitchen gadget.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Alternate title of this post:
Sort of like a Waring blender
Soonergrunt
Sociopathic, condescending, with pretensions to being a gourmet?
Gotta be McMegan, of course.
currants
@schrodinger’s cat: Yep, me too, only mine was a hand-me-down about 15 yrs ago. I’m guessing it was about 5 yrs old or so when I got it. I still like doing the other parts–you know, the actual cooking.
MattF
My granite countertops are embarrassed.
schrodinger's cat
@currants: I have a really old Osterizer blender that I got at an estate sale and it is still going great, I use every week to make smoothies and such.
divF
Yes, but does it sing to you ?
Loneoak
@schrodinger’s cat:
We have my grandmother-in-law’s Cuisinart that is at least 30 years old and it works great. You know it’s good because it weighs 20 lbs.
I will, however, speak up for my $400 Vitamix blender. It’s pretty fucking awesome to have a 2 hp motor that turns raw, whole veggies into hot soup in a couple minutes through kinetic energy alone.
TooManyJens
You have to remember, this is a woman who can’t cream butter and sugar by hand. (Which would be understandable if she had a disability of some sort, but to my knowledge she doesn’t, and just thinks it’s too hard.) She needs the tools to do every bit of the work for her.
Alison
Knew it right away. If nothing else, BJ has given me the oh-so-useful skill of recognizing McMegan gibberish from a mile away and within the first sentence.
A friend made a joke once that she and Noonanington ought to do a podcast together. I tried imagining it but my brain reached out through my ears and started throttling me.
Gin & Tonic
Wow. I can produce good bechamel in minutes with a pot I got for our wedding mumble-mumble decades ago and a cheap wire whisk. I mean, geez, it’s got three whole ingredients. How much less effort could it take?
Spaghetti Lee
and slightly sheepish
What’s this? Shame? From McMegan? She must be high on tryptophan.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: But is it “flawless”?
Gin & Tonic
But on the other hand, my Zojirushi rice cooker is indispensable.
Mojotron
Patrick Bateman.
Larkspur
I prefer the old-fashioned way of processing food-stuffs, and I trust that none of my indentured servants will undertake to poison me while they make my meals attractive and palatable.
You know, “slightly sheepish” isn’t nearly sheepish enough.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: If McMegan can’t make hers without a $1500 machine, then she certainly won’t be able to detect any flaws in mine.
Spaghetti Lee
Perfect hollandaise and flawless béchamel can be produced in minutes with virtually no effort.
Was she paid to write copy for them? Jeebus Christ.
Valdivia
Knew it was McMegan because who else writes about food and its implements in such a pretentious way? Also, too.
DanielX
@Alexandra: Got that right. I had to read this post twice to make sure it wasn’t a trick question; it’s like asking who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb.
Jules
@schrodinger’s cat:
I paid $20 for an older Cuisinart at an estate sale a few years ago.
Twenty. Dollars.
It is a work horse.
I’m sorry Megan (I’m pretty sure that’s who wrote the above quote) but no one needs to spend $1500 to make hollandaise sauce, it just not that hard to do.
(I also have an early 50’s Sunbeam Mixmaster stand mixer that works (the beaters need to be replaced because they are rusted and when you mix rust has a habit of flaking off into whatever I am mixing. BUT the stand itself and it’s motor work great.) that I replaced with my mother’s avacado green 70’s Sunbeam (I had it for about 10 years and finally broke it last year)which I replaced with a new Sunbeam last year. The new one sucks. I’m going to start looking for replacement beaters for my vintage one.)
sfinny
I’m just trying to get past the whole $1500 food processor. Does it walk and talk? Does it make these sauces by itself with no human interaction? Cause then it would be kinda cool.
TooManyJens
I think she wants to acquire status as a cook without being bothered to actually learn the first thing about cooking. And who can blame her — it worked for her with business and economics, after all.
celticdragonchick
My first thought was McMegan.
John Cole
Crime: Juxtaposing discussions of her $1500 food processor in between defenses of the top 1% and posts on why the middle and lower classes should be required to sacrifice the social safety net.
Sentence: Death by a Slap Chop in the middle of Zucotti Park while someone wearing pachouli recites Marx.
Mayur
Sorry to say this, but: Stopped clock.
The thermomix also HEATS stuff while blending. That is huge for several high-end applications.
Granted, I don’t think Megan is any more qualified to comment on this than she is on, well, anything else, but page through the Fat Duck Cookbook and tell me it’s just a vanity machine.
scav
So what exactly is she putting any effort into as it’s clearly not cooking, research, prose or actual sheepishness? Are her $1,500 checks exquisitely penned if not perfumed and engraved?
