equipment

After one month with a Wii Fit

maki — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:53:33 +0200

I’ve had my Wii Fit now for almost a month (it was released in April here in Europe). I know it’s not directly related to food, but since a lot of people who visit Just Hungry are interested in fitness and weight loss, I thought I’d share my thoughts about it after using it for some time, especially since it just became available this week in the U.S. (Besides, way more people are likely to read it here than on my sporadically updated personal blog.)

Incidentally, I’ve written about the Wii as a fitness device previously on my personal blog, focusing on Wii Sports. In a nutshell I was not convinced that playing Wii Sports would do much to improve your fitness.

So, what about Wii Fit then?

Wii Fit is not really a game, especially not for kids

First of all, if you are looking to get this primarily for your kids, I would think twice. I do not think that the Wii Fit as it is is much of a game. Some of the games are fun for sure, but I can see a typical kid getting bored with them. Also, if your young child takes the Body Test and is told s/he is overweight, you’ll want to talk to them and tell them that the measurements are not calibrated for children. (Of course if your child is actually overweight, you could use it judiciously as an incentive for them to lose weight perhaps.)

The audience for the Wii Fit package really is out of shape adults. If you are a dedicated couch potato who hates exercise but loves playing console games, the Wii Fit is perfect for you.

Of course, once Nintendo or third parties come out with games that take advantage of the balance board, things will be different.

Can you really get fit with Wii Fit?

I think you can, to a certain extent.

The Wii Fit balance board is rather like a sophisticated electronic scale. When you step on it, it senses your weight and weight distribution. So, at its most basic level you can use it as a weight and fitness tracking device. Every day you step on it, it records your weight and BMI. (You are represented, as with all Wii games, by your Mii. It really helps if you take a bit of time to make a Mii that looks like you.)

It has a built in diary function; it automatically tracks all the time you spend on WiiFit games or activities, and you can also record other physical activity if you want.

You can also use it to set various fitness goals such as weight loss. The program recommends what you should concentrate on; in my case it said I should focus on losing weight and lowering my BMI. Chances are if you are rather inactive and/or overweight, you’ll get the same message too. (As soon as the Wii Fit got my weight, my Mii blimped up appropriately. Cute or annoying, depending on your mood.)

I do like the feedback and encouraging messages the Wii Fit dispenses. If you use it regularly it pats you on the head (“You are really commited to fitness!”) and if you take a few days off it gently scolds you (“I haven’t seen you in a while…”) Your Mii also acts as a cheerleader of sorts for your efforts. It’s all presented in the typical cute way of most Japanese appliances and software. If you love this style you’ll love this aspect of the Wii Fit; and if you hate it…you probably don’t own a Wii in the first place.

Wii Fit games or activities

The Wii Fit games or activities are divided into four categories:

Yoga
Muscle Training (strength training)
Aerobic
Balance games

With all the games or activities, the more you do them the more new games are unlocked.

For the first two, there is an onscreen trainer that guides you through the exercises. Since I have the European version of Wii, both ‘trainers’ have neutral British accents. I guess the U.S. version will have bland mid-western accents. The trainers are helpful without being too annoying.

Aerobic exercises are generally divided into jogging/running, hula hoop, step, and something called rhythm boxing. The jogging/running is not done on the board - the Wiimote is used as a sort of pedometer while you jog in place. No trainers appear for these activities - you follow the movements of other Miis.

Muscle training is done on and off the board. So far, the exercises I’ve unlocked use just use body weight for resistance - I’m not sure if more advanced exercises will require handweights or something, though that would be nice. Since the crux of the Wii Fit board is the balance board, a lot of emphasis is put on body balance. (I wonder if the term Metabolic Syndrome will become as popular in the U.S. and elsewhere as it has in Japan, where it’s called metabo. In Japan it’s come to mean ‘a strong tendency to get fat’.)

Yoga is all done on the board, and uses the board’s balance-sensing features heavily. I find some poses pretty hard to do in a way that keeps the program happy.

Balance games are really not fitness activities per se, but rather games where you can use your balancing capabilities to be a football (soccer) goalie, ice hockey goalie, ski jumper, and so on. These games would be fun for the kids too.

