More Cool Gear I Like
Too many utensils..
I posted previously about upgrading my scale, and replacing my immersion blender that I use to whip cream. I’m constantly on the lookout for nice stuff in the kitchen. Maybe it’s a hobby since what I eat is the exact same every day, lol.
Gir silicone spatula
This is apparently pronounced like “gear.” Clever.
I got this one from The Wirecutter who awarded it their “best silicone spatula” and I’m honestly shocked by how good it is.
I use a spatula daily to scrape whipped cream out of my stainless steel milkshake cup. I’d previously tried various spatulas from the store, but they were either too big, too floppy, not floppy enough, or began to rust quickly despite ostensibly being “stainless.”
This one is just… perfect? It is a joy to use. It’s just the right size to get in there and be efficient, but the thin shape makes it easy enough to reach the corners in the bottom. It is soft and silicone like, but seems to have a reinforced (metal?) center so it doesn’t actually flop around unless you push against a hard surface.
It’s so good, in fact, that I even threw out my other silicone spatula, which I’d used for cooking ground beef with. Now I use the same Gir spatula for both cooking lunch and scraping out my whipped cream dinner.
A spatula is kind of a simple product, but I’m still impressed by how perfect this one is. Sparks joy, one might say.
Clever tea kettle
Previously, I was using a regular old Amazon Basics electric kettle. It was fine, but although it was mostly stainless steel, there was a plastic window to gauge the water level.
I’ve been somewhat on a microplastics avoiding trip recently, maybe from hanging around on Twitter too much. I was a little worried about boiling that plastic window over and over with hot water.
This new, clever kettle is very small, it only boils around 380ml at a time. It’s also less powerful and takes longer than the Amazon one to boil the same amount of water.
But the cool thing is: it has pre-programmed temperatures, and it will automatically hold any temperature for up to 30 minutes after reaching it.
So now I can pour in some water, set the temp, and if I come back 25 minutes later because I was busy, it’s still exactly at 140°F.
It comes with 4 pre-programmed temperatures that all correspond to certain teas/coffees: 212°F, 195°F, 175°F, and 140°F.
After trying the 212°F that is recommended for black tea a few times, I found it much too hot. Using the old Amazon kettle to boil some water and then pouring it into this little fella (which shows you the current temp of its content at any given time), I found out that “boiling” water from the Amazon kettle really meant 160°F. So that’s what I was used to.
Luckily it’s pretty easy to set other temperatures, you just press the button multiple times until the desired temperature shows up on the screen. Now I always use 140°F, which is great.
Since it does take a few minutes to heat up the water, I usually just re-fill it immediately after pouring myself a cup, while the tea is brewing. Then I set it to 140°F again and forget about it. Since it holds temp for up to 30 minutes after finishing, I’m usually done with my last cup and ready just to find the water waiting for me at the desired temperature. Nice!
I hadn’t realized this until just now, but apparently there are a lot of different variants of this thing. Some have 330ml, some 380ml, some 400ml. Some have different temperatures on them.
Apparently the one I got is the “coffee” version which includes the lower 140°F setting.
If you’re getting this and care about these details, just make sure you get the right version I guess.
Tea
Not really “gear,” but as indicated above, I’ve been getting into the habit of drinking tea. Still drinking lots of coffee, though.
I’ve mostly tried English Breakfast tea, which I drink in the evening to account for the time zone difference with England. There are also a bunch of herbal teas (I know, I know, it’s not really tea) that I like, e.g. lemon, peppermint, and hibiscus.
Earl Grey is fine too, I drink it with a tiny splash of cream like English breakfast. You have to use WAY less cream than in coffee, because tea is weak sauce.
My least favorite tea is green tea.
At first I tried buying tea at the supermarket, but most of them came packaged in plastic tea bags. Wtf, I’m pouring boiling water over this, and you put it in plastic?!
Instead I ended up ordering some tea online. Turns out they usually call the paper ones “tea bag” and the plastic ones “sachets” or something similar in the description.
ProOne water filter
I know, I just raged about microplastics, and now I’m using a plastic - GASP! - water filter?
Before this, I was using a Brita filter, which was also plastic. And while this thing is $70, the bigger, metal one is over $200. I just wanted to get my feet wet.
So I thought: I’m not making it worse, right? And the filter quality of this thing was supposed to be better than the Brita style filters.
I honestly can’t tell if it’s better. It tastes.. fine. But so did the Brita water. Both taste cleaner/fresher than tap water directly.
Recently, I briefly considered upgrading to their stainless steel variant, which is also much bigger. But I read some reviews saying the filtering actually isn’t that great. Then I looked into Berkey filters. Berkey is the big dog name brand in this genre of water filter, and it’s even more expensive. But they also don’t do that great in reviews!
So for now I’ve put the decision on hold and am just going to keep using my tiny plastic one..
Edit: Only a week after posting this I ended up buying the bigger, stainless steel water filter. I think it’s called the ProOne Traveler+ and holds 2-3 gallons. That’s more than enough to last me a few days. It was just under $300.
Stainless steel beef tallow cube tray
This is really an ice cube tray, of course. Turns out you can just pour liquid tallow from rendering into it, and it’ll make perfect tallow cubes! Depending on the fill level, you get around 20g or so of tallow per cube, which is the perfect amount to fry my ex150 lunch in.
You only need 1 of these, since tallow will easily hold its shape even at room temperature and you can store the cubes in any container. I had about 3 of these (18 cubes each) worth of tallow rendered, which is about.. 2lbs?
Just reheat your tallow until it’s liquid again, pour it into the tray, and put the tray in the fridge or freezer. Soon the tallow is solid and you can dump out the cubes. Rinse, repeat. Actually, don’t rinse - just pour more tallow in directly.