Gin & Tonic
I have to admit that before this post I had never heard of this device, so I looked it up, and it’s apparently only available through “direct sales agents” or somesuch, like Tupperware. In other words, you can’t buy it on-line or in a store, you have to have someone come into your house and show it to you, and explain how it works, before they’ll deign to sell it to you. I read that and thought “of course.”
TooManyJens
@Mayur: Just because some people might be able to put it to good use doesn’t mean it’s not a vanity purchase for McMegan.
DanielX
And while I’m thinking of it, any commentor here WHO WANTS OR CAN AFFORD A FUCKING $1500 MIXER, speak up. Be honest now.
Plus which she sounds like a goddamn Ron Popeil late night tv ad – it slices! It dices! It juliennes! Etc etc….I’d ask if this woman has no shame, but then the whole deal would turn into another episode of simple answers to simple questions.
Villago Delenda Est
The Marie Antoinette of 21st Century America, who really, really, REALLY needs to take a tumbrel ride, and then Sarah Proud and Tall gets to knit and provide color commentary while…well, you know…
Punchy
If I only had a fucking clue what b-fancy-letter-e-chamel was, I’d be very impressed.
Quaker in a Basement
Flawless béchamel? In minutes? With virtually no effort?
Well, that’s $1,500 well spent, my friend! Practically pays for itself in time saved making flawless bechamel!
FlipYrWhig
@sfinny: The so-called food processor may actually be an illegal immigrant named Ther Momix.
WeeBey
If you need a machine to make bechamel, you need to stay the fuck out of the kitchen.
Mayur
TooManyJens: yeah, that was my point about MM not being any more qualified, etc.
FlipYrWhig
@Punchy: It’s what canned cream of mushroom soup is supposed to be mimicking when used in recipes.
John Cole
@Punchy: It’s one of the five mother sauces, but all it fucking is is a roux with milk. You learn it in the first 8 minutes of culinary school.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Jeez, and I felt bad about finally buying a set of decent knives for $200.
I consider a food processor to be an abomination: it’s just a way of preventing the cook from playing with knives, which is the best part of being in the kitchen.
See Meryl Streep as Julia Child cutting onions if you need enlightenment.
divF
For those of you who are nursing along elderly Cuisinarts, spare parts for the old models (including blades) are available online. That big honkin’ electric motor appears to be indestructible, though (mine is going strong after 25+ years).
OTOH, carbon steel knives (*not* stainless) are nearly impossible to find. I treasure the ones I’ve got.
Comrade Luke
@Gin & Tonic: I have one of those rice cookers, and I have two questions:
1. the rice is kinda soggy. Should I just use less than the recommended amount of water?
2. How do you change the time from 24hr to 12hr clock? The instructions are in fucking Japanese :)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@DanielX:
“The casting action of the Murnau Haifisch is the most sublime of any of the top-end pocket fishers I have had the pleasure to use- and it’s self-baiting!”
-McMegan
Gin & Tonic
@Punchy: It’s white sauce. Melt butter, mix in flour, mix for a few minutes, add milk. Simple as can be, but the base for lots of other things.
Soonergrunt
@Quaker in a Basement: And think of the money saved in not making flawed bechamel!
Whatever the hell bechamel is.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Waring blender? Much, much better title. DougJ, you’re starting to slip. Pretty soon we’ll have to start outsourcing your titles to private contractors.
Comrade Luke
Wasn’t Josh Bechamel in Transformers?
Villago Delenda Est
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Better yet, Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child…
schrodinger's cat
@Comrade Luke: You don’t need a rice cooker to make rice.
ETA: Wash the rice and drain it in a colander before making the rice.
sfinny
@John Cole: That is what kills me. This is not rocket science and requires a stove, a pot, and some time. There are even packets at the supermarket that make the whole process faster.
Comrade Luke
@Gin & Tonic:
Ah yes, now I can see why I need a $1500 mixer for this.
Comrade Luke
@schrodinger’s cat: I know. But I have one. And the rice it makes isn’t flawless.
Zandar
Dear lord no, I roll to disbelieve that article.
Gin & Tonic
@Comrade Luke: Don’t know about the clock. I like the 24-hour clock and haven’t thought about changing it. As to the rice, you have to experiment a little, depending on the variety and brand of rice, whether or not you rinse it, how long it stands before and after cooking, etc. But you can find English-language instructions on the Web pretty easily. Well, Engrish, maybe, but generally understandable.
different-church-lady
Try a hard one next time, Doug.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
For DougJ’s next post on either “Fonzi” Gillespie or Julian Assange: “His hair was perfect”.
That’s on the house. The next one will cost, though.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodinger’s cat: You don’t, true. But if you want the rice to be ready when you get home from work, it’s great. Or if you want Irish/Scottish oatmeal to be ready for you when you get up in the morning and don’t have a half-hour to cook it, it’s great.
