Wish.list: Home Chef Enthusiast

If you're dreaming of a gourmet holiday season, the following wishlist is for your home chef extraordinaire...





[one] Global chef knife . Amazon
A good knife is a necessity.

[2] Cutting board . korin
THE cutting board.

[three] the smoking gun. williams sonoma
I want to smoke my own salmon like Marcus Samuelsson.

[4] Profession immersion blender . williams sonoma
Soups in a snap.

[five] Silicone spatulas . amazon
All silicone and sturdy.

[6] herb keepers . prepara
I'm obsessed with them, as you can see.

[seven] larousse gastronomique . amazon
A classic.

This gift guide brought to you by DomesticEsq , an attorney/culinary school graduate who is spending this holiday drooling over kitchen gadgets.

Photojourna.list: Outsmarting Momma

Indio had the remote and was playing with it. Like most things, he tried to put it in his mouth and I told him, "no." He promptly turned away from me and put it back in his mouth. Indio: 1, Momma: 0

Christmas came early this year

Back in January I wrote an entry extolling the virtues of the Playstation 3. According to my list, the second best reason to own a PS3 is watching movies:

"The PS3 is a very capable Blu-Ray and DVD player. It even upscales DVD’s to near-HD resolution. You can also purchase or rent movie downloads from the PlayStation Store, although I find the current selection and prices underwhelming. I am envious of the Xbox360’s ability to stream Netflix movies. If Sony can get their act together and make this happen, it would truly make the PS3 the end-all-be-all home entertainment device."

I am very pleased to report that as of last week, Sony has “[gotten] their act together.” As long-time Netflix subscribers, getting up and running was pretty simple. Here's how:

1. Go to this page. If you are already logged in to your Netflix account, you will see a button to request your free Netflix streaming disc for PS3. Click this button. You should receive a confirmation email shortly thereafter.
2. A few days later, your PS3 streaming disc should arrive in the mail. It comes in a familiar red envelope. Open that envelope, fire up the PS3 and insert the disc. Select the “Netflix” option under the Video menu once it appears.
3. The Netflix streaming interface will eventually display. You will be prompted on screen with a 5 character alphanumeric activation code and a netflix.com URL to visit. Go to the URL provided and enter your activation code. A few seconds later, the Netflix interface on your PS3 will spring to life.
4. The first screen you will see is your “Instant Queue.” If you have ever streamed movies through Netflix on your computer, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, any movie that you have added to your normal mailing queue that is also available for streaming will automatically show up in your Instant Queue. You can also add movies directly to your Instant Queue. Navigating the on-screen menus is fairly straightforward. When you’re ready to watch a movie, just highlight it and press Enter (on your Blu Ray remote) or Down (on your PS3 controller).
5. When you select a movie to watch, it will take about 10 seconds up to a minute to buffer before playback starts. After that, it’s more or less like watching a DVD.

So far, these are my impressions of this service:

Pros

• Free with a Netflix subscription
• Easy to set up; easy to use
• Playback is smooth (no lag; once started, the video never stops to buffer)
• Episodic content (TV shows) is handled well
• There’s always something to watch!

Cons

• Selection could be better (not everything is available for streaming)
• Quality is about on par with standard definition TV
• Navigating is a bit cumbersome when you have a lot of movies in your queue
• Requires the disc to be in the PS3 during playback

Streamium is premium

I live with a music and tech geek (and a totally crappy blog contributor). This means I get exposed to new music and gadgets without the work, but am also exposed to...how do I put this delicately?...somewhat unproven music and gadgets at times. Music is much easier to preview, so the unproven part falls largely in the category of technology. Take wireless, in-home stereo systems, for example, we've gone through the Audiotron (booo), PS3 (yay) and, as of last week, the Streamium (super yay).

[Quick Addendum . 08/20/09: What is a wireless, in-home stereo system? It is a piece of hardware that can play music over a wireless network, perhaps from a subscription service (Rhapsody, et al.) or off a main home computer over a wireless router. The resident tech geek set up our home computer to house all our music, but without a wireless system the music could only be played through the computer. Throw the wireless stereo into the mix and now the music is played in any room the stereo resides (within the wireless network, of course).]

The Audiotron took a degree in computer science to hook up and still had numerous flaws. The Playstation 3 has a music feature built-in and was a surprisingly great solution for streaming music, but not portable (you need to hook it up to a TV at the very least or TV and speakers). The Streamium looked to provide a musical solution for our kitchen, office, bedroom and all other locations our heart's desired. Having run it through the gauntlet in the kitchen, here is my official verdict:

Pros	Cons
- Portable	- Big cord and adapter
- Insanely fast setup - so easy!	- Buffering between songs causes a small pause
- Compact design
- Search capabilities
- Good sound
- Wireless

Overall the Streamium has been a great purchase - I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Overall I give my music and tech geek 4.8 out of 5 (slight deduction for not blogging about this himself).

[Addendum . 09/03/09: The Streamium gets lugged around the house more frequently than a purse dog in Southern California. It has been a great investment.]

Top 5 Reasons You Need a Playstation 3

Today marks a new chapter in lickity list entries. Daniel has signed on as a contributor and will no longer be marked as a guest blogger. Hopefully he is prolific in his entries.

It's hard to sell your significant other on the idea of a $400 video game console. I'm here to help.





5. Surfing the Web
It’s an easy way to enjoy videos of people doing stupid stuff when you have company over. Some sites (including youtube) are starting to offer a TV version to make it easier to navigate from your couch.


4. Presenting Slideshows
Hook a digital camera up to one of the PS3’s USB ports and bore your guests with pictures of your cat doing stupid cat stuff. Or, if you’re really cool (ed. note: nerdy), stream pictures directly from your flickr account.


3. Playing Games
Duh! You can’t go wrong with Rock Band, SingStar or Buzz! at any social gathering. Fallout 3 and LittleBigPlanet are must-haves for solo play. You can even download full games through the PlayStation Store. Early model PS3’s could play PS2 games, but Sony scrapped that feature to cut manufacturing costs (I guess?).


2. Watching Movies
The PS3 is a very capable Blu-Ray and DVD player. It even upscales DVD’s to near-HD resolution. You can also purchase or rent movie downloads from the PlayStation Store, although I find the current selection and prices underwhelming. I am envious of the Xbox360’s ability to stream Netflix movies. If Sony can get their act together and make this happen, it would truly make the PS3 the end-all-be-all home entertainment device.


1. Listening to Music
Your entire music collection at your fingertips! Here’s what you do: Rip all of your CD’s to your computer. If you’ve already gone digital with your collection, good for you – the road ahead has gone from “easy” to “really easy.” Install TVersity (it’s free) on said computer. As long as the PS3 and the computer are on the same home network, the PS3 will magically “see” your computer, and you can now play any song stored on the computer through the PS3. I cannot understate how much I enjoy this.