So has it worked for me?

A bit about me: I’m an approaching-middle-age (or maybe already there…), overweight, short woman who hated gym class in school. I have been exercising off and on though for health and weight loss, so I don’t think I’m tragically out of shape at the moment. (I have been, so I know how that feels.) Oh, and I love Japanese-cuteness so that aspect of the Wii does not bother me at all. Your results may vary if you are different from me.

I do feel that it’s a lot better for exercising than Wii Sports. The strength training and yoga in particular are good since you have the feedback from the board (and the onscreen trainer, who gets information from the board and tells you to stop wobbling and so on).

The aerobic exercises are fun, though I guess whether your heartrate actually goes up doing them depends on your fitness level. I did find some of the exercises like jogging to get quite monotonous (jogging in place is not much fun), while others have remained fun. (I’m partial to the step exercises, which require fairly nimble feet the more you progress.) If you already have other favorite aerobic activities, you could skip the Wii Fit ones (entering the exercise minutes in the diary if you want to) and concentrate on the other types of exercise.

If you are just terribly out of shape, the Wii Fit will get you off the couch and moving. The fitter you are already, the less effective it will be. But you could say that about almost any kind of exercise equipment I guess.

I started out using it every day; now I use it about 3 times a week (I do other exercise too) for about 40-45 minutes per session, not counting the time needed for weighing in and Body Tests. I feel it has helped my always problematic back stiffness quite a bit already. It’s not a magical cure-all, but I’d recommend it for anyone who has a Wii already and wants to do a bit of exercise in a fun way.

How it compares to…

Wii Sports: I think it is a much more useful for fitness than Wii Sports, but Wii Sports is better for group play.
Mario and Sonic At The Olympic Games: Mario and Sonic is great for group play, but makes you feel like a dork if you play it alone. Jogging/running in Wii Fit is done for sustained time periods while the running on Mario and Sonic is generally done in spurts. As a game, Mario and Sonic is better I think, but for fitness Wii Fit is much better.
Dance Dance Revolution (sold in Europe as Dancing Stage Hottest Party): As a piece of equipment the Wii Fit board is far superior to the plastic wired dance mat. The stepping/dancing on the balance board is more fitness-focused. The music is limited to the stock Nintendo-electronic variety (which will stay in your head for ages…). I’m looking forward to third party dance games that utilize the board. The DDR is, for now, a much better game, especially for more than one participant.
Exercising with fitness videos: The Wii Fit gives you lots of personalized feedback, which an exercise video can’t do. In that sense it may keep you motivated more than passively watching some leotard-clad person on the screen. You’d probably get better, more sustained exercise, especially of the aerobic type, using fitness videos. I actually have settled into a pattern of using both depending on my mood.

Accessories, maintenance and so on

The only accessory you really need is a thin non-skid exercise mat to put under the balance board, especially if you have hard floors. This cushions your feet, hands and other body parts as well as the board. I use a thin rubber yoga mat that I had already.

I haven’t gotten a cover for the board - I just wipe off the surface after each use. It can get a bit grungy, especially if people step on it with black socks or dirty bare feet. And people sweat on it too so…wiping it regularly is a good thing to do.

Extra battery chargers are useful to have too, if you and your family will use the board regularly.

Official Wii Fit site

Answering some rice cooker questions

maki — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:18:06 +0100

A few readers have emailed me recently about rice cookers by coincidence. So I thought I would put my answers here for everyone’s benefit.

Q. What size of rice cooker is right for me?

A single portion of rice ranges from 1/2 to 1 cup. So, if you are a single person or a couple you don’t need a huge rice cooker unless you are the social type who regularly has parties. The smallest capacity I’ve seen sold outside of Japan (where they do sell 2-cup or even 1-cup cookers) is 3 cups.

However, the newer rice cookers from good manufacturers like Zojirushi, Panasonic, Mitsubishi and so on handle small amounts of rice in their big-capacity rice cookers. For example this 10 cup capacity Zojirushi model can cook 1 cup as well as 10 cups. So, the size issue may come down more to budget and how much countertop space you can give it.

