My Review of the Ninja Cooking System

Ninja Cooking System
Price: ~$150 (Amazon)

I don't normally write product reviews, but I wanted to share some thoughts on this appliance in case others are looking into it.  My perspective is a little different because what I'm looking for is something relatively compact that I can cook with while I'm deployed.  By nature, I like to know how cooking things work so if necessary I came come up with alternative ways of doing the same thing.  For example, my last two deployments, I used a rice cooker to brown hamburger and to make simple simmering dishes since high on a rice cooker translates to "boiling" and low translates to "simmering."

I also don't normally buy things from infomercials.  And in this case I didn't - I haven't seen the infomercial, and I saw it at the PX before I knew there was one.  That said, being a good Generation X person, I assumed everything I saw in advertising was at least misleading.

So with that introduction, I have to admit that this is a useful appliance, and I look forward to trying it out on my deployment.  But to be honest, there's nothing really new here...

I think probably the best way to look at this device is essentially as a cross between a rice cooker and a crock pot.  The basic form factor is a crock pot, however the pot is a relatively thin, teflon coated metal liner.  This allows direct heat transfer - the "stove top" mode.  There are three settings in this mode, low, medium, and high.  On the slow cooker side, there is the standard low and high, as well as "buffet" (to keep finished items warm).  It also has a steam baking mode.

The stove top mode works completely as expected.  I browned both hamburger and beef chunks (for stew) with no issue.  I found, even though the documentation says that the low setting is for simmering, that it's a little too warm for that.  When simmering some dirty rice low kept it at a boil, so I switched to the low setting on the slow cooker, and it worked fine.  Given that the settings are simplified from a stove top, I think that's eminently acceptable.

The slow cooker mode also worked as expected, and demonstrated one of the most useful features of this device.  After browning the meat on stove top mode, I flipped it to slow cooker mode to create the stew.  The fact that I could do this in one pot is impressive.  Since the core of this device is a slow cooker, there's little surprise that it does this well.

The most interesting thing, but also the one I had the most question about is the baking mode.  I love to bake.  Specifically I like all things sourdough, from quick breads to preferment based "real" sourdough loaves.  Looking at the device in the store, it was difficult to conceive how it can truly work as an oven (compared to say a toaster oven).

The metal pan of the device clearly transfers heat, so baking is theoretically possible.  The thing about it, in a "real" oven, there is a thermostat to measure the air temperature inside the oven - in the Ninja, the metal pan sits over the heating element, so I don't think that's possible.  Also, the oven itself is enclosed - the Ninja Cooking System has a steam hole in the cover (otherwise it'd become a pressure cooker).  Since air is able to escape, and there's no realistic way to measure the air temperature, I think "bake" mode works simply by heating the pan at a certain rate.

I did an experiment, which albeit isn't necessarily accurate.  I used a meat thermometer to measure the temperature inside in a few different scenarios.  Since putting the thermometer metal on metal won't give an accurate temperature, I put a glass ramekin on the bottom and put the sensor on top of that.  I then measured it with water in it (to simulate steam infused baking), and empty at 350 degrees and 425 degrees.

With the water in the pot, the temperature got no higher than 212 degrees, which someone that had more chemistry than I probably could've told me that.  At 350 after a LONG time is got up to 325, and on 425 it got up to 375.  I recognize the limits of the experiments - temperature can vary based on what's in the pot, and what altitude, etc.  But personally I don't think the thing can actually get to 425, the minimum requirement to make a true sourdough bread.

The next experiment was simply to bake.  I whipped up dough for a banana-pineapple bread - a simple quick bread, using a known recipe.  The recipe creates two loaves, one which I put in the Ninja, one in the oven.  I preheated both, for probably at least 20 minutes.  Results?  Well mixed bag.  First, the Ninja shut down at some point (probably because I didn't select a time).  So I'm not sure how long it cooked at first.  Because of that, I kept cooking it, checking at about 10 minute intervals.  Finally towards the end of an hour, I bumped up the temperature to 425.

I'll redo, but eventually it cooked.  Based on the previous experiment I think if I cook it at 425 (even though the recipe is 350), I'll be OK.  I find it very interesting too that the rack seems specially designed to hold standard bread pans, which is cool.  The best compliment I can give it is the crumb was nearly identical to the oven baked version, and the bread was quite good. (The Ninja cooked version is on the left).

