Jun 21 2010

Irina’s First Time Posting

Category: PersonalIrinaM @ 8:49 pm

My name is Irina. For those who do not know me yet, I am Chris’ wife. Chris has been asking me to write a post for his blog for many, many months. All this time I was either not ready, too busy, worried about my writing skills or simply too lazy. Last week, after we bought and tested the new deep fat fryer, Chris asked me AGAIN if I would like to write a post, and maybe review it on his blog. FINALLY, I decide to give it a go, so please try to contain your excitement, dear readers!!!

Let me start by explaining that both of us are not particularly healthy eaters. Being aware of potential health risks we still allow ourselves to enjoy some naughty food, like chips (or “kartoffel free”, as they are known in this part of the world). Our old deep fat fryer has already had it’s fair share of use and we decided to send it into retirement (as it happens, my Mum decided that it can retire at their house with an occasional use), and buy a new one.

When we finally managed to get to the shop (“Sulpack” in Kenesary St.), despite the hit and miss poor customer service, we were faced, to my surprise, with quite a wide selection of deep fat fryers. As usual, Chris and I had completely different selection criteria in mind and again, as usual, we did not agree on them before we were presented with a choice. I was interested in a compact, easy to clean, good-make fryer. As far as I could tell, Chris was purely interested in the capacity – the bigger, the better! After some typical arguments (I guess all couples go though that, when buying household appliances) about which one to choose, Chris spotted a Tefal Family Oleoclean 1.3Kg fryer. So, we decided to investigate exactly what that model had to offer.

Tefal Family Oleoclean Deep Fat Fryer

It turned out that this particular deep fat fryer comes in two separate major parts: the base (which includes all the electric parts) and a “saucepan” part for the oil and chips. The principle is very close to a cordless kettle. The beauty of this configuration, as we already discovered, is that the “saucepan” part can be thoroughly cleaned without the worry that the electric elements will get wet. It can even be cleaned in a dishwasher if you are lucky enough to have one (we do not have enough space in our kitchen for it 🙁 ). This deep fat fryer also comes with a separate lidded bowl for storing the oil in between uses. I know that many fryers come with some sort of container, but this particular one, although quite big and bulky, has the advantage that the “saucepan” part of the fryer is placed directly on top of it (without the need to turn the fryer upside down, to pour the oil out and subsequently make lots of mess on the kitchen surfaces). The filtered oil slowly drains though a cleverly designed valve, leaving all the impurities in the pan, so they can be easily removed later and the pan can be cleaned thoroughly and frequently without the fear that it will take half of your life to scrub off (especially without the ability to use a metal scrubber or any chemicals) all the dried up oil inside and out. That made me very HAPPY! Now I do not have to be embarrassed and annoyed by the oily and smelly monster that used to sit in the corner of our kitchen. I have to say that, apart from being very easy to clean and operate, the deep fat fryer that we purchased does actually make nice and tasty chips (especially when Chris cooks them!)

So, if you were planning to buy a deep fat fryer and indulge yourself in unhealthy, but tasty food with out the hassle of having to intensively look after your fryer, I can highly recommend the Tefal Family Oleoclean deep fat fryer. Here is a short summery of its pros and cons:

Pros: EASY to clean , easy to operate, filters and drains the oil without creating a mess, hopefully not very smelly (though this one still needs to be confirmed), good capacity.
Cons: a little bit bulky, looks a bit cheap and plastic.

I hope you (the reader) will find this post a little bit useful, if not out right interesting and you (Chris) will be a bit happier that I have written something on your blog 🙂

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Aug 24 2009

Magic Oil

Category: FriendsChrisM @ 1:17 am

It is ChrisD’s birthday on Wednesday, and I had thought about sending over a bottle of his favourite “Magic Oil”. Now it isn’t marketed as a weight loss aid specifically, more for cuts, grazes, burns etc, however when he visited us a few years back, he had stomach problems. As the oil listed this as one of the ailments it could treat, he decided to give it a try.
Without going into too much detail, he was stuck in the bathroom a whole day, and eventually emerged looking a lot lighter, both in weight and facial colour. Anyway, as sending a glass bottle through international mail might not result in a satisfactory ending, I decided not to risk it. I’ll just have to bring some with me the next time we’re in Britain.

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Jun 09 2007

Tornado near the Caspian Sea 7th June 2007

Category: Kazakhstan,Pictures,WeatherChrisM @ 11:54 am

Irina sent me a few photos on Friday, of a tornado on the Caspian Sea, not sure where exactly.
I would happily give credit to the photographer, but we don’t know who took them. We are assuming it was a worker for some sort of oil-related company based over there.
The tornado is quite visually impressive, click the images below to see a larger version. If anyone is particularly interested in them, I have higer-res versions for the 2nd and 3rd shots – the online versions have been resized and compressed to save my server’s bandwidth.
Tornado near the Caspian Sea 07062007 1st Shot

Tornado near the Caspian Sea 07062007 2nd Shot

Tornado near the Caspian Sea 07062007 3rd Shot

In this picture, you can see a second tornado, so perhaps cyclic tornadogenesis has taken place – yes OK, I went and Wiki’ed tornadoes, as I didn’t want to appear too ignorant 🙂

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