Q. Do I really need to spend so much on a rice cooker?

My general philosophy is this: If you think you’ll use it regularly, it’s worth spending a bit more for any appliance. The if you’ll use it regularly part is critical though. Will you be making rice at least 1 or 2 times a week, every week? Then a rice cooker is worth getting. And there’s such a world of difference between a good rice cooker and a cheap one. The most important one is durability - my older Zojirushi rice cooker is 20 years or so old and still working fine. The more durable an appliance is, the less you’re going to be adding crap needlessly to your local landfill. And you’ll save money in the long run.

(Incidentally, I’m not being unfairly biased by always recommending Japanese rice cooker manufacturers like Zojirushi. For one thing, everyone in my family has had great experiences with them. For another - Japanese people eat a lot of rice and they are quite particular about how their rice cookers perform!)

Q. Should I get a rice cooker that can cook brown rice, or other types of rice?

Again, if you think you will be cooking other types of grains or rice regularly, definitely yes.

Q. What features should I look for?

In order of importance:

A timer! Most rice cookers have a timer function, but it’s really handy to have. You can wash the rice the night before to have it freshly cooked in the morning, or wash it in the morning so you can come back to fresh cooked rice, etc.
Ease of use! You should be able to set it without thinking once you’ve read through the manual.
A durable, non-stick inner container is good to have, so that you can wash the rice in the container instead of having to bother with another bowl, etc.
An audible beeper, so you know when the rice is done.
Settings for cooking different kinds of rice or grains.
Sophisticated electronics that ensure your rice is cooked well (they are called Micom or Neuro-fuzzy or something like that usually)
Keep-warm feature. I have to say that I usually switch off the keep-warm as soon as the rice is done, because I think it makes the rice taste worse and worse. You should never use keep-warm for whole grains, including brown rice, because it will start to get odd fairly fast.

Q. I got a rice cooker but my rice still doesn’t taste right.

If you’re cooking Japanese style rice, are you sure you got the right kind? (See Looking at Rice.) Are you washing it correctly? (See How to wash and prepare rice.) You can’t skip the washing part and expect to get rice that’s as good as you can get at your favorite Japanese restaurant. (And to be picky, a lot of Japanese restaurants don’t wash their rice well enough for me, or use the evil ‘no-wash rice’ (musenmai). But that’s another story.)

Can I use a rice cooker for cooking other things?

You sure can. You have to keep in mind that a rice cooker is designed to start cooking at a low heat, gradually increasingly the heat, ending at a high heat. And it’s also fairly (in some models completely) sealed, so you get a moist steam heat. So, things that can be cooked in that type of environment will fit. There are several books about rice cooker cooking in Japan, and All About (the Japanese equivalent of About.com) has a whole section devoted to the subject. There are some rice cooker books in English too, like this one. I can’t vouch for any of the books, but I’ve tried some of the recipes on All About and they are rather fun.

Q. Do I need a rice cooker at all?

Our ancestors didn’t have cute beepy electric cookers, so obviously it is possible to cook rice properly without one.

I have a little confession actually - recently, I’ve been cooking rice more and more in anything but my rice cooker. I still rely on it when I’m in a hurry. And when someone else is making dinner, I can just ask them to ‘do the rice’ and as long as it’s using the rice cooker, everything is ok.

But I’ve found that the best tasting rice really is made in a regular, heavy pot, or in a pressure cooker. That’s the only way I cook brown rice these days. However, it takes some patience and practice to cook rice without the handy set-it-and-forget-it-ness of a rice cooker. I never used to be able to cook rice properly without a cooker - the rice would always turn into mush, or be hard and raw. Even now, after years of fairly concentrated practice, I occasionally turn out a pot of inedible goo.

So for a busy person who cooks a lot of rice or other grains, I think a rice cooker is a great appliance to have. It’s just one less thing to think about after all.

Addendum: About the rice cooker cup

One very important thing to keep in mind if you purchase a rice cooker is that you should always use the little measuring cup that comes with it. The capacity of the cup is usually 180ml, which is less than a Japanese one cup (200ml) or an American one cup (220ml). If you do lose that cup though, try measuring 180ml with a regular measuring cup.