What I haven't tried yet is the "steam infused baking" which takes half the fat.  As near as I can tell from the description and recipes that use this, I'm convinced this is a cooking method and not a specific feature of the device.  In other words, I think you can do it probably with a large pot that you stick water in, and then put a bread pan in on a rack.  If anyone wants to convince me differently, feel free to comment.

In summary, I bought the Ninja Cooking System, with pretty much one thing in mind - a single appliance I can deploy with that can allow me to cook simple meals, and bake.  For that role it works perfectly.  The Ninja's three modes allow you to create normal simmering dishes easily, slow cook, and bake.  Of the three, baking seems to be the weakest mode, but I was still able to do so.  Color me a happy camper.  But in the end, it's a rice cooker - slow cooker hybrid.

Thanks for reading!

Update: I basically recreated the experiment - this time with a papaya-pineapple-cranberry bread.  Just for consistency sake I kept with 350, and this time made sure I set the timer - an hour, but like the oven baked loaf, I checked at 40 minutes.

At the check point, the loaf baked in the oven was done.  The loaf in the Ninja was significantly more cooked than last time, but still needed quite a bit more time.  I put it in for a total of 20 more minutes before once again raising the temperature to 425, and it still took another 15 minutes I think.  Moral of the story, at least in Hawaii, the Ninja clearly does not get to 350.

That said, when it did finish the loaf, it was good.  The texture I actually liked better than the oven baked version, although it might just be that the outside of the bread carmelized more.

Now that I've established the differences, I think next time I'll go ahead and just start at 425, and not check the loaf before the one hour point.  Here're more pictures :)

Experiment #2: Ninja loaf on the left.  Notice the difference in texture

Texture of the Ninja loaf.  The carmelized crust is great :)

Mac OSX 10.8 "Mountain Lion" Thoughts

OK, so now that I've had a chance to try it out for a little while longer, I thought I'd write a more thorough view of my impressions. Overall, I think Apple hit the right price point for what you get. This update, despite being a "major" version, I consider to be a relatively modest update from Lion.

First, a key difference I see between Windows and OSX is that Apple appears to take a "produce it and they will come" attitude. I started the Mac right when Snow Leopard came out, and a criticism at the time was changes that Apple made that initially made some applications incompatible. Apple didn't apologize or change anything, the apps did. And sure enough after some initial pain in relatively short order everything worked. Similarly when I updated to Lion, there was a little pain, and the same with Mountain Lion. So I expect that before too long, some things will work better than they do currently.

So when I installed the operating system, and pretty immediately my fan came up and things ran slower I suspected that the new features were causing it to slow. However with some investigation, I found some discussion online which led to a fix that I posted on Facebook, resetting the PRAM. The URL is [1]. If you are not technically inclined, the PRAM basically helps the computer to tune things like battery usage and the fan. Once I did that, the computer operated a LOT better.

The second issue was that I would get a "beach ball" when trying to access the "dock" in the top right of the computer, including the spotlight area. The fan also came on, and when I investigated, I found that a certain process was hogging the computer. For a while I was just ending that process, and that "fixed" it. But I had to keep doing it. Today, I found this [2] article because I was running Parallel Desktops. If you are doing so too, you may find this helpful.

The moral of the story, is just by following two simple steps, my OSX Mountain Lion computer appears to functioning identically as when it was running Lion.

Which leads to the question... What do you get for upgrading?

The main reason I upgraded, to be honest, is that it's new and cool. I'm always interested in seeing whether things run better. And in this case, it's a mixed bag.

So for the good, I'm rather OCD about email. I check email all the time. And I like to be able to get all of my email in one place. Which has led to one main issue... Hotmail. Hotmail doesn't expose an IMAP interface, and I personally don't like POP. To my non-technical friends, IMAP and Exchange allow you to have folders, and your email is stored on the server. POP is old and is designed to just download email to your computer. So I downloaded software called "MBox" that makes your hotmail look like an IMAP server. Point is, this software never worked well in Lion (nor do I think Snow Leopard). I got strange errors, and eventually gave up. The good news, is it works now with Mail, so I can literally run one program and read all the email in the 12 accounts I monitor regularly. I realize this is very atypical.

To me, that alone is worth $20.

