Archive for January, 2010

The Nerd Cooking Hour

Jan 12

Posted by jeff in Everything, Food, Geekery, Travel | 1 Comment

So I finally decided to do some Googling on the kind of electric stoves I've seen used here in China, since they're something I've never seen before.

Jing Jing and I would fry up seven different dishes in a screamingly hot pan, then I'd pick up the pan, wipe a wet cloth across the cooking surface, and the water left behind would barely steam. Oil, water, and sauces spilled on the cooking surface just sat there while you cooked, not smoking or smoldering, until wiped away.

This thing will boil water almost as fast as a microwave and heat oil to the smoking point within seconds, and you can dial in an exact temperature (fuck this "high," "medium-high“ or "low" bullshit, it's all about seeing 120C on the display and getting exactly that heat in your pan) and have instant response. Coming from a normal electric cooktop and then gas, the precision, responsiveness, and power of this thing is almost scary.

Since we haven't done much cooking lately, I've only gotten around to looking up the technology today. This was triggered by a long and fruitless search for a good hard-anodized aluminum pan, because I want to start cooking again, I want one of these stoves, I hate having to use gallons of oil just for a simple stir-fry in a normal iron wok, and the kitchen at the hostel is... well, let's just say I don't like to spend a lot of time in it.

So I started looking for aluminum pans on Taobao, China's version of eBay mixed with Amazon. No dice, except for some Calphalon models that were going for well over $200.

Then I started thinking, okay, there has to be something behind this, and it's certainly not a health concern or aluminum shortage -- let's figure out what it is. Google to the rescue.

 

I kind of want to know where they got these f-ed up pots and pans.

Turns out it's the stove, which is an induction cooker. Who knew that aside from giving us electric toothbrush charging stations, wind-up or jack-off charging LED flashlights, and a promising start to actually viable wireless power, magnetic induction can also be used to accidentally make a crunchy brown omelet for breakfast in about fifteen seconds?

I guess plenty of people, but this is the first time I've seen it in action, or even heard of it. More info on induction cooking advantages and drawbacks here -- do your own fact checking, the source is clearly biased, but it seems pretty solid to me.

 

Never had someone ask for an egg cooked half well-done, half completely raw, but I guess this is a plus for induction cookers.

For you non-nerds out there, this kind of stove basically uses a copper coil to put a rapidly alternating magnetic field just above its surface, which shakes the (note) magnetically responsive atoms of anything of sufficient mass and density (various sensors are built in for this) above it to make it very hot, very fast. So it heats the pot/pan instead of itself, which seems like a fairly sensible approach. Kind of like a microwave, except much safer, and far more useful for everyday cooking. Thankfully I don't have a pacemaker, else the bacon sizzling on the stove would have been less of a cardiac hazard than the stove itself.

I like my bacon as deadly as possible.

Back on topic.

Since:

- Aluminum isn't magnetic
and
- Electricity in China is expensive
and
- People here have less money than people in the States (yes, even you Han)
and
- This is by far the most cost and energy-efficient method for heating a pan that's readily available (90% energy transfer, versus 71% for standard smooth-top electric stoves and 40% for gas)

I can see why everyone's been giving me baffled stares when I start talking about anodized aluminum pans.

The good news is, I can just buy a good iron flat-bottomed wok like everyone else for five to ten bucks. Also, the cheapest "good" induction unit I can find on Amazon is this Circulon, for $200, and has poor reliability ratings ... the fanciest one I can buy at the supermarket across the street is about $73 (i.e. rather less than one Hong Kong bowel movement); the same brand as Jing Jing's, which she's been using for years and is still going strong.

The bad news is, until I find a decent ferrous non/low-stick pan, I have to keep using massive amounts of oil to keep from having to plate with steel wool instead of a spatula, and my favorite pan of all time, which I was considering asking my parents to bring over when they visit, is useless to me here.

10/1/4 : Shenzhen

Jan 4

Posted by jeff in Everything, Travel | 1 Comment

It's only 2:30pm, and I already feel like I've had a long day. Arriving in Shenzhen this morning at 7:20 on the night train from Wuhan, I cheerfully crossed the border into Hong Kong, did my business, and came right back.

