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“Oh, to be a fly on the wall!”

You’ve almost certainly heard this phrase before, but have you ever thought about it? I don’t mean the phrase itself; I mean the implication. On what wall (and when) would you like to be a fly? Maybe in the room when an important document is drafted or a treaty is signed. Maybe Mission Control during the moon landing, or your favorite band’s first practice.

I ask this because, as I prepared to write about today’s product, a mini sous vide cooker, I actually struck upon a new answer to this question. I would love to be a fly on the wall for the meeting where they came up with this:

I just need to know, what was the mood like? Were they cautiously optimistic? Or did they high-five and pop champagne and slap each other on the back, imagining all the revenue they would earn by asking people to SUBSCRIBE TO A FUCKING KITCHEN APPLIANCE?

My personal favorite feature, by the way, is the access to more than 1000 recipes. What an amazing resource! Although, luckily, I’m familiar with this real niche site that can also supply 1000s of recipes. Here, get a pen and paper; I’ll tell you how to get there. Just type w-w-w-dot-g-o-o-g-l-e-dot-com into the address bar of your web browser. You’ll see a little text box when you get there; that’s where you type what recipe you’re looking for.

At any rate, just an amazing act of hubris thinking this would work, made all the more satisfying by the fact that you can now find this wonderful product on our site, which tells you a thing or two about how successful they were getting those subscription numbers up.

And what makes this even worse: this thing is actually cool!

Gift shopping can be tough when the recipient is someone who enjoys cooking. There are hundreds of rad gadgets they’d love, on paper. The problem comes later, on counter. You can give them something wacky and fun, like an ice cream maker, and they’ll probably use it. Once. Maybe twice. But eventually that big honker’s gonna end up in the basement, and then, later, in a tag sale.

This thing allows that special home chef in your life to play around with a new type of cooking: sous vide (which means cooking things low and slow in a hot water bath, by the way). But also, it doesn’t take up much room. Because it’s not the whole water bath; it just hooks to the side of a pot. Thus, whether the recipient uses it constantly or once every couple months, it doesn’t matter, because it’s not a chore to take out and put away.

Additionally, you control it through your phone. Which, eh, whatever; kinda cool, kinda annoying.

But at least you don’t HAVE to subscribe to anything just to use it.