Joseph Nobles
For $1500, this thing better be knocking on my bedroom door, saying, “Hey, I got some goddamn hollandaise sauce in here. Are you going to get your fucking ass up and make some toast?”
FlipYrWhig
@sfinny: Dear God, a packet would be philistine. Only unnecessarily pricey heavy equipment gives you that authentic bechamel experience!
Mayur
@44: C’mon, the course of human progress moves ever onward. You can’t process pasta dough with knives, after all. Using a food processor doesn’t deprive us peeps of the ability to knead dough by hand or chop onions.
Anyway: I feel too dirty saying anything that could be even misinterpreted to be defending MM to continue. Suffice it to say that after an immersion circulator, a pressure canner, and a dehydrator, the thermomix is high on the list.
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig:
Little known fact: the storming of the Bastille was actually staged to liberate a Versailles chef who was tossed into stir for using a mechanical device to prepare bechamel for Louis XVI.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Wait! We can charge DougJ for title guidance? I haz a new career!
Hair: Mitt Romney, too, as of the WaPo POS article I’ve seen referenced but don’t have the stomach to read.
matt
In Italy the Bimbi is only acquired as a wedding present.
Donut
@Alison:
Has anyone ever seen Noonan and McArdle in the same place, at the same time?
Donut
@Mojotron:
Damn, that was funny.
Soonergrunt
@John Cole: So she wasted $1500 because this is a basic thing then.
jwb
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: One of these days I’m going to culinary school just to take lessons on how to chop an onion properly.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
No matter what the Twilight flicks suggest, human blood is on that LDS sinful list with alcohol, nicotine and caffeine.
freelancer (iPhone)
Fifteen Hundred Bucks. Jesus Christ. I’ll bet the thing sifts flour like a motherfucker though!
sfinny
@FlipYrWhig: Hey, I admit to bit of snobbery that cooking from scratch is the best. But those white sauce and bernaise sauce packets sure come in handy sometimes.
FlipYrWhig
@freelancer (iPhone): No, for that you need the $1600 Siftex. It sifts flour and also explains that all the other girls are just jealous.
FlipYrWhig
@sfinny: I use store brand canned cream of mushroom soup. When it comes to white glop, only the most generic will do for the FlipYrWhig table.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Villago Delenda Est:
Hmmm. I think I’ll draw the line on playing with knives in the kitchen at that one. Even so, don’t forget to save the livers!
schrodinger's cat
Does this contraption also write her blog posts?
Alison
@Donut: If they had, would they have emerged from their catatonic state yet to tell us about it?
Ron
I have to echo the question : “Who the hell uses a machine to make bechamel ?
catclub
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Un-self-awaring blender?
In Soviet Russia, blender heats you?
slag
@John Cole:
Wait. What? How do you know this?
sfinny
@FlipYrWhig: LOL. Hey mushroom cassarole was a staple of my childhood.
Tom Levenson
What’s even better is the rest of the column, where she ignores the actual point of the academics she quotes to maker her feel better about buying a very expensive path to boring food.
I hope to post on this tomorrow in my usual logorrheaic style — but for now I’ll just bask in the post-prandial glow of the cookies my ex-pro-chef wife made, strangely without benefit of a $1500 food process/slow cooker. (not exactly right, but hell, such is blogging ;)
That and the hogshead of good brandy, of course. Glows don’t come cheap these days…
opie_jeanne
@schrodinger’s cat: My large Cuisinart was purchased in 1984 and is still running quite well, but after 14 years I did have to replace the bowl and top, and the knife blade. I think I paid around $100 for the original, and the replacement parts probably ran about $50.
Does this creature not have any children? I don’t know why that question is the first thing I thought of. Is she rich? Who pays that kind of money just to produce a flawless bechamel? My understanding is that bechamel is not only a bit passe but not particularly difficult. The woman needs a hobby.
JBerardi
@schrodinger’s cat:
I doubt it, they’d probably be more self-aware.
Hell, this thing is probably smart enough to know not to buy itself, nevermind not write an article about itself.
catclub
@jwb: A carrot gets in a car wreck and barely survives. The doctor comes in the next morning and tells him the good news is that he survived, but the bad news is that he will be a vegetable the rest of his life.
Why is this so much funnier when said in a Julia Child, slightly tipsy, ‘Bon Appetit!’ voice?
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@opie_jeanne: She has a hobby. She’s the world’s tallest female econoblogger. Except, of course, for the dear departed Maxine Udall
Who could write rings around McMegan before she got her first cup of coffee.
Paul W.
It involves absurdly overpriced food or food making products? McCardle of course!
slag
And I agree that this one was too easy. I’m not going to click over to the WSJ since I’m Murdoch blocked anyway, but does she use her absurdly overpriced kitchen tool to beg the question, “Why are we spending so much money on a place where we spend so little time?”, by chance?
suzanne
Can I send McMegan my student loan statements? She could pay them off with only 70 food processors!