Crossing the border itself is something of an unsettling experience, something I noticed the first time I visited Hong Kong from the mainland (that time making the crossing by bus).

It felt very much like walking through a mirror; on China's side of the border, I disembarked from my bus on the right side, then walked up to the Chinese border controls. Greeted entirely by pretty girls wearing dark blue uniforms, white caps, and almost universally grim expressions, I was guided to a lane marked "Foreigners," and ushered through the gates quickly and efficiently.

Ahead of me, through the No-Man's-Land, was the Hong Kong border controls. I was directed to series of lanes marked "Foreign Guests" -- a significant, if not literal, distinction -- which were all staffed by men in their thirties, dressed in crisp white uniforms with dark blue caps. Smiles weren't exactly abundant there, either, but they seemed somewhat less grudgingly given. Once I was checked through (again, efficiently), I walked out to the parking lot and boarded my bus... from the left side.

The distinctions don't stop there, but they get even more boring, so I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say, Hong Kong seems vastly different from neighbouring Shenzhen and mainland China in general -- and at least for emigration/visa purposes, it is still a different country altogether.

This brings up the reason why I'm in Shenzhen today, when I'd rather be getting some work done, writing a different weblog entry, or (and this is very much more likely) massacring zombies in Wuhan. Thanks to the comparatively frosty relations between China and the U.S., my visa is good for a year, but only allows me to stay in the country for 30 days at a time. Fine for a vacation or even a backpacking trip, but things get a little more complicated if you want to stay here a little longer, like me. It boils down to requiring me to exit and re-enter mainland China every 30 days.

Fun.

Wuhan being in central China, the options for convenient exit/re-entry are limited at best, and when you add in the fact that I'd like to do it on the cheap, that just leaves Hong Kong. After a trial run by air which proved to be a huge and expensive hassle, I figured out that the most efficient way was to take a night train to Shenzhen, walk across the border to Hong Kong from Shenzhen station, walk back into Shenzhen, spend the day in Shenzhen proper, and then take the night train back to Wuhan. Total cost: about 500RMB/$73, cab fare to and from the Wuhan train station, plus a day's entertainment and some duty-free liquor and candy.

With the timing of the trains and my bowels as they are, I essentially pay $75 a month to take a dump on Hong Kong.

This is my third trip out. The last two times I've done this, I've had other things to occupy my time -- getting ripped off for a camera in Kowloon, meeting an uncle in Shenzhen -- but this time I figured I'd have a nice, relaxing day off. I'd bring my laptop, spend a little time in a cafe somewhere writing and/or killing zombies, have a little dim sum and maybe a massage before hopping my train back.

Yeah... not so much.

First, the massage. There were plenty to be had. In fact, I couldn't walk more than two steps within a three-block radius of the train station without being offered one in sotto voce, usually by a woman, while having a sheaf of photos of semi-nude "masseuses" waved at me.

I quickly learned the effectiveness of the "talk to the hand" gesture. You can say "No!" as many times as you want, they'll still follow you for a block or so, yammering about how hot their masseuses are the whole way. But one "talk to the hand" and boom... peace and quiet.

Still, it only took being confronted by about five of these women before I became heartily sick of the idea of massages altogether, and fled to the relative safety of a McDonald's.

So that was lunch. At 11am. After a double cheeseburger and Coke, I took a deep breath, charged out through the throngs of flesh merchants, and took refuge in an eerily empty mall, where I wandered around aimlessly for about half an hour before being told it was actually a housing development, and could I please leave because I was probably disturbing the residents.

Red-faced, I headed back out to the street, where I explored a couple alleyways, quickly turning back to the main roads every time because they were all jammed with massage touts, I suppose on their lunch break.

Now, after about an hour and a half of that, I'm back at the train station sitting in a Japanese fast-food noodle shop because they have wi-fi, and filling up on barley tea and Aleve because the trains idling three floors are making the entire building tremble, giving me a headache and making me nauseous. So much for the dim sum.

I should do a little planning next time.