Edible/Usable

Product Usability Review - Mandoline Smackdown

I've been a bad blogger:  It's been months since I last posted a food related post, and I sadly neglected Edible/Usable's one year anniversary that happened on January 30, 2009.  I've been busy at my new job, and haven't been inspired by winter cooking.  But now that spring has sprung, I've got no more excuses!  I'll get back into the action with something I've been meaning to do since I started this blog more than a year ago: a kitchen tool usability review.

I've been meaning to do a kitchen usability review for some time, but just haven't had the time to really develop my test criteria and actually do a test of different products.  I've also been meaning to come up with a kitchen tool rating methodology similar to how I did with restaurants and food web sites.  I thought that mandolines would be a great place to start, partly because a mandoline something that I've been meaning to get for awhile (there have been multiple moments when I've stood at the counter with a piece of food in my hand wishing that I had one) and they also seem to embody many of the 'judgment criteria' that I think about when I buy or use a kitchen tool:

1. Does it do what it was designed to do better than a simpler solution (i.e., a knife, my fingers, a rock).
2. Is it something that I will use fairly often.  This is kind of related to the first, but more specific. 
3. Physical attributes:  Is it easy to set up and use, does it use limited storage space when it's not being used, does it look and feel high quality and like it won't break or fall apart.  If it is something that needs to stay on my kitchen counter, is it nice looking.
4. Is it easy to clean.  For me there is a "time to clean specific tool:doing it by hand" ratio that determines whether I reach for that specific tool or just use a knife or other simple way of doing something - even if it means I'll get poorer results.  Food processors are prime examples of this ratio.

I spent quite some time reading online about different mandolines.   The most common complaints I read about were either that it wasn't sharp enough or people cut themselves on it - often both.  Based on several pages of reviews I read, within my price range (nothing over $50 bucks) it came down to two choices:  Swissmar Borner V-Slicer Plus Mandoline   or the OXO Good Grips V-Blade Mandoline Slicer.   They are both V blade mandolines (vs. the single straight or 30 degree angle blade) and both had pretty good reviews on Amazon.

The Contestants:
Both of these mandolines do what they were designed to do really well - at least so far with the few times that I've used them.  They have similar functionality - they do straight slices, julienne slices and have a V blade that is super sharp that cuts through harder vegetables like carrots quickly and easily.    The only food item that they both failed at was a ball of fresh mozzarella (I haven't tried a tomato yet which is the .  But the OXO has additional features that I was sure would make it a better and more useful tool:
 

1. The OXO mandoline can be adjusted to slice in four different thicknesses, while the Borner only allows for two. 
2. The OXO has legs that fold down on one side so you can slice at a downward angle
3. The OXO has four different blades - straight, crinkle cut, julienne and french fries, the Borner has three blades

All of that said, after spending time with both items, the Swissmar Borner Mandoline has become the one that reach for now when I need to do some slicing, not the OXO with it's fuller feature set.  There are four main reasons for this:

1. The OXO is confusing to put together and take apart.  It's got several moving and adjustable parts that flip open, pull out and clip in.  Every time I use it I spend a few minutes trying to figure out which thing I have to flip up to use the right blade or change to a different blade. 
2. The slices don't go where you think they will.  I really thought that the standing leg would be a key differentiator between the two slicers, but because of the fold down leg, you actually can't prop this slicer over a bowl to catch the slices as they come out.  Because of the angle, the slices end up accumulating at the lower end of the slicer which means you can't even put a plate under the slicer to catch the slices as they come out.  It ends up being really messy and you have to stop slicing and clean out the slices, put them in your bowl then start again.
3. It's difficult to clean because all of the parts are stored in the slicer body.  Although the body is dishwasher safe, because all of the different blades are stored in the body, you have to remove them from the body before you wash it.  This means that you have random sharp blades lying around your kitchen.  And I always forget how to put it all back together.  Maybe if I used it a lot, I would get it eventually. 
4. It doesn't seem safe.  In the storage position, the sharp blade is still exposed and it seems like you could easily cut yourself on it accidentally.  

This slicer definitely violates my fourth judgment criteria - ratio of time to clean: do it by hand.  It takes too long to take it apart, clean it then find all the pieces to put back together.  The OXO is a great example of how feature bloat has made what could have been a really nice tool difficult to use.  Even though it does what it is supposed to do well, I don't like using it and I probably won't use it very often.