I have the food processor my mother got for her wedding in 1973. Works great. I don’t make hollandaise and bechamel, as I’d like to skip the triple bypass, but it’s great for my purposes.
ChrisNYC
It’s nice to think of her with some crazy Willy Wonka machine on her counter — robot arms stirring, knives and cleavers flying, hollandaise splattering.
opie_jeanne
@Mayur: Cuisinart soup maker and blender for about $200.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Tom Levenson:
You….Read the whole thing?!
opie_jeanne
@DanielX: I can afford one but I do not see the point in spending that much fucking money on something like that.
nancydarling
I’ve always just called it white sauce which I learned to make in Girl Scouts when I was working on my cooking badge. I knew right away who it was. This thread is one of the reasons I love BJ. I’m going to toddle off to bed happy from all the laughing out loud.
Xenos
As noted above, in Italy the Bimbi/Thermomix is an extravagant wedding present, even though the cost is something more like 800 Euros, not $1500. A big part of the cost is the transformers – not many are sold for 120 power, so it is much more expensive. Likewise, a five-quart Kitchenaide mixer costs at least 400 euros, as relatively few of them are made and imported here.
Additionally, the product is sold through a system of small distributorships (well connected career women turned homemakers who demonstrate these things in their clients well appointed homes, like a rather snooty tupperware party) that keeps the prices high and the profit margins fat.
The Thermomix is an excellent machine for making baby food – it will save a lot of money and trouble, while giving you a great supply of self-satisfaction that your upper-middleclass sproutlet is really getting the best applesauce on the planet. It also is good for soups and sauces… a smart housewife who gets one for the baby should find it invaluable in the kitchen for decades. But even at 800 euros anyone who cares to cook can buy much more useful equipment for their craft.
Violet
Of course it’s McMegan. It’s the “virtually no effort” part that really gives it away. She’s just like Sarah Palin at heart — lazy. Not to mention convinced she’s right when she’s very wrong, and making a living off the wingnut gravy train.
Suffern ACE
Is that all it does?
opie_jeanne
@Villago Delenda Est: See, now, that’s me. It’s why I have a Cuisinart and also why I have all my fingers.
Actually, I don’t usually chop stuff with it unless I need it pretty fine. I use it all the time, though, for stuff like pie crust pastry.
Zandar
@schrodinger’s cat:
Thread over.
JGabriel
@DanielX:
It’s the KITCHEN MORTICIAN! It slices, dices, chops, pops, feels, peels, grates, grinds, embalms, and buries! Guaranteed for the life of the owner!
.
Joey Maloney
In college I had a ’50s-era Osterizer that I got at a garage sale for half a buck or something. It looked a lot like a rocketship from the cover of a ’50s-era pulp magazine. It had a very heavy duty cycle in my dorm room making frozen margaritas until one night while laboring to chop up a full load of ice it BURST INTO FLAMES. It was a spectacular finish to the party; my only complaint at the time was that my roommate doused the fire with the pitcher of margarita he had in his hand which was, given the circumstances, the last one we were going to have that evening.
Yutsano
@Gin & Tonic: Little pinch of nutmeg really gives a nice background flavour. Also.
ChrisNYC
Does she not realize that proud and sheepish are antonyms? She is hands down the funniest person writing today.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m also reminded of Aykroyd’s Super-Bass-o-Matic sketch, in which you put the whole bass, that’s right, the whole bass, in and you get some concoction that Larraine Newman drinks down with gusto.
suzanne
The more I hear about the lives of the 1%, the less convinced I become that their lives are worth anything at all.
JGabriel
@ChrisNYC:
Kinda like a crazed Edward Scissorhands, without the humanity to differentiate between tools, vegetables, and people.
Wait, that sounds like a description of McMegan looking in the mirror. Which explains why she loves her food processor: narcissism.
.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Villago Delenda Est:
Bass-Drinker: [drinks a glassful of bass ] Wow, that’s terrific bass!
opie_jeanne
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Thank you for the link to Maxine Udall’s page. You’re right, she did write rings around the shallow McArdle.
ChrisNYC
Someone should let her know that you don’t really need to chop the flour in Bechamel. It’s a completely unnecessary step. Probably added in by some French union thug to give his buddies a job.
PhoenixRising
@Comrade Luke: Learn to read military time. It’s easier than Japanese.
MikeJ
@John Cole:
I can learn lines faster than anybody you’ve ever met. Really, minimal rehearsal.
Donut
@Alison:
Point taken.
@Tom Levenson:
I read the whole piece, too…I guess because secretly I hate myself?
It was unbelievably smug, even for her.
Yutsano
@Donut:
Or latent masochism. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Keith
I make Hollandaise with virtually no effort using a pot, a metal bowl, a plastic measuring cup, and a whisk. Instead of dropping $1500 on a machine to do it, JUST PRACTICE!