Looking at other things... One of the key improvements supposedly was with Safari. Safari now will allow you to search from the address bar. OK, cool. My current preferred browser, Chrome, already does that, as well as Internet Explorer since uh IE4? To be fair, I've tried to switch to Safari just to give it a fair shake. That said, I think I'm going to go back to Chrome just because it's just plain better. Sorry, Apple.

Social Web, specifically Twitter. OK, admittedly, I'm biased... My other computer is a Windows Phone 7. (Yes I have other computers, but I use them way less than the Mac and my phone). My phone already is synced with everything (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MSN). And it's cool, and I love it, and I use my phone for that. So when I heard about the features, the question that came to mind "is it cooler than my phone?" At this point it's not, but maybe some day. OSX Mountain Lion allows you to Twitter (and soon Facebook) from the operating system. And sure enough I tweeted from the notification window. Unfortunately, I'm not really into Twitter, so I haven't received any tweets yet (feel free - @dionhoustonsr). Normally when I've used Twitter I've been outside my house, normally places where I don't bring my Mac, but I do bring my phone. Now I do Facebook all the time, pretty much on any device, so I'm highly interested in seeing that integration. So more to follow. Similarly, iMessages seems OK, but I don't really instant message any more either.

I took a look at the Game Center. I am highly interested in the possibility of playing games via the iPad. Specifically I was looking for a way to play Chess with my wife. At this point that doesn't seem possible with Game Center, but we'll see. I recognize this is new territory for Apple.

The iCloud support looks interesting, but I'm not sure how that would fit in with me. I purposely have my entire music library in MP3 format specifically so I can use it on anything. My calendar I keep on an Exchange server so I can sync it again everywhere. Same with my contacts. So right now, I don't really see a use for it, but I think for a lot of people that could be a good deal.

OK, so in a nutshell, here's what I think. Mountain Lion is worth $20. With operating system upgrades come improvements, and in this case, I now have a system that works better for me than previously. I'm still a rabid Mac guy. That said, no new feature has a "wow" for me.



[1] http://socialmediaseo.net/2012/07/25/os-x-mountain-lion-install-errors-problems/
[2] http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20074173-263/dock-using-100-cpu-after-os-x-10.6.8-update-for-parallels-6-users/

Apple vs. Microsoft - Part 1: The Companies

OK, as a techie in general, and a pretty rabid Mac user specifically, I often get asked about which is better - Apple or Microsoft. This is of course a pretty loaded question, so I thought I'd separate this into at least two parts - the companies and then Macintosh OS X vs. Windows. Maybe after that I'll do something about the consumer electronic products as well.

So biases up front. I formerly actively worked at Microsoft as a Software Design Engineer in Test writing test tools for a variety of products, most the reader probably never heard of. Microsoft considers me to be a full-time employee on military leave, and I do hold Microsoft stock. I have never had any association with Apple, and do not own Apple stock.

My personal view is that there are many similarities between the two companies, although some significant differences. In particular, both companies tend to be proprietary when it suits them, make SKU choices that are annoying and limiting to customers (although I think Microsoft is worse in this), and have little interest in promoting competition, often through pretty heavy handed methods. Both companies also have highly visible patriarchs, i.e. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The companies differ primarily in two ways: Microsoft takes a generalist approach of attempting to create products applicable to anyone and everyone and Apple focuses on a very specific set of products (their own) to ensure a positive and stable experience. The other major difference is in marketing - Microsoft is relatively open, announcing new products early and promoting active feedback from a larger community where Apple primarily maintains a heavy amount of secrecy, surprising both their supporters and competitors with new products. This second difference in particular greatly affects the corporate culture.

Similarities

So first the things the companies have in common. Throughout the history of both companies, there have been existing capable standards that have been changed or ignored to create proprietary systems with no real obvious benefit. A good modern example of this is in digital rights management. MP3 files for audio have good compression, excellent audio quality, and are playable by nearly any music player in existence. The two companies of course have proprietary standards (Windows Media and iTunes), which with DRM enabled (both formats don't require DRM, just support it) limits the options legal customers have for playing their own music by invoking a licensing mechanism.

Microsoft makes serious distinctions between versions of Windows... Why must servers run only on server operating systems? Technological reasons? I'm convinced not really. Apple makes iPods inaccessible as a USB mass storage device. Why? Because then they would lose control of making it accessible in iTunes only.

