#unitaskers

[offensivelytasteless]

/ck/ discusses unitaskers

[ryotaiku]

I keep hearing people defend unitaskers saying "it's better to have a tool that does one thing really well than to have a tool that does multiple things poorly" and I want to strangle them.

Tools do not become automatically worse just because they can do more than one thing. If you remove the nail-pulling side of a hammer. it doesn't make it any better at hammering. A tablet is not worse than an E-reader just because it can do more than E-reading. Using a pan to make toast is not inherently worse than using a toaster. It's not better to have a tool that can only do one thing really well. It's better to have a tool that can do multiple things really well.

This mentality is so fucking garbage and I'm sick of hearing it repeated.

[noisytenant]

also i dont want to dismiss peoples experiences but like cheap kitchen appliances start at like $20-$30 and pretty much all of them can radically improve your life in some way and pay for themselves in avoided takeout/convenience food within a few months.

if theres a type of cooking process you engage regularly and you have any amount of disposable income, i'm of the opinion that a dedicated appliance is always a worthwhile investment

[bethlammen]

Tag rant

[sweaterodyne]

why don’t i have a COOKIE PRINTER 😭

[waelstange]

Why am I so bad at making rice? It’s so good and I’m so bad at making it.

[hyenaswine]

can they show a version of oppenheimer where i watch the first half & come back the next day & watch the second half but i just pay for one ticket

[espytalks]

god bless the bread maker machine mom and i found at a thrift store two years ago; it's been so frickin handy, and you bet something like that nets ya at least a hundred bucks brand new, and we got it for super cheep.

heck, bless thrift store appliances in general. bread machines, rice cookers, pasta rollers, apple corers, ect. Those little gadgets that cost up to hundreds of dollars, marked down for a fraction of the price, because someone doesn't need them anymore. I hope their new owners appreciate how lucky they are.

[copperbadge]

I remember you've posted about making your own bread before, and basically want to know what your gut reaction to the idea of this thing is.

[ID: An image of a Cuisinart bread machine box, displaying a "compact automatic bread maker", full size results with compact footprint! The machine is shiny metal, square, and has a loaf of bread peeping out the window in the top.]

Oh, I learned to make bread with one of these things! They were HUGELY popular in California in the 90s so I made bread in one about once a week for most of my teen years, and I inherited the family's machine when I got my first apartment in college. I owned a bread machine of one kind or another until I think probably around 2012, well after I started making loaves by hand. They're great for people who don't want to take the considerable time needed to learn to make bread by hand, for people who don't have a mixer that will knead dough or can't knead by hand, or for people who want fresh bread but a little more automated.

Even now I use my KitchenAid mixer for kneading pretty much any dough I make that isn't foccacia or pizza dough. It's not even that I can't knead dough or don't have the time, it's that I just straight up don't want to, I don't like the feeling of dough stuck to my hands or the floury mess it makes on the counter.

I'm in support of the Bread Machine; yes it is a unitasker and yes it does not produce bread as nice as handmade bread, generally, but it's a good first step for beginners and a great way to control the ingredients in your bread without having to babysit it extensively. So I guess my gut reaction is nostalgia mixed with affection -- it's a tool I don't need anymore, but it was a great tool when I did need it.

[soldat-buck]

holy shit you guys, look, there's more.

bg3 culinary headcanons: Absolute Edition

- Minthara: would accidentally fit in as the Addams Family home chef (and be angry about it). Gomez would praise her assassination attempts which flusters her (internally) because she's cooking with the normal amount of poisonous mushroom and not an attempted murder amount (and also she would hate loud, in-your-face-chaotic Gomez SO MUCH. if she wanted him dead, he would be dead, do not insult her assassinating abilities). makes the coolest Halloween party food until you realize it's not fun, spooky-mimicry decoration, those are real black widows on those cupcakes (what? they're venom and merlot flavored) (she used cricket flour, too). you don't know where she gets the "red" for her red velvet cakes, but you *do* know that ignorance is bliss and this is a pretty bitchin' birthday cake, so don't think too hard and just eat it

- Dark Urge (pre-game/embrace): slaughterhouse nightmare aesthetic - chef's apron is leather and something more appropriate for blacksmithing, there are way too many cleavers around (why in the blue fuck is there a meat hook over a drain in the floor?). some people watch tv when they cook. some listen to music, podcasts, or nothing. Durge listens to the Toy Box killer kidnapping tape (not to be mixed up with the (not safe for LIFE) Tool Box killers torture tape. that one is for relaxing baths). watches Dahmer documentaries for culinary inspiration. Hannibal Lecter would find most Durge dishes tasteless and over the top.