Ken
It’s signaling, like when there’s a scandal in which some politician is found to have paid $5000 for a night with a prostitute. It’s not that the sex is worth that much, it’s knowing you are able to spend $5000. She’s fortunate that her chosen way to waste money is one she can talk about in public, and doubly fortunate that she has a column in which to signal. She’s unfortunate in that she’s bragging about spending $1500 to make cream gravy, as I and everyone else raised in the South call it.
Yutsano
@Keith:
How…pedestrian. You expect her to actually do WORK? She barely has the brain power for breathing.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith: Yes, but you had to measure those things, and Megan has a robot butler to do it perfectly for her.
RareSanity
Reminds me of a golf analogy my dad shared with me…
“I see all these guys spending piles of cash on clubs and balls. None of them seem to understand that you can’t buy a better swing.”
The hardest part of the article, for me to believe, is that she actually cooks for herself. She strikes me as the, “buys pre-cooked, gourmet meals”, type of person.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@opie_jeanne: Wrote rings around McCardle, she did. Grew up in Western PA, daughter of a furniture store owner. It gave her a grounded perspective of real life that McMegan can only dream about. Sister of my wife. We miss her terribly.
JGabriel
@Donut:
I can’t read the whole piece. I’m using Murdoch Block to block out WSJ and any other site that Murdoch might make even a penny from.
Because I loathe that evil creep.
.
Ruckus
@DanielX:
I could afford the mixer but then I couldn’t afford the food to use in it.
Or the electricity.
Or the shame of being stupid enough to not only purchase the thing but also write about it. Badly.
Joel
Béchamel is the easiest goddamn sauce there is. Literally. It’s the base sauce. A complete moron can make it with a saucepan and a whisk..
Ruckus
@Joel:
The age old question.
What’s the rung lower than a complete moron? McGargle.
scav
The fact that anyone can make white sauce makes it uninteresting as a means of marking status. The fact that you can spend masses of money for something that achieves exactly the same thing converts the whole thing back into a status marker. So now the poor little dear can get excited about white sauce. White Sauce. Spending all that money for achieving the commonplace — moreover, finding a valid source of self-worth in the monetary process of achieving the banal. Mindwarping. By their logic, it seems that sex with prostitutes (excuse me, escorts and gigolos) is the better, more important and meaningful sex in their lives because cash changes hands.
Mark S.
Proof that the WSJ doesn’t have any editors:
That’s one fucking horrible sentence! I had to read it about eight times before it made even an inkling of sense.
wetcasements
Making bechamel or a hollondaise is pretty damn easy to do by hand.
I have to assume any “food” she makes, even with 1,500 dollar gizmos, must be pretty horrific.
wasabi gasp
She can have my Foreman grill if she wants. Don’t use that much anymore.
Mark S.
@wasabi gasp:
Tell her it costs $2,000 and she’ll buy it off you.
David Koch
Clearly, this was the result of DHS coordination.
BGinCHI
Why does McMegan wear those big fake ears over her real ears?
Is that the kind of enhancement rich conservatives think is sexy?
I’m just not following.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: Waitaminute…on top of everything else, she’s trying to be VULCAN?? Needs moar Kolinahr.
jl
@Joel:
My ears were itching (or is it nose?), so I turned on this damned blog machine.
I can make béchamel with a whisk and pan. Nice and smooth.
I clicked through to the original column. I am not familiar with all the writings of those bad old perfessers who are trying to make poor Meghan feel bad for buying lots of expensive stuff.
Except for Robert H. Frank. And I think Meghan misunderstands Frank, who thinks that there are more to status races than people buying fancy stuff that the boogery old fart economists think are too fancy.
Frank notes that in certain cases the technology and institutional structure of product supply interacts with status races in consumption that create lack of variety in goods available to consumers. Frank’s main example is the housing market. And I think Frank has a point. For awhile, almost identical neighborhoods consisting solely of many blocks of McMansions drove out pretty much any other kind of single family structure, or neighborhood, and made buying a home more expensive and risky than it needed to be. Which damaged families’ asset positions and could created a Gilded Age cycle of credit booms and busts.
And Frank started pointing this out in the 90s. I don’t think Frank was among those who predicted a huge housing bust, but his analysis looks better than McMegan’s back before the bust.
Well, good. I feel superior to McMegan tonight, for I can make the damn sauce with a whisk and she needs an umpteen thousand dollar contraption. Ha!
MagicPanda
@Comrade Luke: On the inside of your rice maker, you will probably have two sets of markings. One is for how much water you should put in for x “japanese cups”* of rice. The other is for total volume of liquid in liters, which is useless.
First off, use Japanese rice while trying to figure out what is going on with your watery rice, since different kinds of rice take different amounts of water.