Addendum2: A Zojirushi rice cooker that’s available in Europe

Europe-based readers haven’t had a lot of luck finding Japanese rice cookers, barring a trip to Japan. I’ve spotted this fairly new Zojirushi Rizo model on the web site of a European mailorder store:

It’s a 3-cup capacity model that cooks Japanese style rice, risotto, and also does ‘steam cooking’. It comes in yellow, white and stainless steel, and it’s available from Ja-Mart.de. The price for the yellow and white models is €186, which for a Japanese rice cooker in Europe is fairly reasonable. The site is in Japanese and German only, but they do deliver to several European countries, so try emailing them at customer.service at ja-mart dot de.

If you’re in the U.S. and fall in love with the cutie, you can get it from Amazon.

My no frills kitchen was nothing like this

maki — Fri, 18 May 2007 14:54:42 +0200

I’m a week late in reading this, but last week’s article in the NY Times by Mark Bittman about a low frills kitchen for $200 really reminded me how our cooking choices are influenced by our culinary heritage. In other words, I would not have made the choices he did in a lot of cases.

For instance he says that you need some expensive burner kit to ‘properly’ use a wok, so you might as well forget it. A decent wok was the first thing I bought for myself when I was starting out on my own was a decent wok from a local Chinese kitchen supply shop, and it worked fine on my regular issue gas range. Another thing I also got was an inexpensive rice cooker like this one (which you may note costs less than his totally extraneous vegetable cutter gadget). I may not have made rice ‘twice daily’, which he says is your criteria for purchasing a rice cooker, but I relied on it all the time, especially for making my own bento lunches which saved me tons of money in the long run.

Three steel bowls? One that’s big enough to handle most tasks is fine. If you need to lay out ingredients or something you can use your dinnerware (which I still do when I run out of bowls and such.) 3 different frying pans? I just had a small one, and the wok, which is much more useful than multiple frying pans. I still only own three frying pans and a large flat-bottomed wok, and the last gets much more use.

I think when you are equipping a kitchen, regardless of budget, you have to really ask yourself how you will use it.

Out of love with silicon for baking

maki — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:56:27 +0100

Some years ago, when silicon baking wares came out, I jumped on them with glee. No more scraping off baked on crud from the baking sheets! Muffins that popped right up with no greasing of the cups required! Easy washing up!

But these days I’ve definitely fallen out of love with silicon sheets and silicon muffin pans and the like.

About those muffin pans first: while muffins do brown on the outsides, they don’t get as crispy-brown as I’d like. They also seem to rise a bit less than I’d like.

Also, they are totallly useless for popovers and Yorkshire puddings. You can’t really heat them up, so you can’t make them piping hot and pour in hot batter. The alternative method for making popovers ‘pop’ is to start them in a cold oven, but that doesn’t work either. So I end up with flat, boring muffins of a sort, rather than high and airy pockets of trapped air and eggy, moist insides. Yes, I know I could just get separate pans for the popover and Yorkshire puddings, but I don’t have that much storage space in my not-too-large kitchen, and I like to avoid ‘single-use’ type equipment as much as possible.

As for silicon baking sheets, used to line heavy baking sheets, they do okay on the browning front. But what I dislike about them is that, after a few uses they take on an unpleasantly ‘greasy’ feel to them. No amount of washing or soaking in soapy water seems to cure that. I don’t know if I’m over-sensitive to this, but it drives me nuts. So I end up throwing them out over maybe 3 uses. This doesn’t seem too economicalor environmentally friendly to me. (Do those things disintegrate at all in landfills?)

So, I’m back to good old metal baking tins and lining my baking sheets with kitchen parchment paper. My old metal muffin pans tend to stick a bit on the bottoms, so for delicate cupcakes and such I just use paper cupcake liners. (Which means of course I avoid those individual silicon cupcake cups.) Paper, at least, does disintegrate after a while.

How do you feel about those silicon baking products? Do you love them or hate them?