The Borner on the other hand, is really simple:  The mandoline body slides in an out of a hard plastic case that also holds the additional blades.    There aren't any additional moving parts - you simply slide in the inserts to change the slicing thickness or the blade type.  There is a square notch at the bottom of the slicer that fits over the lip of a bowl or dish so you can slice directly into a bowl or other container.   When the mandoline is stored in the plastic case, the blades are completely covered and not exposed. It is very easy to clean - even though it isn't dishwasher safe.  The Borner is a great example of how simple = usable.  The Borner has become the mandoline that I reach for, even for simple small jobs that I would have normally just used a knife and a cutting board.

There is one thing that neither of them do very well:  the food holder/guard that you are supposed to use to protect your fingers.  They both have a similar contraption - a round disk with prongs in the center that you push into the food to hold it while you slice.  This might work for some food, but for hard foods like carrots or small food like radish, this doesn't really work, which means I never actually use it.  I haven't seen any mandoline that has anything that works better than what is included with these tools.  I may end up getting one of these cut resistant gloves.

Mandoline Smackdown winner: Swissmar Borner V-Slicer Plus Mandoline

A Digression: The redesign of thesixtyone.com and Listening to Your Users

This post isn't about food.  It's about my favorite music site and what happens when a business doesn't get feedback from their users before they do a massive redesign.

Last year a did a brief stint at AOL.  I worked mainly on their music site, AOL music.  While I was working there, I looked at a lot of other sites in the online music playing, collecting, and discovering spheres.  A lot of my focus was figuring out the best way to do two things:  create playlists of songs, and how to have a good seamless playback experience.  Both are somehow harder than you would think, but there were lots of good and bad examples out there of both. 

Two of the sites I discovered became regular music sites for me after I left AOL (well, 3 if you include the sadly departed original muxtape.com): first, blip.fm.  This site is great for when you have a song in your head, you don't have it handy on you iPod, you can go to blip.co and do a simple search then play it online.  It's also really easy to listen to what other users are listening to, but isn't really that great for discovering new, unheard music.  The second site is thesixtyone.com.  The site features new music, uploaded by the actual artists.  I'm writing the rest of this paragraph in past tense... The playback experience was great - there was a small, unobtrusive but functional player that featured uninterrupted continuous music playback.  By this I mean that if you were on a page listening to a song, and you navigated to another page on the site, the song would continue playing.  I know this sounds simple, but very few sites actually support this. 

I discovered a lot of great new music by small bands from all over the world on t61.  I recommended it to all of my friends.  When I had time at work that I wasn't in meetings, I listened to it for hours at a time.  There was a whole game/reputation element to it that I didn't really understand entirely, but I was still able to easily participate in.  I could indicate that I liked a song by giving it a 'heart.'  I could save songs to my profile so I could listen to them again later.  I was at level 14 - again not sure exactly what this meant, but 14!  When I got bored of listening to my own saved songs, I could listen to other people's 'radio.'  I could 'favorite' people, they could 'favorite' me and musicians that I liked could comment on my profile and thank me for 'hearting' their music.   It wasn't totally perfect, but it seemed to have a lot of promise.  I was really looking forward to the iPhone app so that I could take it with me.

So imagine my dismay when I went to the site yesterday and saw that they had done a total and complete redesign of the site.  Gone was the list of songs on the home page.  Gone was the simple music player.  Gone was the genre list of songs.  And gone was any sense that anybody else was actually using the site to listen to music.   I do think that the new design has it's merits.  It looks REALLY nice.  I brings a really nice focus to the artists on the site - in a way that may be really beneficial to them.  It could be a really nice way to listen to music if you start with a list, then launch the 'visual' version of the player.  But I have two major issues with this redesign:

1.  They removed significant functionality for no apparent reason:

They removed or disabled functionality that was primary to what I felt (and from their previous tag lines and branding indicated) was the primary experience model of the site:  a community where you could discover new music.  By removing this functionality, or in some cases just making it really hard to find, they made the site difficult to use and ruined one of the best music experiences on the web.  In just one day of use, I've discovered specific removed/hidden functionality that have resulted in several usability issues:

Music Discovery:

• The home page is now just an image of one band, and the song starts playing on page load.  It's not immediately clear how you navigate to the next song, there isn't actually any clue given that there IS a next song, and there isn't any way to tell what the next song is.  By removing the list on the home page, they've made it really hard for new users to understand what the site is, and really hard for existing users to browse through songs to find stuff to play.
• Maybe it's a bug, but the same song has been the first one on the home page for the past two days.  This NEVER used to happen on the old version of the site.
• They removed the genre pages.  I used genre pages fairly frequently.  I'd go to the "alt country" or "house" or other genre pages just to find new stuff.  Artists must also be pissed that these are gone because unless music gets promoted to the 'home page' it will be really hard to find music that no one else is listening to.
• As far as I can tell, you can't purchase music from the site anymore.  I didn't buy tons of music from there, but I did buy some.  From what I remember, purchasing music directly from the artists was a big business differentiator for them.  It seems to have gone away entirely.  Were artists made aware of this change?

Music Playback:

• I mentioned before that I really liked the music player they had before.  It was small, hung out up in the upper left corner (at least the most recent incarnation did, there was one at the bottom on the previous design).  From the player I could do these things:  pause, replay, heart, save, change volume, see the songs I've listened to and move to the next song in the list.  Now the 'player' has been separated into two different parts:  one on the left is a flyout layer that shows the band name, the song, lets you heart, comment and share.  To pause, change volume, save, return to playlist (??) or replay, you have to go to the upper right of the screen.  Both actions require a mouseover, and both are annoying.  My most common behavior when listening to a song was to heart it and then save it.  Now I have to go to two different places on the screen to do this.  And now when I save it, I have to specify a playlist - an extra action that I'm not really interested in doing.
• Constant playback doesn't work the same way anymore because they have removed the song list pages.  If you can find the way to get to different 'lists' of music, the song you were listening to stops and a new one starts playing.  You don't have any idea what it will be, and there isn't an easy way to get back to the song you were just listening to.
• Search functionality has been removed entirely.

Community & My Profile

• The sense that there were other people on the site actively listening to the site is totally gone.  I didn't come to the site because I knew other people were there listening, but it was great to discover music through other users.  Radio, followers, listeners. All seem to be gone.
• There was a concept of being able to bid hearts to promote songs to the home page if you were willing to spend the hearts to do it.  I can't tell if that still exists or not.   This is another thing that I rarely did, but I really appreciated when others did it.  It made the home page seem more dynamic and fresh.
• The new user profile on the site is just ugly.  There are CD covers in the middle of the page (I think they show actual covers if you have bought albums from the site - but since I haven't bought full CDs they are just blank covers sitting in the middle of the page). 
• My song lists are relegated to a small module in the bottom right of the page.  I used my saved song list a lot.  Now I have to scroll through a little module to find songs I'm looking for.
• People who follow me and people I follow are gone.  There's a button to follow myself, but I get an error message when I try, and why would I want to anyway?
• My radio is gone as well as the ability to shuffle my saved songs
• They've added the concept of 'playlists' which may be useful for some people, but I think it's a mistake to make them such a priority.  Some people make playlists, others don't.
• There's a really clear "etiquette" link that explains how to be nice on the site, but there's no-one left to be nice to.

2.  They are ignoring their users

They seemed to have done this total redesign without talking to ANY of their actual users.  It's possible that they did talk to some of their users, but when I read all of the backlash against the re-design on their Facebook fan page, and when one of the most active listeners that I know of, writes this on his profile: "I don't have an ipod and the[new]sixtyone is worthless - what were they thinking?" it definitely seems like they didn't.  I've worked at start-ups before, and I know that it's easy to claim that you don't have time/money/resources to have multiple versions of a site available and working for A/B or user/usability testing.  But these aren't small changes.  This is a massive redesign and redirection for the whole site and it deserved to be vetted by some actual users.  I've heard developers claim that they don't have to do usability testing or talk to actual users because they ARE the users (ahem, 37signals...) but it's just not true or right.  And it doesn't have to be a difficult, expensive or time consuming process, especially when there is an ardent and active user base such as with t61. 