Next, measure x “Japanese cups” of rice. A Japanese cup of rice is about 3/4 of a regular cup. 2 of these will easily feed 3 people.
Rinse and drain water several times to get rid of the powdery white stuff that can make the rice taste stale. Then pour in water until it reaches the x mark, where x is the number of “Japanese cups” of rice you started with.
Turn the switch on and you should be golden.
P.S. Your rice maker should have come with a measuring cup for one “Japanese cup”, which is a traditional unit of measuring rice called a “go”.
MagicPanda
Note to self: invent a 2000 dollar toaster to sell to people like McMegan. Perhaps it could optically measure the doneness of the toast to exactly match the desired Pantone color.
Dustin
béchamel? A child can figure it out. I know, because I taught myself to fucking make that stuff when I was barely tall enough to reach the stovetop without scorching my arms, before I even knew what it was called. White sauce, red sauce, chinese brown sauce. All child’s-play. If you don’t know how to make those, or you depend on a machine to do it for you because you think it’s too hard, you have no business in a kitchen.
pete
@Dustin: Au contraire, monsieur, every kitchen requires a scullerymaid. It’s a good place to learn things, so I suppose McCurdle would not fit well.
xian
O chef of the future, can it core a apple?
Tehanu
@FlipYrWhig:
FTFY
Bethanyanne
OT, but too fabulous to not share. John Scalzi (@scalzi) tweeted while watching the lord of the rings trilogy. Well worth scrolling back through his timeline. *snicker* “They are reforging the sword of the king. Which will be given to Connor McLeod. IN MY CROSSOVER FANFIC #AragronConnorSlashFTW”
licensed to kill time
We have a family tradition on birthdays and Christmas where we make crepes rolled up with fresh fruit and hand-whipped cream….the pan that we have used for years was bought at a dollar store type place, maybe a Ross or something similar. That pan cost about $5 and came with a recipe we have used lo these 30-odd years for the crepe batter.
Moral of this story – it’s not really the brand name or the cachet of the implement; it’s the love and the intent and the tradition that makes the crepes taste so good. I wish more people understood this and didn’t get so hung up on needing the latest and greatest in cookware/appliances/devices for their validation as cooks. It really doesn’t matter as much as good, natural ingredients; good intentions, and a liberal dose of love and the desire to make something that your family loves. My two cents.
NobodySpecial
But does it make fantastic mac and cheese? Because otherwise, it’s just not worth the price.
Norwonk
Given McMegan’s strained relationship with numbers, I suspect it actually cost $15.00, but that she misread the price tag.
SectarianSofa
@Norwonk:
Ha! Yes, and it’s actually an electric carp.
Gretchen
@scav: That’s why she can’t call it white sauce, or cream gravy, as our Southern friend called it. Bechamel sounds much more exclusive.
Gretchen
@scav: That’s why she can’t call it white sauce, or cream gravy, as our Southern friend called it. Bechamel sounds much more exclusive.
Ruckus
@licensed to kill time:
Nice.
The crime is you wrote this for nothing and the subject at hand got paid to write the same crap she always writes. Maybe there is a moral here. People who get paid way too much for the work they do rarely do it as well as people who are invested in that work and will do it for nothing. Well not nothing, there is actually joy in doing something well, accomplishing a task, in deference to doing it only for the reward, the gold star, the cookie, the brass ring.
glocksman
Speaking as someone who worked as a line and short order cook at a local bowling alley/buffet (now defunct) for over 10 years, I recommend the robot coupe food processors.
The damn thing was practically indestructible and worked for years even after being knocked off the table and onto the floor hard enough to crack the casing.
Reliable, easy to clean, and French.
Owning one would probably make McMegan cry.
Old pre Whirlpool Kitchen Aid (Hobart) mixers are just as reliable as the RC, though after my experience with Whirlpool’s warranty service I’d neither purchase nor recommend a Whirlpool anything to my worst enemy.
robertdsc-PowerBook
@Norwonk:
LOL.
John Revolta
@Mark S.
Rupert runs a tight ship. Obviously somebody used up all the commas early that day.
JPL
Morning all. Safe driving for those BJ readers traveling today.
After reading the article and watching the Thermomix porn video on youtube, I decided that I have more respect for the Walmart Shoppers who fought over two dollar waffle makes.
JPL
@Gretchen: Bingo!
Cheryl from Maryland
@Xenos: Your post commenting on the wonders of baby food in this machine made me wonder if McMegan is thinking of reproducing. Cue brain bleach.
arguingwithsignposts
She can’t even admit she bought it! It just showed up on her doorstep with a note attached.
gelfling545
@Punchy: It’s something really simple to make by hand. Just basic cooking. AKA white sauce. If you can’t make it without a gadget you should just order out.
harlana
wow, i would be so fucking ashamed to write something like that; i have more self-awareness in my pinky toe than this woman has in her entire body – wait, take that back – she has no self-awareness or sense of shame, or she wouldn’t be able to write something like this – she assumes that all her readers can afford a $1500 food processor and it’s just delightful!