- Ketheric: listen, he didn't want me to tell you this [so you did NOT hear it from me], but he actually doesn't eat. he has a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria and fungus that keep his body animated and undying (they're why his blood is black). he consumes rotten things to keep his corpse puppet fungus happy and the corpse puppet fungus allows him to keep his consciousness/sentience and keep serving Myrkul. Myrkul's cool with it, as long as his bidding continues to get done

- Orin: Martha Stewart would have a nervous breakdown upon entering Orin's kitchen. the average person would consider Orin's cooking to be a hate crime. if someone doesn't vomit uncontrollably upon first sight, she considers it an insult (she grew up with a gross misunderstanding of what a Roman vomitorium is). her spaghetti and meatballs is wrapping a handful of uncooked noodles in unseasoned ground meat (she neither knows nor cares whether it's fish or chicken or cow. meat is meat), then baking it in a casserole dish sprinkled with still-condensed tomato soup from a can. Midwestern casserole cooking brought to you by Hell. doesn't use salt because she finds it too spicy. she has an entire pantry section for savory jello

- Gortash: culinary techbro. kitchen is spilling over with unitasker gadgets ("and THIS contraption evenly distributes heat for the perfect boiled egg! what do you mean 'what else does it do'. it boils eggs perfectly i already told you, why the fuck weren't you listening"), and the most stupid, overengineered 'smart' devices ("no no no, you don't understand, this is so helpful. the fork connects to the plate to measure the temperature of the food, and then the plate changes color to warn me if it's too hot, and then i don't burn my tongue, because i really hate that"). despite all of the pricey kitchen shit that he keeps buying, he's skilled at making exactly one dish: microwaved Totino's pizza rolls

(i'm sorry if Gortash is out of character; my brain replaced his voice with John Oliver's and won't put the original back)

if you want more bg3 culinary headcanons, there's also: the Companion Edition

[briarpatch-kids]

I'm very funny about which unitaskers and small appliances I allow into "my" kitchen, a big griddle and stand mixer live on my countertop and I have two different types of purpose built canners, but also I won't let anyone get me an instant pot or rice cooker because fuck em.

[housecow]

My mom’s air fryer has a rotisserie chicken tool in it, should look into that so you don’t end up with a unitasker

i WANT a unitasker this thing is a behemoth AND you can make legit gyro/shawarma w it!!!! no downsides!!

[docholligay]

Dr. Holligay Tries Things That Aren't Running: Zumba

It's January second! The air is cold, the frost decorates the windows, and the gym is heaving with bodies, people assured that this is the year for them. It is my month of the year that recalibrates me into remembering how to streamline my daughter's morning so we get out of the house in time to get a slot at childwatch.

So, Jewlet annoyed that I rushed along the intricate ritual of "sitting and reading 80 books at least halfway" we go into the YMCA, and get a spot in childwatch, and all is well. I dress out into my running gear. I walk by the front desk. There is a--oh hello, what's this?

Every year, my YMCA holds a fitness bingo. This is mostly for the benefit of newbies, in that it encourages a sampler of all kinds of classes to see what you'll take to. I do not do the fitness bingo. I do not explore. I run. I put my headphones on and jog on a track, and I think about absolutely nothing. Or everything. Perspective. Once a week I physically toss myself into a strength class so that I have some semblance of bone density when I get older. I love my fitness routine. But. On the countertop, my Achilles heel.

An expensive and indefensibly unitasking kitchen item. I would never buy this. Ever. I would not consider spending three hundred dollars on this. But it is free. For the low price of luck and being willing to diversify my portfolio. I take a bingo card and consider my options.