But the most damning evidence is that NOWHERE on the site is there a way to give feedback.  Not even a bug reporting link which is highly unusual for a newly launched site.  And with all of the grumblings and rumblings I've read online, I haven't read any response or word from the site developers since they posted a note on their Facebook Fan page saying that saved songs were back.  Not a word.  Where are you guys, and why have you done this to us?

My suspicions are that there is a big business or technical reason they did this.  I'd love to know what it is.

There is a lot of chatter and feedback about the new redesign, most of it negative.  Here's a few good links with other thoughts.

http://www.iusedtolikethesixtyone.com/ - site calling for the boycott of the new t61 with several good links
http://www.movementsixtyone.com/ - collection of links about the new redesign
http://t61place.freeforums.org/ - original forums on how to use t61
http://trinitylast.com/a-letter-to-thesixtyone/ - An open letter from an artist
http://www.thedevilsfeet.net/archive/the-rise-and-fall-of-t61-com/ - with some good links to other articles about the redesign
http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/as9ql/when_you_do_a_site_redesign_please_dont_do_this/ - great list of the basic usability issues of the new redesign

Website Review: Evaluating "Good Guide" Ratings

The Good Guide is a good idea.  No, it's a great idea.  In case you aren't familiar with it, Good Guide is a website (and iPhone app) that lets you search for food, cosmetics, and other personal use items and get ratings on how healthy and green they are.  Their goals are to "provide the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies." If you've ever been in the cosmetics aisle, the food isle or in any store, and have found yourself wondering what the environmental impact and general 'green-ness' or nutrition value is of any product you have bought or are thinking of buying may be, Good Guide is the site (or app) for you.

But, I have to bring attention to a major usability issue I have with their site, and then subsequently an issue I discovered with their food ratings.  I follow Good Guide on Twitter, and today they posted the following Tweet:

Worst-rated energy and snack bars. Check your bar, get a better boost http://bit.ly/p1x5Y

I clicked on the link and I got this:



I've been on Good Guide before, but I was really confused when I looked at this list.  Was a higher rating good or bad?  Was the overall scale - 1 - 10 or 1 - 20?  Was a 4.2 rating that much better or worse than a 5.2 rating?   What did the colors of the rating circles mean?  This page gives me absolutely no clue even in simple terms how their rating system works or what the numbers mean. (I did crop these images, click here to see the actual page.)  This was partly because I'd gone to a page with the LOWEST rated items, so it was sorted from low to high, but it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on. I definitely don't need lots of details on this page, but I do need a little bit of guidance about what the numbers mean so I can compare and contrast as I go down the list.

If you click into any of the items, you do get a lot more details and ways to discover what the ratings mean.  But most importantly, they have this little indicator which is super simple and explains a lot.

If they put this colored scale on the list page, it would  help explain what the numbers of the ratings mean.  A simple change would make a huge difference.  Another simple change would be to add numbers to the list to the left of each item that shows the number RANK of the item in the list. 

I found this other scale indicator at the bottom of the detailed info that would be even more helpful if they put it on the browse pages.   It is a very simple diagram that explains a lot.

Since I was on the site, I started taking a more detailed look around.  I had been on the site before, looking for information on how "green" a face lotion was that I had just bought.  But I hadn't looked at their food ratings.  After spending some time, I have to say that I have some real issues with the way their rating system seems to be working.  

Restaurant Review: T. J. Buckley's, Brattleboro, VT

There are tons of sources on the internet and in print for restaurant reviews.  Professional food critics make big bucks, small newspapers often hire freelance food reviewers, there are user generated food review sites like Zagat (the original user generated book of amateur foodies) and Chow.com (one of the first big amateur food review sites and forums), as well as countless blogs, independent papers and websites, online city guides and iPhone apps devoted to food and restaurants.  Many of them use some sort of standardized criteria or rating system that includes thoughts or values ascribed to the quality of the food, the sprightliness of the service and the beauty or appropriateness of the decor. 