Lojasmo
Was going to opine Martha Stewart. McGargle is much funnier.
Amir Khalid
So this woman has US$1,500 to spend on a blender? Luxury! People in the third world support entire families for a good part of the year on that kind of money.
Michael Bersin
@arguingwithsignposts:
Payola.
daize
@xian: Hah!
Emily
@John Cole: Culinary School? I learned white sauce in Home Ec in the 8th grade.
bemused
I don’t use my large Cuisinart often unless I have a big food project to do. I like chopping by hand and one knife vs bowl, blade is less to wash. I really love my mini Cuisinart and use it all the time for making bread crumbs, dicing garlic, onion, carrots.
Ken
@Amir Khalid: Decade, not year.
Svensker
@Gretchen:
Not to be a food pedant, but technically bechamel is more than just a roux with milk or liquid. To be a true bechamel the roux with milk must be cooked long enough to be rid of the taste of the flour and skimmed constantly to take off the solids that rise to the top. A proper bechamel takes about 45 minutes to make. I doubt if McArglebargle’s machine makes it.
But white sauce in practice equals what passes for bechamel mostly.
harlana
BUT, BUT, i thought us regular folks were supposed to, you know, sacrifice? i mean, we’ve already been sacrificing on things like medicine & food for some time, so our overlords can have their bailouts!
now we’re supposed to go out and buy a fucking $1500 food processor when we don’t even have food to process?
I am so fucking confused.
harlana
am i the only fucking loser here who cannot cook, who owns nothing more than a couple of pots and pans and basic utensils? i mean, seriously, i feel totally inadequate as a human being
jrg
I wonder why they set the price point for this thing at 1,500? It seems to me that anyone dumb and rich enough to buy one of these would just as soon spend 2K… Or 15K for that matter.
RossInDetroit
We use an Aroma brand rice cooker received as a wedding present. It’s simple, foolproof and dead easy to set up. It’s also great for steaming veggies, freeing up stovetop space when you’re cooking a lot of stuff at once.
Fancy cooking gadgets are for rookies. Technique beats technology every time.
Ha ha
@NobodySpecial:
The machine only makes mac and cheese if you are not white.
For white people, it only produces Spaghetti-O’s.
The machine is just that smart.
Froley
It’s the holiday season which at my house means we get to see the KitchenAid mixer — it usually lives in the cabinet the other 11 months.
El Cid
I wouldn’t give a shit about someone paying $1,500 for a mixer (for a home market that might seem unusual, but a good commercial grade quality anything seems to start at $600 even if it’s a tea pitcher), because people lay out all sorts of dough (ha) for consumer shit — maybe video games, iPhone accessories, etc.
It’s the combination of that with the abject snobbery, the down-focused class hatred and callousness, the rock-brained and fact-avoiding ‘arguments’, and the flat-out uselessness of this entire ‘public intellectual’ which gets me.
Which, of course, all makes for good cause for McAddled to be invited to comment as a guest economysticizer on that god-awful public radio show which celebrates how high the stock market got today.
Robert Waldmann
My name Robet W and I’m a webaholic. I guessed correctly and with considerable confidence before clicking the link +and* before reading the ” Pink Himalayan Salt” tag. yesboth McMegan and DougJ are predictable, but mainly I spend wayyyyy to much time on blogs.
At least I don’t read McArdle ecept for quotes here and
scav
@Svensker: And even then, the 45 minute this is a bit of a technicality of high-end cuisine, rather than garden variety cuisine bourgeois. Because I went and checked the cookbook my host mother bought me (Ginette Mathiot, La cuisine pour tous, 1955, Le livre de poche pratique) and the Roux blanc (sauce blanche) swears it only takes 20 min. of cooking, and uses 30g butter, 40g flour and about 1/2 l. water and squanders a full three sentences on instructions. Melt the butter in a pot, add the flour and let cook 2 to 3 min. Pour in the hot water progressively while stirring to avoid lumps. Let cook, salt, pepper. Sauce béchamel gets off with “Mème procédé que pour la sauce blance mais remplacer l’eau par du lait.” Same procedure as white sauce but replacing water with milk.
jake the snake
@Mojotron:McMegan or Patrick Bateman, is there any real difference. I wouldn’t put McMegan above the serial killer thing, but I think she is too lazy to bury the bodies well enough for them not to have been discovered.
xian
@daize: one of my favorites
g
OK, I’m committing the sin of not getting out of the boat before commenting – but didn’t McMegan recently pen another “column” where she touted the virtues of retro cooking like grandma used to, and criticized modern women for relying on labor saving devices?