Suribachi, Japanese grinding bowl or mortar

maki — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:25:24 +0100

When I wrote about essential Japanese cooking equipment a while back, I forgot to mention one item that I use quite often, a suribachi. A suribachi is a sturdy ceramic bowl that’s used with a grinding stick called a surikogi like a mortar and pestle. While I’m a big fan of handy electric equipment like food processors for many tasks, sometimes the results you get by doing things by hand are well worth the elbow grease needed.

What makes the suribachi unique, and I think better than a regular mortar, is that the inside is unglazed and grooved, as you can see from the photo below (click on it to see it larger):

The rough-surfaced grooves, which are called kushi no me since they are made with a comb-like device on the wet surface of the clay, help to mash and bruise whatever you are grinding a lot more efficiently than a smooth surface. It’s ideal for grinding up sesame seeds, which is what I use it for mostly.

It’s also great for making things like peanut sauce - though I do pre-chop the peanuts in the food processor to make things easier. The final grinding in the suribachi seems to really bring out the oils in the nuts, making them so fragrant.

It can be used for grinding up spices too. (My surikogi is stained a bit yellow because I was using it for grinding up some curry spices recently.) The rough grooved surface can also be used for grating soft vegetables like potatoes, wasabi or horseradish root. (Harder and stringier vegetables like carrot and ginger don’t grate so well.)

If you do buy a suribachi, try to get the biggest one you can store comfortably in your kitchen. It’s much more comfortable to grind up even a small amount in a large bowl. Mine is about 25cm / about 10 inches in diameter. You may see small ‘mini suribachi’ - these are pretty useless really, though they can make nice individual graters for things like grating fresh wasabi root on the spot. The minimum size for a usable suribachi is around 18cm, or 7 inches.

The first place to look for a suribachi is, as with all Japanese cooking supplies, your local Japanese food store. If you can’t find one, I’ve spotted some on eBay here (a cobalt blue one) and here (a classic brown one). It’s also sold on Amazon.com. (None of those merchants ship outside of the U.S. unfortunately.)

See how to grind up sesame seeds to make a paste/sauce in this recipe.

Shopping @ Just Hungry

maki — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:11:47 +0100

When you shop at the Just Hungry affiliate stores, you help to support the site while getting stuff you want at no extra cost to you! It’s a win-win situation!

I own, have used, or have eaten, every item that I review individually. When it comes to kitchen equipment, most of the things you see listed are items that I use all the time in my kitchen and can recommend wholeheartedly. Occasionally I will list an item that’s not exactly the same as the one I own, but is very similar. That doesn’t mean I guarantee against any defects and so on of course! But, I can say that I’ve been a satisfied customer of all the stores listed here. On the rare occasion that I’ve had a problem, I’ve always gotten good service.

J-List/JBox for Japanese goodies

JList.com - “Your Friend in Japan” is a great source for cute and weird Japanese snacks as well as bento supplies and such. They ship internationally, of course! They do sell some ‘adult’ oriented stuff too, though it’s easy to avoid that if you want to, and there is an age check in place.

Click here to browse J-List

Japancentre.com

As of April 2008, we are very happy to welcome Japan Centre in London as a premium sponsor of Just Hungry and Just Bento. Japan Centre has one of the best online grocery shopping websites out there - well organized with clear descriptions. I’ve been a satisfied customer for a long time, way before they became sponsors. If you are in the UK or Europe and are looking for Japanese ingredients, be sure to give them a try! Here’s their delivery area for food items. They deliver non-food items worldwide, including bento items from Daiso.

The Amazons

The Amazon.com aStore: Kitchen equipment, books, DVDs and more from the main U.S. Amazon store.
The Amazon.co.jp Instant Store (same as astore, different name). Here are my recommendations for food-oriented Japanese books, magazines and DVDs. They do ship internationally!
New! The Amazon.co.uk aStore, for UK and Europe based readers. On the books page I’ve stuck to listing great books that are published in the UK but not yet in the US or Canada. The kitchen wares page is for UK readers only.

YesAsia

YesAsia, based in Hong Kong, is a great source for people looking for a single book, DVD, CD and so on in several East Asian languages, including Japanese of course.

