Fusion food: cooking up Shane the Chef

Cooking is all about preparing and assembling the best ingredients. That’s a point often made by Shane the Chef, the animated character who regularly appears on the child-friendly Milkshake! segment of Channel 5. But, much like his recipes, Shane himself is a fascinating fusion of assorted elements, as is his home town of Munchington.

First, take your main ingredient: a young spiky-haired man inspired by a combination of ‘rock star’ TV chef Gary Rhodes and the son of co-creator Andrew Wildman. Give him a head of spiky hair, a sadly absent wife and a video-savvy daughter. Next, add the voice of Russell Tovey, infused with the essence of Jamie Oliver and sprinkled with a hint of Shane Ritchie.

Now place your mixture in a shop from the Cotswold market town of Chipping Norton – it’s Jaffé & Neale, in case you’re planning a pilgrimage – and transplant it 200 miles away into the Cornish fishing port of Mevagissey. Time for the final flourish: rename your port as the fictional town of Munchington, turn your shop into a restaurant – it doesn’t need a name, such is our man's reputation – and you’re ready to meet the upbeat protagonist of ‘Shane the Chef’ (as whisked into existence by Andrew Wildman and Simon Jowett with Hoho Entertainment, Cloth Cat Animation and some extra cash from Creative Europe).

December 2018 'gadget guru' technology for TRE Talk Radio Europe

Here's a quick reminder of the technology I talked about in today's TRE Talk Radio Europe 'gadget guru' conversation with Dave Hodgson:

1. Meater wireless thermometer

Christmas is on the way and, if you’re a meat-eater, there’s a good chance you’ll be cooking a turkey or maybe even a goose for dinner. One of the challenges of roasting anything big is making sure the inside is cooked. What you need is a cooking thermometer – but how about a wireless cooking thermometer that connects to your phone or your tablet?

Meater looks like a regular stainless steel meat thermometer but without a display, It connects via Bluetooth to your phone, which means it has a range of up to 10 metres from your oven, although there’s a boosted version called Meater Plus that’ll work up to 50m away.

First, you install the special Meater app on your phone. Next, you charge up your thermometer and then you link it to your phone. The charger doesn’t plug into the mains; it uses a regular AAA battery that should work for up to 100 charges.

Stick the thermometer into the meat, open up the app and choose the type of meat you're cooking (or, indeed, whether you're cooking poultry or fish). You then select the cut of meat and the associated temperature, so if you like your lamb 'pink'.

The Meater app then gives you an estimated cooking time (and, perhaps obviously, will alert you when the meat is cooked). You can also check progress from the sofa – or the other side of the kitchen. In fact, if you use one of Amazon's Alexa smart home devices, you can link the two together and ask Alexa how your roast dinner is coming along.

Pricing for the regular version is £79 / €89 and for Meater Plus is £99 / €109.

2. PlayStation Classic games console

Here’s a bit of nostalgia. It’s 24 years since Sony launched its original PlayStation games console in Japan. For Christmas this year, Sony is bringing back the PlayStation Classic, with 20 games from the 1990s built in. Except this new PlayStation will be almost half the size of the original.

What you get is the console (it looks like a shrunken version of the original but doesn’t need any software disks), two controllers (again, scaled-down replicas of the originals) and an HDMI cable to plug it into your television. All that’s missing is a USB power adaptor, which seems a bit mean but I’m sure you’ve got one kicking around from an old phone.

And then you’ll be able to play classics like Final Fantasy VII, Tekken 3, Ridge Racer Type 4, Grand Theft Auto and so on. These aren’t updated versions of the original games: they ARE the original games.

PlayStation Classic launched this week in Japan, the US and Europe, with an anticipated UK price of £89.99 and a European price of €99.99.

3. Big Mouth Billy Bass

About 20 years ago, one of the best gifts you could give the person who had almost everything was Big Mouth Billy Bass. He looked like a stuffed fish mounted on a wooden plaque but could sing 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' and, rather disturbingly, would also turn to face you.

Well, Billy Bass is back. The company that made him – Gemmy Industries – has updated Billy with a Bluetooth connection and compatibility with the Amazon Alexa digital assistant.

This means is you can now use him to play all types of music, not just his theme song. But better than that, Billy can now answer any questions you ask Alexa. If you have an Alexa device, you can connect it wirelessly to Billy Bass and Alexa’s voice will come out of him. Billy’s little fishy mouth even moves when Alexa talks. Alexa, what’s the weather? Alexa, what’s the temperature of my turkey?