In previous posts, I've created a methodologies for reviewing products (including websites) and cookbooks, so I'd like to do the same for restaurants:

Edible/Usable Restaurant Review Criteria:

1.  The Food - Obviously the most important one - it's why we go to restaurants and I personally am willing to forgive any of the following criteria if the food is tasty enough.
2.  Eco-ness - There are tons of publications, blogs and personalities talking about local and sustainable agriculture these days, and rightly so.  Many restaurants have taken the lead in showing consumers what can be done with a seasonal menu that is locally sourced and in many cases organically grown.   I think this is an important criteria and one that I look for when I eat out.
3.  User Friendliness - Most restaurants don't think of their customers as being 'users' (many restaurants don't think about their customers, period) but they should.  When I enter a restaurant space I want to feel reassured and like I can accomplish what I am there to do.   This could include everything from decor and furnishings to menu design to service and ambiance. 
4.  Value - This won't only be about cost, but also about how a restaurant makes you feel about the money you spent.  Was it really worth it?  If given a choice, would you spend that money in the same way again?

The first restaurant I'd like to apply my new methodology to is T.J. Buckley's, a lovely little restaurant in Brattleboro, VT.  

1 T flr&sug - Otherwise known as Twitter Recipes

One of the first things I remember from my 4-H cooking class was learning the difference between a 'T' and a 't' when you read or wrote down a recipe.  The difference in case could mean a successful recipe or a total disaster.  A lot of experienced cooks start with a recipe and add or remove or replace ingredients as they are inspired to do, so an accurate detailed recipe isn't often required.  The same isn't true of baking. Some experienced bakers know enough about the science of baking to know proportions and required ingredients, but for many, exact amounts and detailed instructions are necessary.

When I started this blog, I expanded my Twitter followings to a lot of food related tweets.  I did a search for cooking, food, recipes and randomly followed a bunch of people.   I found others to follow based on tweets in my feed.  Some of the more intriguing posts came from @cookbook  (definitely a Twitter name that many, many people/companies wish they'd gotten first...) who tweets recipes in a severely abbreviated form.  For example, here's a recipe that was posted on June 10th:

Apricot Platz: Mennonite. Mix8T milk&sug/c flour/t bkgpdr&vanil/5T mltbutter/egg. Top w 8halvedfruit/mixed 6T butter&flour&sug. h@175C/350F.

I was on the fence about this at first.  I love the fact that Twitter has inspired a concise way of writing.  For some writers, this means normal grammar and rules, but choosing your words very carefully.  For others, it means creating a new grammar and language that uses abbreviations and short cuts in similar to texting.  For general thoughts, opinions, feelings, references to more detailed information, this new form of grammar is fine.  But for any type of information where details are important, Twitter fails.  From a usability point of view, recipes on Twitter fail miserably.

Take the example above.  If I reference the glossary  "Mix8T milk&sug/c flour/t bkgpdr&vanil/5T mltbutter/egg" I think means 8 tablespoons of milk and 8 tablespoons of sugar.  But how much flour and baking powder and vanilla? According to the glossary,  "/" means "and another amount."  But what that other amount is isn't clear.  But beyond the amounts and ingredients, this recipe has no context for me.  I assume from the list of ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, vanilla, egg, fruit) that it is some sort of cake.  But what kind of cake?  I have to Google "Apricot Platz" to find out that it's a coffee-type cake with fruit on top.  What sort of pan do I use?  How long do I bake it?  What is it going to look like in the end?  I need a lot more information that simply cannot be conveyed in 140 characters. 

The other usability issue I have with this format is a lack of scan-ability.  I think it is important to be able to scan through a recipe and either mentally or physically note that you have the required ingredients, the right tools, the amount of time necessary to prepare it.  Twitter recipes require an extra level of translation that makes them more complicated and easier to make mistakes.   Recipes on Twitter are the opposite of what a real recipe offers, where context, photos and details inspire and instruct.

I would have much less of an issue with recipes on Twitter if there was a link to a more detailed recipe.  I would be happy to get a new Twitter recipe every day from multiple sources (Martha Stewart  has started tweeting recipes as well) that provided a quick link to the detailed recipe.  This to me is the power of Twitter:  a one to many relationship that allows people to easily publish content and create their own feeds of content based on keywords and that is influenced by what other people are reading, re-tweeting and saying.

Here's an alternate opinion.

