Re: sous vide. I love sous vide. I rigged up my own sous vide contraption using a temperature controller and a crock pot. Marcolo, the point isn't so much that the dishes will be more tender than conventional. Instead, sous vide has two and a half strong points. The first is cooking things like lamb shanks or short ribs, as you point out, but keeping them from getting overcooked while at the same time getting them tender. (You can have a tender short rib done medium rare, still showing pink. Yum.) The second strong point is cooking, say, a rare steak. You can cook it entirely rare, with no chance of overcooking it, and no worries about timing. Then just brown the outside, and you have a delicious steak that is 90% rare, and still has the wonderful browned outside part. A rack of lamb cooked for 8-10 hours at a medium-rare temperature is divine. The "half" part is just the ease of not having to worry about timing. You can start cooking your scallops anywhere from 3 pm to 6 pm, and the timing matters essentially zero. Cook the rest of your dinner, then pull out the scallops when everything else is finished. I made the recipe below last New Year's, and it was pretty manageable due to the insensitivity to timing. My guests thought is was the best meal they ever had, and still say so 7 mos. later. Here is a link that might be useful: sous vide lobster

"Ready to become a better cook?" is what it says on the site. WRONG!! Maybe they could ask if you want to throw a lot of money at technology that depends on your desires being "common" and eat better. But you're not learning to cook your common foods. You're learning to let a robot cook them. Wouldn't a normal countertop oven and scale -- generously call it $500 -- and a couple grand worth of cooking lessons really make you a better cook who can cook less common things, and can still cook at a friend's house without bringing the oven with? One assumes that the $3000 is for early adopter/robot fanboy, have to have it now types who want something just barely past prototype. When it comes down to $500 with mass production is time enough to talk.

Thank you for looking, Plllog but it's none of those. :( Had one like the one you like--nice flexible spatula. Victim of excessive heat--that one was my fault, IIRC. The one I like is nylon, short, slotted, square across the end and the blade is chiseled. It's really pretty wimpy, not much use for anything except turning eggs when you're using a non-stick pan. I don't think Ekco makes it anymore--I'm always on the lookout for them, regular retail stores, etc. and the only place I find them is at garage/ estate sales. Fortunately, when I find one, there are often multiples of it at the same sale.

We received this wine aerator as a gift. https://m.wine.com/product/vinturi-wine-aerator/120451?warehouses=CA&cid=GoogleBase_CSE_120451_Beta&gclid=CjwKEAjwlq24BRDMjdK7g8mD6BASJABBl8n310IPzm54CwZGYb5jIVpe2Mj-rkHdl7ntD2MlAdvEXRoC3Pnw_wcB&mode=xfercomplete Sometimes I have guests do blind tastings - (1) a glass straight from the bottle, (2) a glass poured through the aerator. They prefer (2) about 2/3 of the time. 1/3 of the time they can't tell the difference - but those guests might not be able to tell a California wine from a French wine, so we won't give their opinions too much weight. No one, so far, has preferred (1). If you decant into a carafe then the aerator is unnecessary. I picked this laser-sighted infrared thermometer up on a whim, because I was in Home Depot and it was only $16. http://m.homedepot.com/p/PRO-SERIES-Non-Contact-Infrared-Thermometer-with-Laser-Sighting-12-1-Spot-THERMNC/204262824 Along with enabling all sorts of geeky investigations - have you ever wondered how much hotter your ceiling is than your floor? do cats have the same internal temperature as humans? when your spouse is "steaming mad", is she really? - it has certain cooking uses. Measuring the temperature of a pan. Or of spitting oil that is too scary hot to dip your probe thermometer in. This one is as cheap as they come, and no doubt there are advantages to the expensive models, but save your money and get the wine aerator too. Differences in the emissivity of surfaces limits the accuracy of infrared temperature measurement anyway.