Confiseries Sprüngli, the best chocolates and macaroons in Switzerland

Confiserie Sprüngli is a Zürich institution. I’m a huge fan of their chocolates and other goodies, as as I’ve written about before. I prefer them over the better known (outside of Switzerland anyway) rival in town whose name starts with a T. And yes, they do ship worldwide!

Click here for Sprüngli Worldwide
If you live in Switzerland, click here.

Reference

Looking for Japanese food or kitchen supplies? Try the Worldwide Japanese grocery (and supply) store list!

Should you shop for your Japanese books and other media at Amazon, J-List, YesAsia or somewhere else? See my article about shopping for Japanese language media online.

Space-age indoor gardening kit

maki — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 22:51:34 +0100

In my quest for hydroponics growing options for growing potentially salty tomatoes, I stumbled upon this thing that looks like it belongs on the Jetsons: an Aerogrow Aerogarden Kit. Instead of hydroponics, it uses an aeroponic system, where the roots dangle in moist air. It looks great for growing fresh herb plants through the winter months and things like that…and the web site says it only uses the equivalent electricity of a 60 watt light bulb. I just love that futuristic-retro design too! If anyone has this, I’d love to hear about your experiences with it.

Y or I?

maki — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 19:52:59 +0100

I was browsing in the kitchenware department of one of the department stores in town today, looking at the huge Zyliss display. Zyliss, as you probably know if you are into your kitchen gadgets, is a Swiss company that makes a lot of useful things. I have a number of Zyliss products in my kitchen, but my favorite one at the moment is the Soft Skin Peeler, aka the Tomato Peeler. This wonderful thing can take the skin off of any soft fruit like tomatoes and peaches with amazing ease. It even shaves truffles very thin!

The one I have is the Y shaped one, which doesn't seem to be available in the U.S. yet. The I-shaped one is, but I'm firmly in the Y camp when it comes to peelers, mainly because I'm left handed and the I shape goes the 'wrong way' for me. I think that the Y shape is a lot more practical. In Japan, the I shape is practically unknown, but almost every household has at least one Y shaped peeler I think.

But I know a lot of people who swear by the I shape. Years ago at our wedding reception, the best man devised several games, one of which was a very Swiss potato peeling contest amongst the women! (Yes, some thoughts about the political un-correctness of that did come to mind but I was too overwrought by the whole Wedding Thing to bring it up.) The game was fun anyway, but I had no chance since the only peelers provided were the I shaped ones. The winner, a veteran I-shape user, managed to peel a potato in under 15 seconds.

I feel a tiny bit guilty when I use a peeler because I'm not using a knife. That comes from growing up in Japan, where everyone until recently was supposed to be able to do execute the most intricate cutting techniques with just a couple of knives. Never mind though, I love my Y shaped peelers.

Zyliss soft skin peelers

maki — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 19:46:10 +0100

links for 2007-01-20

maki — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:27:57 +0100

French, American Foodies Chew Over Trends of 2007: John Mariani

New York is now the gastronomic capital of the world, haute cuisine is too expensive and makes no profit, sniffing at El Bulli, and other fun from the always entertaining John Mariani.

(tags: restaurants chefs critics)
news-controlled rice cooker

Dispenses rice every time there is news about GM rice, and invites people over to eat it when it's full and done...ehh

(tags: rice offbeat)
Diner’s Journal - Ought You to Be in Pictures?

While flash photography in a restaurant can be annoying, some of the elitist comments remind what I don't miss about New York.

(tags: restaurants photography)
Fuites au Michelin : la valse des étoiles (new Michelin France ratings)

Among other news, of restaurants previously mentioned on Just Hungry, Le Beurehiesel has lost one star since the son has taken over from papa as chef, and Marc Meneau of L'Esperance is declaring bankrupcy (French, Le Figaro)

(tags: restaurants france michelin)
Des hauts et débats

More news about Marc Meneau's difficulties (French, Le Figaro). Somehow, this doesn't surprise me, if one can judge a restaurant from just one visit...it was really good but there was not the air of comfortable success one senses at other restaurants.

(tags: restaurants france)