At the moment 'new Billy' only seem to be available in the USA: I’ve seen him on Amazon for $39.99 plus shipping.

4. Monopoly Fortnite edition

Fortnite is a video game launched last year by a company called Epic Games. In the game, you and 99 other people are dropped onto a cartoonish island. Your aim is pretty simple: survive until the end of the game.

But I’m not here to talk about the online game. What I'd like to introduce is the real-world antidote to Fortnite. It's made by Hasbro, the company behind much-loved board game Monopoly, where you throw dice, move around a board, buy houses and try to make more money than anyone else.

Now they’ve invented the Fortnite Edition of Monopoly. Instead of moving round the streets of London, you move around the Fortnite island. Instead of earning money, you collect Health Points. You build walls, not hotels, and every time you pass Go you unleash the Storm, which can take health Points from your opponents. Ultimately, the person left with Health Points at the end of the game is the winner. If you’re a Monopoly fan and you want to get the rest of your video-playing family into it, this could be just what you’re looking for.

It’s suitable for two to seven players, age 13 and up. Pricing is around £25 (€28).

My October 2017 'gadget guru' tech from TRE Talk Radio Europe

Here's a reminder of the technology from my October 2017 'gadget guru' conversation on TRE Talk Radio Europe this afternoon:

Apple iPhone X

The new iPhone will be available from 3rd November. What's the big deal? Well, it's the display, the camera, the way it recharges and the built-in security. Oh, and the price. There are two versions; one has 64GB of memory (£999 / €1159) and there's a dearer version with a massive 256GB. The screen is Organic LED - often referred to as OLED - which is especially good for displaying colours and contrasts. This is a 5.8-inch screen, with 2438 x 1125 pixels - and the bezels on the edges have pretty much disappeared. What's also disappeared is the home button and the fingerprint scanner on the front. How do you unlock it? There's still a physical button on the side but the security part is handled by the camera on the front, which can now recognise your face. On the back is a 12 megapixel dual-lens camera with image stabilisation, while the front camera takes 7 megapixel photos. Inside you'll find wireless charging technology and Apple's new A11 chip, which is smarter and faster than its predecessors.

Google Pixel 2

The Pixel 2 is a phone that runs Google's Android operating system. It’s a direct replacement for the original Pixel, which came out a year ago. There are actually two versions – the Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 XL; the only real difference is the size of the screen and the size of the battery. Both should be on sale from 19th October. The Google Pixel 2 has a 5-inch OLED display, while the XL has a 6-inch screen. What’s notable here is that the display can stay on permanently, showing you the time and date, message notifications and calendar reminders without you needing to press any buttons. Unlike the iPhone, there’s a fingerprint scanner for security – but just like the iPhone, there’s no 3.5mm headphone socket. You’re either expected to use Bluetooth or an adaptor that connects to the USB-C charging socket. It does, however, have a pair of front-facing loudspeakers. Both versions offer a 12 megapixel camera with optical image stabilization; price for the 64GB version of the Pixel 2 is £629.

Amazon Echo Show

Amazon isn’t just an online shop. It’s also produced Alexa, which is a voice-controlled service rather like Google Now and Apple's Siri. It works with Amazon’s Kindle tablets and also with the company's Echo loudspeakers. Alexa now has a new friend: the Echo Show. The clue is very much in the name: it can show you things because it has a 7-inch touchscreen. It sits on your table like a little television. So instead of reading you the headlines, it’ll show you the news or the weather forecast. You can check your to-do list on-screen, you can look at your favourite photos, you can even check security cameras if you're using a compatible system. As well as this, you can make video calls to other people with compatible Amazon devices - and you can play music from the Amazon library or various other online services. Price for the Echo Show is £199.99; it’s available in the UK from 16th November.

Bacon Express

We’ve talked about smartphones and smart speakers – now we’re looking at a very different kind of gadget. The Bacon Express is, in simple terms, a bacon toaster. You put up to six slices of bacon inside, you close the door, set your preferred level of crispiness and turn it on. After around ten minutes your bacon is done. After a launch in America earlier this year, it's now available in the UK for around £50.

August 2017: my 'gadget guru' tech for TRE Talk Radio Europe

Here's a quick reminder of the technology from my August 2017 'gadget guru' chat on TRE Talk Radio Europe this afternoon:

Amabrush automatic toothbrush

Much like an electric toothbrush, this is powered by a rechargeable battery – but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. The Amabrush looks more like a gum shield crossed with a dummy. Never mind the looks, though: this, the inventors reckon, will clean your teeth in just ten seconds.