Blog Review - Smitten Kitchen

I think I have fairly standard blog reading habits.  I have several favorite blogs that I visit every day (some several times a day), and a few others that I visit when I remember to or when I have time to.  I've never been a big user of RSS - or rather I subscribe to RSS feeds (via My Yahoo just because that's where I started doing RSS years ago) but I actually never visit My Yahoo page and see what's there.  RSS never really gave me enough information or context.  Twitter has changed my blog reading behavior somewhat - I will now go a read a blog post that has been mentioned on Twitter.  I also rely on del.icio.us to keep track of and categorize my favorites.

I've bookmarked a lot of food blogs in the past few months.  In general, I find that there are three different types: blogs about dining, food and food issues (locavore blog , NYTimes Diners Journal ); blogs by chefs, 'food personalities' or more professional publications or organziations, (Dorrie Greenspan,  Martha Stewart, David Lebovitz , the kitchen - a food spin-off of Apartment Therapy ) and 'amateur' blogs - ones that are written by non-professional cooks and feature recipes and thoughts about the recipes (big girls, small kitchen,  Much Depends on Dinner , Orangette).  It's a lot of writing, recipes and thoughts to keep up with.  But I've found a few that have been really inspiring - not only making me want to cook, but making me want to write in my own blog.

My most recent favorite is Smitten Kitchen.  It has all of the things I value in a blog:  great content that is well written, really nice photos and there's a personality behind it that comes through not only in the writing, but in the choice of topics and recipes.  Other things: unlike many food blogs, it has a categorized recipe index. It has a conversions and equivalents page!  There is also a very extensive links page (a blog roll) "Good Reads" that provides links to many different food blogs and other blogs of interest.

Kitchen Tools - Old and New

I've been thinking a lot lately about kitchen tools.  Partly because I've been working at an office that's practically next door to Sur La Table, and sometimes after work or on the way back to the office during lunch, I'll pop in and take a look around.  Kitchen stores for me are like a proverbial candy store for a kid.  My eyes go wide, my palms go sweaty and I think about what I can cook that will justify buying some fancy new tool.  And Sur La Table is full of the best and fanciest kitchen tools.  But like most people in New York, I have relatively little storage space, so I really do try to keep my kitchen tool buying to a minimum (the tools that I don't use as often have already migrated out of my kitchen cabinets and into the wall unit in my living room).

The other reason I've been thinking about kitchen tools is because I've gone out to flea markets in Pennsylvania for a few weekends already this spring.  Flea markets are always full of old kitchen tools.  Some treated reverently as artifacts of a former age, others treated like old pieces of junk, all piled together in a cardboard box with a magic marker scrawl "Anything in this box: $1.00."  I have actually started a small collection of vintage kitchen tools, but like any collecting urge, it's a slippery slope.  Before you know it, my kitchen wall will look like this:

 

What I've found especially interesting is how much kitchen tools have NOT changed over time.  Except for electric mixers superseding hand egg beaters, and the more recent use of silicone as a material that many kitchen tools are now made of, a potato masher now still looks like a potato masher did 60 years ago.  Same with a whisk, a rolling pin, a pastry mixer.   And functionally, they are still the same. 

In 1990 (I'm totally freaking out right now because I just realized 1990 was almost 20 years ago...) a company called OXO debuted a line of kitchen products that were designed using the principals of universal design - the principle that objects should be designed to be useful to the greatest number of people - with a focus on making kitchen tools that were easy and pleasant to use.  They have a great line of products, and I think definitely influenced how cooks and designers thought about kitchen tools.  (Three OXO items, the paring knife, the vegetable peeler and the jar opener, are in MOMA's Architecture and Design collection.)  But functionally, these tools are not that different than some of the tools that have existed for decades. 

(Three vegetable peelers that I have vs. the OXO Good Grips peeler:  a basic cheapo peeler that was probably the first peeler I ever bought, a peeler with a handmade wooden handle that I got at a fleamarket, a newer peeler that I bought recently.  The OXO vegetable peeler)

For me, this just goes to show that incremental usability improvements, especially ones that are based on user testing and evaluation of specific user needs are just as or more important as giant re-designs that change a product significantly. 