Pardon me if my McMegan memory is flawed – I make a point of not reading her.
Lyrebird
@FlipYrWhig:
WIN!!!!@
schrodinger’s cat:
You don’t need a rice cooker to make rice…. you need a rice cooker to make rice while taking a shower & still not scorch anything or set off the fire alarm!
(if you live alone, that is.)
I like the simplest Taiwanese models though.
MagicPanda
@g: The column/video you’re thinking of is kind of the opposite. Her thesis was that we shouldn’t worry about poverty because we are all getting “richer” due to advances in technology.
The accompanying video was a comedy classic. “In olden times, you had to use a flour sifter to sift flour, but now, you can do it in a food processor”. Etc.
Alan
For $1500 it better clean itself up too.
ruemara
I can’t be the only person who hates bechamel sauce. And I could buy a much needed car with 1500. Does this mixer thing at least drive her to work? And I got a mini Wolfgang Puck Mixer 6 years ago for $30, a blender with a stand and bowl for $35 and a sewing machine for $50, mostly at Overstock. They work beautifully and don’t cause smugness.
dmbeaster
The machine will break down, requiring a $600 repair by some crafty blue collar guy working that gig (think Cher’s father, the plumber, in Moonstruck), leading to a blog post about how the working class rips off the rich.
Julia Grey
It’s not just a vanity purchase in the sense of allowing Meagan to feel smug about herself. It’s a vanity purchase that also allows her to “subtly” brag about it in print to what she imagines is an army of envious readers, coyly pretending to be “sheepish” or “embarrassed” and mentioning the oooh-so-special hand-sold brand and (o. mi. gaud.) the price –TWICE– like the ill-bred vulgarian she is.
What a pathetic little snot.
brantl
@Mayur: It’s a vanity machine for anybody but a high-end production chef, which she is nowhere near.
Jebediah
@Cheryl from Maryland:
OMMFG. I can imagine the cavalcade of smug, self-congratulatory, precious, snobby excretions that would result from her adventures in pregnancy and child-rearing. Perhaps we will all find out about $2000 dirty-diaper receptacles.
Plato Socrates
Stopped clock my ass. While I can imagine such a device might be convenient for serious cooks, Megan had demonstrated repeatedly, and often comically, that she hasn’t got a clue how to cook well. She’s a complete poser, as the clearly unused pots in her unintentionally hilarious cake video demonstrate. She enjoys the appearance, without investing any effort. As previously noted, the fact that she has to make sure everyone knows how much the thing costs proves that it’s more of material showpiece than a kitchen utility for her. It’s like a guy buying a high-end custom guitar that he doesn’t know how to play thinking if he waves it in enough faces, everyone will think he’s a rock star. Christ, she’s an insufferable, vulgar, class-free asshole.
Jamie
The McMegan, it burns.
1) Anyone who needs, or even wants a 1.5k toy to make sauce automatically disqualifies themselves from being a foodie. Seriously. People who like to cook, cook. People who enthuse about toys and how cool their salt is want attention, not good food.
2) This is where capitalism goes to die.
(Jamie’s secret tools for cooking: 8 qt pot, cast iron skillet, wide, flat 1 qt saucepan, quality chef’s knife, quality paring knife, knife sharpener, baking sheet, crockpot, chopping block. That’s all you need. Toys like a submersion mixer or waffle irons are fun and expand possibilities, but that, and the actual desire to cook, are all you need to eat better than 90% of the country.)
Mayur
@brantl: Yeah, that was kinda my point.
MM gravely injures the reputation of a very effective appliance by bloviating about it. Pity that she picked one that a) is far beyond her frame of reference and b) tried to link her BS non-cooking with its operation.
Narya
@Joey Maloney: Okay, that made me laugh out loud.
The thing she so does not get is that one can get by with pretty minimal equipment (as so many commenters have noted), though mileage will vary on just what that equipment should be. The thing is, when one cooks a lot, or bakes a lot, one often decides to suck it up and get that piece of equipment that will make some set of tasks much easier or quicker–but the skill at cooking comes first. Then again, what can you expect from someone who sifts flour in a food processor.
Narya
@glocksman: Ohhhh, I covet a robot coupe (or robo-cop, as the chefs in pastry school called them). I have some vague memory that the Cuisinart is based on the robot coupe; someone had the brilliant idea to come up with a mass-market version for home cooks.
Craig
Bechamel? Flour, butter, milk, and a whisk. It’s not exactly a big deal.
Hollandaise does require some skill if made by hand, but any fifteen dollar blender does it brilliantly. (In fact, I usually rely on my blender, because it’s absolutely fool-proof and I still occasionaly break the sauce when going manual.)
In terms of _cooking_, I don’t think this robo-job is too far removed from ordering take-out. Which is wonderful if that’s what you want.