G7 Vietnamese instant coffee + espresso
If you’ve ever been to a Vietnamese restaurant and gotten the funny little drop coffee, you know they have some of the tastiest coffee around.
This is the only instant coffee I’ve ever tried that doesn’t taste like burned ash. Apparently they roast it less, or at lower heat or something, so when you pour hot water over it it, it doesn’t taste “double burned.”
I don’t care about the details, but this instant coffee is basically as good as any decent regular coffee.
It’s great for travel, all you need is some water. It doesn’t even need to be hot.
These are also what I pour into my whipped cream before whipping, and then I have a coffee flavored whipped cream dessert.
Be sure to buy the “black” version, not the “3-in-1” version, which comes with creamer and sugar.
They also have an espresso variant, which is great as well. I alternate between the two.
Amazon link or get it at your local Asian market
Snow Peak titanium camping kitchenware
I don’t camp, ever, I just use these as my regular kitchen utensils. Something about that titanium… so matte, so smooth, so light!
Snow Peak is some kind of super expensive, light-weight glamping brand I think. Most of their products seem insanely overpriced.
But I only got 1 of each, so whatever.
Leave it to the Japanese to make everyday stuff that just feels… delightful? Even after a year of daily use, I just love using these products.
I have their 300ml double-walled mug, the plate, and the spoon/fork set. Nice thing about the double-walled mug is that even if the contents are boiling hot, it’s comfortable to hold.
If you just want something titanium, there are tons of cheaper knock-offs on Amazon as well, which are probably the exact same quality.
Clara & Fritz tallow balm
With the whole PUFA-avoidance movement on Twitter, there are now several small companies that craft tallow-based skin care products. I’ve used a few of them and generally really liked them.
The tallow they use doesn’t smell at all, and feels very nice on the skin.
They also have scented balm, lip balm, and a few other things.
Hot Logic Mini
This is kind of a gimmick for me, but it’s a fun thing and technically I could use it as my only way of cooking the ex150 lunch. It would also be good for travel, since you could cook your food on the road or in a hotel.
I got the idea from watching some “Overlanding” videos on YouTube. Overlanding seems to be like camping, but in a 4x4 vehicle that’s tricked out with all kinds of supplies.
What the Hog Logic is: just a tiny hot plate that plugs into 110V (they also make a 12V version for your car cigarette lighter, I think) and a foil insulation bag. It basically acts like a tiny slow cooker.
You put any cook safe container with food on it, plug it in, zip it up, and then you go do other stuff.
When you come back an hour or 2 later, the food is cooked, and still warm.
The temperature is quite low, I think it only ever reaches 165°F. But it’s enough to cook meat evenly through, so it’d do in a pinch.
I’ve cooked my ex150 meal in it a few times, just to try it out. It’s best if you don’t put the sauce in right away, it’ll just be cooked to pieces over time. If you put in the butter/tallow, ground beef, and vegetables, let it sit for an hour, and then add the sauce, it’s great.
Since it can’t sear at its low temperature, the whole dish tastes very different, more like a boiled chowder type deal. It also can’t cook off all the moisture from the meat and vegetables, so it’s a lot more soupy than what I’m used to.
I was honestly surprised by how good it tasted, and I think it’s a great thing for road trips or business travel, where you usually can’t cook your own food in your hotel room.
It comes with one of those plastic meal-prep containers, but I wasn’t going to cook my meal in plastic (GASP!).
So I shopped around on Amazon and found this cute little stainless steel lunch box:
The largest size (47oz) fits nearly exactly into the Hot Logic Mini, it seems pretty high quality, and now I can cook my food in stainless steel instead of plastic.
Edit: This steel container comes with a rubber gasket in the lid to prevent it from leaking. If you use it to cook food on the Hot Logic, remove the gasket first. Otherwise you might melt it and glue your lunch box shut. Ask me how I know.
Amazon link to the stainless steel container I use
SiBio Continuous Ketone Monitor (CKM)
Last and least (unfortunately, lol): the SiBio CKM. I wore a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) for half a year previously, and wrote about it here.
There still isn’t a CKM on the market in the U.S. as far as I can tell, although Abbott’s Freestyle 4, the next generation, is supposed to include ketones as well.
Until then, you can import this guy from Europe. It only does ketones, not both glucose & ketones, so I’m currently dual-wielding 2 sensors like it’s Menzobberanzan.
Unfortunately, I’m pretty unhappy with the Sibio. It’s just not…. good.
The app isn’t on the app store, you have to download some file from the internet and install it manually, which is pretty sketchy and which 99% of people probably won’t do.
Then I’ve had trouble connecting the sensor every time so far. It also constantly loses the connection between sensor and phone, and many of the functions in the app seem.. dead? Like I press a button and just nothing happens at all.
Support seems pretty bad as well, so far they haven’t been able to help me with anthing.
Makes you appreciate how well the Abbott Freestyle 3 actually works, lol - that thing hasn’t skipped a beat.
Are CGMs / CKMs useful for fat loss?
No.
Do I recommend you get the SiBio?
No. It’s expensive, it’s buggy, and unless you’re really into ketogenic diets, it’s completely useless. I only have it as a gimmick, like the CGM - thought it’d be funny to take a look at my ketones throughout the day.
I’d show you a graph, but the “export data” button in the SiBio app is broken.
SiBio website - they don’t ship to the U.S., but there are forwarding services, or maybe, like me, you know a guy..
Concludingly
I’m just about to finish ex150-8, which the next post will be about. Spoiler alert: I’m finally overweight :-)
I ended up grabbing a whole GIR utensils set thanks to this post and they've been awesome so far. Six months of near-daily use and dishwasher abuse and they're still as nice as the day I got them. Thanks for the suggestion.
> finally overweight :-)
yay! well done!