Why do I have three vegetable peelers?  That is another question entirely.  Possibly because the first cheapo one wasn't sharp enough anymore, so I bought the red one.  The wooden one I bought because it looks and feels nice.  But in general, my new goal is to not buy new kitchen equipment and make do with what I have.   Here are some good tips on the essential tools for any small kitchen, and ideas on how to put your kitchen on a diet.  This is obviously how many of those kitchen tools ended up at a flea market.

It's Gettin' Hot In Here

Yes, today feels like spring.  Finally.  I have my (newly cleaned) windows open.  But what I really want to talk about is kitchen thermometers.  I'm going to a friend's house for Sunday lunch (a lovely British tradition) tomorrow, and I'm bringing dessert.  I decided to make a lemon tart, and found a really nice recipe in the "Baking" cookbook that L&R gave me last year.  There's a whole story behind the 'creamy lemon tart' - some fellow in France emulsifying lots of butter - so I decided to make it.

 The recipe calls for a double boiler, constant whisking, and heating the lemon curd to a temp of 180 degrees.  Often the issue I've had with thermometers is that they don't measure high enough heat - say if you're making caramel, candy or jelly (generally 250 degrees).    I actually have two kitchen thermometers, and they both go beyond 180 degrees.  My problem this time was that I had a really hard time keeping the thermometer in the mixture while stirring at the same time.  I dropped each of them into the pot at least two times.  I also got a steam burn on one of my hands.  I'm sure it was funny to watch, but it was frustrating and I actually never got the curd beyond 170 degrees.  I just kind of eyeballed it.  I'll find out tomorrow if it really worked or not.

What I'd really like to have is some sort of thermometer that you could clip to the edge of the pan, and that would stick out away from the side so you could get an accurate temperature.  Does this exist?  If not, it should.

Overall assessment - kitchen thermometer=fail.

Update: I'm trying out the Foodista web site to drive traffic to this site. Here's a link: (btw, this is NOT the recipe that I used for my lemon curd...)

Cutting (Boards)

I don't remember where I picked it up, but I was always told that you needed at least two (if not three) cutting boards in your everyday kitchen.  You need one for smelly foods like garlic, onions and meat, one for non-smelly foods like fruit and bread, and a wooden board for cheese.  I had the requisite three (plus a few others that I kept for emergencies or bigger projects) but last year, when I was packing to go camping, I took my 'smelly' board (a smallish white plastic board) and donated it to my camping kitchen kit (hopefully another post on camp kitchens later...)

That meant I needed a new 'smelly' board,  One day I was in Whole Foods, and feeling virtuous, I picked up a Preserve cutting board.  They're made with 100% recycled plastic, are dishwasher safe, and come in really nice colors.

It took me awhile to admit it, but I really hate this cutting board.  By looking at it, you would think it would be great - it's fairly big, has a decent surface, and again, it's a pretty color (I got the red one).  But there are at least three big issues I have with it:

1.  Often, when I'm chopping something, I bang my hand against the curved lip on one side.  "Why don't you just turn the board around so that the curved part is on the opposite side" you ask?  Truthfully, I never think about it until my knuckles are knocking against it.  I keep my cutting boards in the space next to my toaster which is to the right of where I normally stand to cut things.  I grab it with my right hand, put it on the counter, and begin cutting with my right hand.  In many things I'm a lefty, but I use a knife with my right hand, so that's how it happens.

2. Also because of the curved lip, you can really only use one side of the board.  I guess you could turn it so that he curve goes over the edge of the counter (or of the sink), but that just seems weird.  I like to be able to use both sides of a cutting board.

3.  And this is the biggest one.  For some reason, it slips and slides all over my granite countertop more than any other cutting board I've ever had.  Really, since it's only usable on one side, there should be little rubber feet on the other that keep it from slipping around.  It's really a drag when you're chopping onions, and the board keeps slipping out from under you.  I end up putting a kitchen towel under it, which keeps it from slipping, but, really, it just shouldn't slip!

One other thing is that it doesn't have a groove on the inside to catch liquid.  This really isn't a fault of this particular board since some boards have them and some don't.  I just know know that the next board I get will have one.

