Kitchen Torch

I'm putting this recent gift of a kitchen torch to good use, melting some slathered homemade garlic butter (thanks to Chef Elaine) on a bread roll and finishing it with a little charring.  Notice I put a cookie sheet under the bread to help avoid any damage to the countertop (even though it's granite).  This is a serious piece of equipment and (IMHO) the second most dangerous piece of kitchen gear after the sharp blades of our mandolin.  The nozzle stays hot so letting it cool in a safe space is very important.

https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/compact-kitchen-torch

Eggnog

I let myself splurge once a year on a half-a-gallon of eggnog and for my money, nobody can beat the Reiter brand shown below, which I found at Dot's Market on Patterson Road.  If you look at the "Nutrition Facts" at the link below, you can see why it's only once a year.  This half-gallon comes in at a staggering 2,560 calories of creamy goodness, but it took me at least ten days to drink, so daily it's not so bad...?

https://reiterdairy.com/products/eggnog-plastic-half-gallon

Linear TV

I heard the term "Linear TV" recently and had no clue what it meant, so I went searching.  The article at the link below explains the term, which means "watching TV like I did as a kid", with shows airing once at a specific date and time.  It goes on to use the term OTT, "Over-the-Top Television", to describe today's world of streaming.  But I think Chef Elaine and I have viewing habits that go beyond just two simple terms.  

Most shows we watch in real-time are sports, mainly professional and college football, professional hockey, and college basketball.  We agree that professional baseball and basketball suck and no way we watch those.  YouTubeTV has a great DVR feature and has many shows available to watch whenever you like and those we split into skippable and non-skippable commercials.  We mute the non-skippable commercials, except for the funny ones like the Allstate Mayhem, Progressive Turning into Your Parents, or the bantering of Samuel L. Jackson, Charles Barkley, and Spike Lee.  Finally, like most folk nowadays, we stream shows commercial-free from paid services, with some of our favorites being on Netflix (Virgin River, Suits, Manifest), Paramount+ (Billions, Tulsa King), Max (Game of Thrones, The Gilded Age), and Amazon Prime (Ozark, Grace and Frankie, Schitt's Creek, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel).

https://www.vplayed.com/blog/what-is-linear-tv

Grape Balls

When the stress relief ball shown below was first demonstrated to me, I was startled to see the lime green "grapes" pop out from the blue, meshed-covered toy.  It's oddly satisfying and I can't wait to give one to our three-year-old grandson. The one Amazon sells at the link below differs from this product, but it should be very similar.  If you keep a list of future presents to buy (of course I do), you might want to add it now.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081QTTXDK

Space Bar Slide

If you fumble around trying to get positioned at the proper place on a line of text using your phone or tablet, you probably have never run across the "space bar slide".  As demonstrated below, you just slide your finger left or right across the space bar and the cursor slides character by character in the same direction.  This works on my Google Pixel 7 and Chef Elaine's iPhone 11, but it took installing GBoard (a keyboard by Google) to have it work on my iPad.  

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/googles-secret-keyboard-feature-gives-you-precise-cursor-control

Garlic Prime Rib

Chef Elaine earns five stars for this super-delicious Prime Rib.  We bought this 5.5-pound monster at Dot's Market, our source for most of our meats then she marinaded it with the combination of minced garlic, thyme, olive oil, salt, and pepper found in the recipe at the link below.  It was seared in a 500-degree oven for 30 minutes and continued at 325 degrees until medium rare.  It took far longer than the recipe suggested, partially because it started below room temperature even after an hour out of the refrigerator.  

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/56352/garlic-prime-rib

Mr. Coffee

We recently replaced our Cuisinart drip coffee maker with the Mr. Coffee machine shown on the right in the picture below.  While it brews a bit faster and the coffee tastes a bit better, what makes this such a nice upgrade is its water reservoir and coffee filter box.  The reservoir is removable, so Chef Elaine no longer has to fill up a pitcher with water and slowly and carefully pour it into the machine.  The filter box slides out and lays flat, so it can be filled near the sink, making the occasional spill of coffee grounds easier to clean up.  Also appreciated is that just a few of the most-needed options are included, resulting in just six buttons (brew now, brew later, strong, clean, hour, minute).  A few other goodies are listed at the link below.

https://www.mrcoffee.com/coffee-makers/10-cup-coffee-makers/mr.-coffee-stainless-steel-10-cup--programmable-coffee-maker/SAP_2133734.html

Special Teams Coach

Chef Elaine's oldest son Patrick has accepted the position of Special Teams Coordinator for the Texas A&M Aggies football team after two very successful years at Duke University.  I'll miss Duke, and getting to see Duke basketball games, but this is a great move and a huge challenge to compete in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) along with top teams such as Alabama, Georgia, and LSU.  I'll be replacing my nine-hour drive to Durham with an equally long, door-to-door trip to College Station, Texas.  Now I need to practice my "y'all" and perhaps learn a few words of Spanish.

https://12thman.com/sports/football/roster/coaches/patrick-dougherty/1759

LunaAI

The story begins with Chef Elaine placing an online order for a floral centerpiece to be delivered to a friend.  But what was delivered was a normal vase of flowers, different from what was ordered.  That began an online exchange with what we now know to be an AI-powered chatbot (LunaAI).  The chatbot promised a redelivery or a refund, neither of which happened.  After more prodding, a human got involved and wanted to offer a 25% refund and a lame excuse, as shown below.  That eventually was increased to a 50% refund, but we only wanted what was ordered or our money back.  It wasn't until after we disputed the charge with the credit card that we got a full refund.  Needless to say, we won't be using that company again.

Webcam Tests

In a post last week I mentioned that my Pixel 7 webcam had 2.25 times more pixels than my regular webcam and this blog explains how I came to know that.  The WebCamTests website at the link below was the source of that knowledge and a whole lot more.  My Pixel 7 returned a resolution of 1920x1080 and my normal webcam returned 1280x720.  Doing the multiplication and division returns the 2.25 number.  

The site automatically detects your webcam and runs several tests that can take up to a minute to complete.  There are several other functions provided by the website and one of the fun ones is creating a greeting card.  Say "cheese!."

https://webcamtests.com