The mouthpiece is flexible to fit different sized mouths and is made of antibacterial silicone. There are bristles on both sides to clean your teeth – and you can clean the brush itself by rinsing it under a tap. The bristle part of the mouthpiece will need replacing every three months or so at a cost of around €6.

If there’s more than one person in your house who wants to use the Amabrush, each can buy their own mouthpiece and share the vibrating control unit to keep costs down.

The company is currently taking pre-orders (via crowd-funding site Indiegogo) with an estimated delivery date of February next year. Pricing for a basic unit is €89 + €15 shipping to Europe, although you can pay a bit more and get a version that uses a wireless charger instead of the plug-in type.

Smarter FridgeCam

For a few years some companies have been talking about a ‘smart fridge’ that’ll help you keep track of the food you buy. Instead of designing a new fridge, one company has built a wireless camera that’ll fit inside almost any fridge... which is a whole lot cheaper. The company is called Smarter, the device is the FridgeCam – and the UK price when it comes out next month is expected to be just under £100.

What does FridgeCam let you do? Well, it connects to an app on your phone and lets you check the contents of your fridge from pretty much anywhere. As well as doing this, it’ll also help you track expiry dates, it’ll let you know when things are running out and it can even suggest recipes based on the things you’ve bought.

As well as reminding you when expiry dates are getting close, it can add products to your online shopping basket when they’re used up and it can even remind you to buy items if you’re going past the local shops.

It’s not actually a live camera – you can’t look inside your fridge when the door’s closed, not least because the light goes out – what is does is take photos when you put something in or take it out. This means its rechargeable battery lasts for a few months before you need to take the camera out and recharge it.

Drifter wireless loudspeaker

The loudspeaker in your phone isn't very big, so if you want better quality or more volume, you need to connect your phone to something else. Using Bluetooth technology means you don't have wires; you just need to keep the phone nearby.

That's all very well, but sometimes it's not convenient to keep your phone nearby. Perhaps you're worried about your phone getting wet or being dropped. In which case - drum roll, please - you need the Drifter. It's a wireless loudspeaker that can play music independently from your phone. How does it do that? Well, it has a 16GB hard drive for storing thousands of songs, plus WiFi and Bluetooth for connecting. There's a touch-screen for controlling it, there's even a built-in camera if you want to take photos. The whole thing is waterproof and is in a rugged case, so you can download your music and play it almost anywhere.

Current pricing is $150 + shipping.

Stikbox selfie stick

In the words of the company, "Stikbox is the first full-length selfie stick built into a smartphone case".

This is a 20-inch (53cm) selfie stick built into a phone case, so you don't need to carry a separate device for self-portraits. At the moment it's available for the iPhone 7 - which means your iPhone 6 will also fit - in a choice of black, white or pink, with plans to make them for the iPhone 7 Plus, Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus.

You slide your phone in; like any decent case you've got access to all the controls; and when you want to take a selfie you simply unfold the stick from the back of the case. It's also protective against everyday bumps and there's a Bluetooth-controlled button for taking photos. You can even use the case as a stand for watching videos.

The iPhone 7 version of the Stikbox costs £29.99.

My 'Gadget Guru' list for TRE Talk Radio Europe December 2016

Here's the technology we discussed in my TRE Talk Radio Europe 'gadget guru' conversation today:

Leica Sofort instant camera

I’m old enough to remember when instant cameras were cool the first time round and Polaroid ruled the roost. These days, we can print our own photos at home, so there’s less novelty in having an instant camera, but they haven’t gone away completely. Fuji is one of the big names these days – and now Leica is after a share of the market.

The camera itself is quite a square, retro-looking design. There’s a choice of three colours: orange, white and what they call mint (pale green). It’s just under five inches wide and four inches high. It’s got the trademark Leica red dot on the front, has a built-in flash and there’s a viewfinder window rather than an electronic viewfinder. It’s also got a little mirror on the front for selfies.

However, don’t think this is entirely mechanical. There’s a little LED display on the back telling you how many photos remain in your film and letting you see the camera settings. It’s all powered by a rechargeable battery.

You can choose a special sports setting for movement, or another for portraits, there’s a timer you can use and you have three choices for setting the focus: Macro, Standard and Landscape. You can also override the automatic settings if you want to change the brightness of the picture, for example, or turn the flash off. You can buy Leica’s own film or use Fuji film instead. Developing each picture takes around 1-2 minutes.

