[geeks] food geekery question

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 02:39:11PM +0200, Jonathan Groll wrote:
> Is the Kenwood Chef not a US thing (Geoff's mail seems to imply that
> the 120V model was fairly recent)? I also come from a family that
> swears by Kenwood, although must add the caveat that build quality of
> the newer models is not as good as it was in the past - newer models
> have more plastic components and so don't have sufficient heft to
> knead large batches of dough, etc.

The Kenwood was first made in the 1950's by an Englishman named Kenneth Wood,
the Chef is a realtively new model. AFAIK it has very few plastic parts,
but may have some nylon (which IMHO is not plastic) gears inside. 

As for being underpowered, last week when I was making a loaf of bread from
2 kilo of flour, (1 kilo white bread flour, 1 kilo rye), I made a mistake.
I normally mix the dry ingredients with the regular beater and then
switch to the dough hook after I add enough water and it thickens.

I waited too long and broke the beater. It literally was so powerful that it
broke the composite metal in half.

Note that my 500 watt Kitchen Aid would not do such a thing, with much less
flour, it would walk across the counter and drop the bowl (it had a lever to
raise the bowl into place,not a drop down motor).

As for being in the US, AFAIK they were never imported or made in 120v
until Delonghi bought the US rights a few years ago. 


> No Nigella on your list :-( Got a thing against so-called "food porn"?
> (and no, not the Mickey Rourke kind either)

Yes, I do, It's called a cardiac stent, and I have two of them.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation. 
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.