Overall Evaluation:

1. Aesthetics - These boards are really nice colors, and look good, so I can't fault them on this metric.  And the fact that it's made from recycled materials is good.
2. Value - I don't remember how much I paid for this.  Since I got it at Whole Foods, it was probably expensive.
3. Reliability - Not very reliable!  It slips around when I use it! It's practically dangerous!
4. Task Completion - I always do end up completing whatever task I start with this, but I grumble a lot while I do it, and I always end the task by saying that I need to get a new cutting board.
5. Discovery - Not a valid metric for this particular item
6. Satisfaction  - Unsatisfying.  I can't wait to get a new board and put this in the cupboard where I'll maybe take it out and look at it occasionally then put it back.

English Food

 

I just came back from a week-long trip to England to visit friends.  I spent a few days in Brighton and Hove, then went up to London for the rest of the trip.  England has always gotten a bad rap for having bad food.  But I personally think that British food can be great.  Baked beans, fish and chips, sticky toffee pudding, while not exactly healthy, if made with quality ingredients are all delicious.   I actually think the quality of the milk, meat and cheese there is much better than what you normally find here in the states.  Maybe it’s because statistically they still have more farms than we do in the states (67.8% of all land is farmland in the UK vs. 40.1% in the US.)  And they have adopted organic farming more than farmers in the states have (UK has 4.39% of farmland organic, the US only .22%).  And ‘local’ in the UK is much easier to achieve there since as a smaller country.  Food has to travel less to get to a destination.

Two other things about British food that I found better than in the US:

1. Several of their big grocery chains have really good prepared food.  Tesco, Sainsburys and Marks & Spencer all have their own lines of prepared, refrigerated food.  The stuff I had – Indian Curry and pasta and sauces were excellent.  (It’s already seeming like prepared food is going to be a theme on this blog…)

2.  Labeling.  Though it isn’t consistent across brands, products or stores, in general I found the nutrition labeling to be much more informative and easier to understand.  Use of icons, pie charts and colored indicators help explain nutrition values in much simpler terms than the simple black & white Nutrition Data lable that you find in the states (how often do you see people - especially older people - in grocery isles digging around for their reading glasses just to read a food lable?).  If they could find the best and most informative labeling system, and make it standard, it would be even better.

 And there is a third:  Crisps.  The ubiquitous Walker’s crisps have come up with a contest for the best new flavor (or flavour if you prefer):  My favorite?  Cajun Squirrel.

A Note on Methodology - What do I Mean by "Usability?"

What exactly is usability?  The term is most often applied to Human Computer Interactions (HCI), but has also been extended to tools and spaces.  The self-appointed and controversial 'guru' of usability Jakob Nielsen defined usability in 2003 as:

"a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word "usability" also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process."

I have a lot of issues with Neilsen and some of his pronouncements of what is and isn't usable.  If we all listened to Jakob Neilsen and did exactly what he said, the web would still look like it did in 1999, or it would look like his site - which I think is nearly impossible to use.  It's hard to find items, difficult to read and almost everything costs over $100 bucks.  It is his business, so he should take his own advice.

That said, I think his dedication to the idea of usability, his ability to sell usability to "C" level executives who make decisions, and his introduction to basic usability methodology has helped UX professionals. The idea that the usability of web sites can be evaluated and measured by assessing  different components or metrics is a sound one, and one that I've used often in studies I've conducted.  Usability studies are generally described as 'quantitative' exercises (vs. qualitative studies) - one where you can assign numeric values, apply formulas and come back with a meaningful set of numbers that will tell you whether your application or product is usable or not.  As with most practices, this can be taken to the quantitative extreme or to the qualitative opposite.  In my opinion, both methods have value, and which method you use depends on what you're trying to accomplish with the testing or evaluation.

On this blog, I won't be using calculators, but I am going to use a set of metrics to organize my observations.  I'll be evaluating things by the following 6 metrics:

1. Aesthetics - this will include ambiance, design, presentation and general beauty
2. Value - did I feel like I got ripped of, or would I pay for this again?
3. Reliability - can I use or visit this tool/place repeatedly and get the same results?
4. Task Completion - was I able to easily finish my cooking task, or finish my meal (ok, this one's a little shaky as a restaurant metric, but humor me.)
5. Discovery - was there something surprising about this place or thing?  Was it something that made me say "I'm so happy I found this!"
6. Satisfaction - overall, how satisfying an experience was it to use this product or eat this food?

Maybe I'll come up with a scale in the future, but for now, these will be guidelines.