The good thing, about being a generally social and cheerful person with a recognizable fluff of red hair, is that people notice me, they remember me, they think of me. This is also the bad thing, because as I'm looking this over and absent-mindedly walking toward the track, a gal we'll call Martha, who was actually my neighbor as a child, calls out to me.

"Oh, Doc! Are you gonna come to class with us?"

Something like six women including the instructor are staring at me, smiling, and I realize I have no good defense. I want that stupid kitchen item. I'm sitting here thinking about how to take classes every day and obtain kitchen item. It may as well be this.

"What IS this?" I ask.

Friends, it is Zumba. Zumba, for the uninitiated, is a latin-based jazzercise type situation, with full choreo and salsa steps. There will be many older woman in this class, should you walk in, but do not let that fool you. They will absolutely make you look a fool. "Idiot can't even do a grapevine into three toe taps into a spin!" Says Gladys.

But I don't have a defense! It's on the bingo card, it's even in the row where Boot Camp is, which I do attend every week anyhow, and I'm standing there. NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT. I know this is a bad idea, I know it is, and yet I walk in.

As it turns out, I'm more than willing to tolerate mild humiliation for the promise of an unnecessary and expensive kitchen item.

Let me tell you what, I am giving it my all. I am dancing with the stars, and by 'with the stars' I mean, 'Gladys and her compatriots are wiping the floor with me.' But I am me in all things, and I am giving it my all. I'm giving baby deer gambols across a field ten minutes after being born, I'm giving drunk Midwestern drag queen, I'm giving enthusiastic and untalented Mexican toddler at the annual Fiesta Mexicana. I am jumping and doing the full jumping jack every time I can, because my functional knees are my only stranglehold over Gladys.

I don't like to pay attention ever when I work out, and this was nothing but attention. I got to the end of a 50 minute silver shoe latin dance party and I felt like I had just done my taxes by hand. The instructor has the audacity to come up to me, who tripped over her own water bottle while trying to serve up a hip thrust, and tell me I did a great job for my first time.

I thrust forward my bingo card for her to mark with their special stickers.

I will keep you posted as to the rest of the month. I will have that stupid as shit appliance.

[radical-revolution]

As we jump frantically from one activity to another, we develop an aching sense of missing out on our lives. The remedy is to pay full attention, even in short interludes, many times a day. As a venerable old Tibetan lama said to me high up in the Himalayas, “Short moments, many times.”

• Nourish yourself! Eat a meal mindfully, noticing the colors, the flavors, the texture of what you are eating.

• Throughout the day, experiment with walking mindfully as you go from place to place. Try not to multitask, and instead allow the walking to be a means to reset and gather yourself. Feel your feet against the ground and the sense of your body moving through space. No texting or phone calls!

• Unitask by focusing on just one activity for a small portion of time, settling your attention on which touch sensation is most predominant. Perhaps the feeling of your feet against the floor, or something you are holding or transporting.

Sharon Salzberg

[monstermoviedean]

have i told you about my stalwart and steadfast knight, my wooden citrus reamer. you think to yourself "i can juice citrus with my hands" or "i have a trick and/or other utensil i can use" or "what use could i possibly have for a unitasker like that." and you are right until you need a stupid amount of citrus juice and you bust out the reamer and suddenly you are extracting every last drop of juice from the citrus with a savage ancestral glee. and it costs less than $10.

[hanavesinauttija]

I make a comment about the non-sustainable and otherwise poor business practices of Temu and I immediately start getting ads from them.

No, I don't want a flimsy plastic vegetable chopping unitasker. I have a decade-old chef's knife I use for everything.

No, I don't want a t-shirt for only 2.09. I have hand-me-downs, thrift hauls, and ones I've bought from reputable brands that'll last me a decade or more.

No, I don't want a pair of shoes that'll disintegrate within a year. I paid out the ass for the shoes I have right now - they'll last me my entire life.

I hate fast fashion. I hate mass-produced garbage. I hate plastic.

Have some pride in what you make.