But that's a business model. Where it gets irksome to me are the occasional heavy handed means both companies use to enforce their proprietary standards. Although I'll give a recent black eye to Apple for its handling of the iPhone 4 leak to Gizmodo, Microsoft's past actions to "encourage" their customers to promote IE over Netscape are little different.

The moral of the story is that both companies are large. Both are for-profit, so both have an interest in promoting their own products over others.

Differences

Probably the biggest single distinction between the two companies is generalist vs. specific focus. In other words, Microsoft produces no PC's but does produce an operating system to run on all PC's. Apple produces PC's and produces an operating system that runs only on those PC's. This necessarily means that Windows works across a plethora of systems, configurations and costs, but Microsoft can guarantee and support little; but that Apple systems are few and cost (much) more, but Apple can guarantee and support much.

I'll talk about this significantly more in the next part, but this focus really is critical in understanding the real cultural differences in the companies. Since Apple produces a small number of different models (the Apple Store currently lists 21 models in 6 different types) they must clearly differentiate themselves from the hundreds if not thousands of competing PC models. Microsoft on the other hand has the daunting challenge of continuously producing operating systems and software that work well on thousands of different kinds of machines, few of which the company can directly test against.

Microsoft, therefore, both internally and externally is a very social company. I remember even as a relatively young child of my father beta testing Windows -- not primarily as a developer, but as a user. Microsoft's frequent beta's and release candidates may be much maligned (even by me) for instability, but shows a strong commitment to letting many people be involved at all levels of development. Internally, I found Microsoft continually preaches about diversity, highly promoting a multi-cultural environment. On the downside, the company so promotes diversity that people (like me) who hold religiously conservative positions may feel very lmited in expressing those positions at the workplace.

Apple may have some of this in common, but as an outsider it doesn't feel like it. Returning to the iPhone 4 leak, I read about Apple's security practices, and needless to say, I can't imagine working there. The idea of constantly being watched by a camera, or not being able to share projects that I'm working on with my friends would drive me nuts. Microsoft wants to show off their nifty products, Apple wants Steve to show off their nifty products.

Conclusion

So how do I feel about the companies? Both companies do things I don't like. I am not a fan of DRM in particular, and I wish that both companies would be more open and less proprietary. But they have different focuses and hence there are signficant differences.

Although I haven't mentioned before now the obvious other alternative, Linux, I have in the past gone through "Microsoft hating days" where I would switch to Linux (I've used Red Hat, Unbuntu, and OpenSUSE). Although I appreciate the truly community focus and open standards, what's always brought me back was consistency and compatibility with a commercial base that only comes from commercial operating systems. And to that I tip my hat off to Apple, who has to date brought out the only consumer-oriented commercially successful Unix-like operating system. Which is an excellent segue to my part 2... Operating systems. Please comment!

Murray vs. Rossi

OK, so case in point about national politics... The friendly neighborhood case of Senator Patty Murray vs. Dino Rossi.

On the one hand, Senator Murray is a known entity... a liberal. She's been a Senator for 18 years now, coming in on a platform of a "Mom in tennis shoes." I don't personally know much about her other than that she attended that school that MUST NOT BE NAMED in Pullman, but her voting record makes her solidly to the left. So the health care law that 60% of Americans believe should be repealed [1]? Of course she voted for it. Partial birth abortion and other abortion issues? Solidly pro-choice [2][3]. So for being consistent, she's great.

So on the other side is Dino Rossi. Dino is unfortunately best known for losing twice in his bid to be Washington's governor, including the closest gubernatorial election in U.S. history in 2004[4]. My experience with Mr. Rossi is earlier. He was my state senator when I was living in Renton, and when I was looking into his record, he struck me as the "real deal." I have a natural skepticism especially when it involves politicians, but he seemed (and seems) to me to be a family man, fiscally conservative, and a man of faith. I have no false illusions about my impact, but I was one (of I'm sure very many) people that sent him an email and asked him to enter the Senate race. I do believe he's the only man with ANY chance of winning against Senator Murray.

For the Democrats, in Washington you have a serious standard bearer. But her ideas? In the state the economy is in, do we really need someone running on a platform of bringing home the pork for Washington? I'll go ahead and say it... No we don't. What about a party that circumvents standard rules to push through health care "reform" not wanted by the majority of Americans. Shall we allow that to continue to happen? No. Senator Murray's ideas, and those she supported are not (in my opinion) what's best for America.

Now that I've laid it on the Democrats, how about Republicans? Well, some have stated that Mr. Rossi is part of the "establishment" I can only guess because he's supported by the national Republican party. Clint Didier, for example, had this quote:

"I don't know Dino Rossi personally. But I do know he is part of the Republican establishment – all you have to do is look at those he surrounds himself with. I don't believe he's the conservative people think he is. If people want more of the same, the McCain or Bush type of governing, then they can support Dino. If they want the change they missed the last time, then they can support me"[5]

Other people accuse him of not being pro-life enough (interestingly some democrats are portraying him as too pro-life) [6] or not conservative enough. All I can say is angry Republicans.

I think Jennifer Hammonds Heffernan said it well on Dino's Facebook page [7] when she wrote:

"I respect Clint for sticking to his principles and asking Rossi to consider a very large portion of conservatives who see themselves first as upholders of the Constitution and Republicans second. If Clint doesn't wish to endorse Rossi, I don't see how it matters because every individual still has the freedom to vote for Rossi if they wish. They don't need Clint's permission to do so. Many Clint supporters will vote for Rossi as a vote against Patty, but some will choose to abstain because to vote for someone who isn't 100% in line with Constitutional principles goes against their conscience. The wonderful thing about America is that we each have a vote and the freedom to use it without coercion. "

To me, the big issue is not who does or does not vote for Dino Rossi or Senator Murray. I really would like to see Dino go to Washington DC in January. I believe he's the best guy for the job and his ideas are better than Senator Murray's. But when the arena changes from ideas to attacks and anger, that's the "reality on the ground" but doesn't stop me from wishing it was different. I have nothing against Clint Didier, or Sarah Palin (I even financially contributed to John McCain's campaign BECAUSE he selected her for VP), or for that matter Senator Murray. But must politics always come down to bickering?

Am I alone in this?
-----------------------------------
[1] http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law
[2] http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=53358
[3] http://www.ontheissues.org/social/Patty_Murray_Abortion.htm
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_gubernatorial_election,_2004
[5] http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/204413.asp
[6] http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/08/clint_didiers_last_ditch_attac.php
[7] http://www.facebook.com/DinoRossiWA

So why a blog?

So here I am, writing my first blog post ever. I guess the question someone (but maybe I'm being overly optimistic) is asking is why?

Caveat emptor: I am an Army officer. Although I don't plan on discussing a lot about the military (mostly because I think Army things are very well blogged and I can't add much to the discussion), my affiliation limits to an extent the type of things I can say. Fortunately, I'm a big believer in courtesy and respect to everyone, and especially to those with whom I may disagree.

Mostly I wanted to start a blog because I haven't seen much written from an apolitical perspective...

Don't get me wrong. I am an almost stereotypical "religious right" conservative. I am a proud Presbyterian (even if my denomination has for the most part forgotten what that means). I believe that homosexuality is a sin, that big government is bad, that judicial activism has changed our government to something our founding fathers wouldn't recognize. I believe that people do not have the right to kill babies, even if they happen to be inside their mother's body. If you take a checklist from any of the popular conservative pundits, I can probably check off on nearly any issue on them.

But here's what I see in at least the national stage - on the one side, you have liberals that really do largely control the government or the media, or the universities, or any number of other things, that have truly wigged out ideas that many Americans, including myself, just don't believe in. On the other side, you have conservatives that come across as angry, being forever "against" this thing or the other thing. In all cases, whatever truly changes? How many times have you seen a politician make a speech thusly "It's the (opposing party)'s fault that (pet issue) is this way?"

That's why I'm here... I'm a Christian, and an American, and a Conservative, and I'm pretty happy anyway. If you're a Democrat or a social liberal, I think your party or ideological system is pretty wigged out, but I can talk with you about it anyway, and not be rude. If you're an angry Republican, I think you're right more than you're wrong, but you can be nicer about it. I'm not so convinced that politicians at the national level are so different regardless of party anyway.

So I'll try to write on a regular basis on whatever - hope you stay along for the ride!

God bless you all,

Dion