The Leica Sofort has the equivalent of a 34mm lens (towards the wide-angle end of things but actually made by Leica themselves, so I understand), it has an f/12.7 aperture, which will help keep stuff in focus, and it offers of between 1/8th of a second to 1/400th of a second.

Pricing is £229 (around €265), which is a lot more than a similar Fuji camera, but this is as much an emotional purchase as a practical one.

Hypnolight LED lights

Twinkly lights aren’t just for Christmas but it’s very much the time of year when these things are especially popular. Hypnolight is effectively a 12 foot long string of lights (that’s over 3½ metres) with 50 separate LEDs.

What colours are they, you may ask? Pretty much any colour you want. That’s the clever thing. Each of the LEDs can shine red, green and blue – and you can mix these together. It means you get 16 million colours with 33 different patterns of making them light up.

You can also slow down the speed of the pattern or can have all the LEDs the same colour for mood lighting. They’re mains powered but are waterproof, so as long as you’re careful you can use them outside.

And as though all that wasn’t enough, you can synchronise up to four sets together for an even bigger display.

The price is £49.99, which includes the controller and the power unit.

Paulig Muki coffee-powered smart mug

This is a reusable coffee cup for takeaway coffee and, as the name suggests, it’s come from a coffee company in Finland. Paulig is the coffee supplier and 'Muki' means 'mug'.

What’s so smart? It’s got an electronic ink screen. That’s a bit like a Kindle or other eBook readers. It’s a monochrome display that only really needs power when it changes.

You buy your mug then download a free application to your phone. When you’ve done that, you can send pictures and messages to your mug. In fact, here’s the lovely thing, you can send messages to someone else’s mug if they’ve given you its unique code. So friends, family, couples, you can communicate over a distance.

The mug links to the user’s own phone via a wireless Bluetooth connection – and the power comes from the heat of the drink. As long as you’re drinking coffee (or tea), the thermal energy provides enough electricity to update the screen. That picture then stays on, even if the cup runs out of energy, until it gets updated with the next one. Each hot drink gives you enough power for around five updates, which is pretty impressive.

Paulig Muki is €59 plus postage and is available in three different colours.

Oneadaptr Flip power bank

At Christmas, you’re probably using your phone quite a bit; for photos, for Twitter, for Facebook, for messages, maybe even for talking to people.

What you need is a spare battery. So, if you’re like me, you may well carry a little power pack with you to recharge your phone. That’s all very well until the power pack needs recharging as well.

That’s where the Oneadaptr FLIP Power steps in. It combines a UK three-pin plug with a power bank. You can plug it into the mains to charge up, check the LED display to make sure it’s full, then it’s got two USB sockets for charging phones and tablets.

Fair enough – but what about carrying it around? Here’s the neat bit. The plug folds away, so the pins won’t damage anything. So you get a mains charger and a powerbank in a slim package that’ll fit in your bag. Now, the power bank is just 2000 milliamp hours, which won’t completely recharge every phone, but combined with the mains part I reckon that’s pretty neat. Price is £34.99.

And if you think just having a folding charger sounds cool, take a look at a rival product called Mu. They make a folding UK charger that’s much smaller and also a folding international charger that can be used in the UK, Europe, the USA, China and Australia. It’s the kind of design that’s so clever, it makes you smile.

TRE Talk Radio Europe gadgets for December 2015

This month's 'gadget guru' chat with Dave Hodgson on TRE included some ideas for Christmas presents...

Gamevice mobile gaming controller

At the moment, certainly here in the UK, you can’t move without seeing an advertisement for some kind of Christmas game console deal. Either you’re spending a few hundred pounds on a Microsoft Xbox or you’re spending a few hundred pounds on a Sony PlayStation.

All the while you’re probably carrying around a powerful computer in your pocket: your smartphone.

Now, mobile gaming is very popular but for many people it’s not as good as a console because of the way you control the action. That’s where this company called Gamevice comes on the scene.

They’ve made a games controller for iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s and 6s Plus devices. This kind of thing has been done before but what’s particularly nice with this product is the way it looks – it effectively clips on either end of your phone, leaving the screen in the middle. So you don’t have a separate controller; it all becomes one. It fastens magnetically and has its own rechargeable battery so it won’t drain the iPhone too quickly.

A typical console controller will have a four-way pad on one side, separate buttons on the other, perhaps a pair of joysticks and some kind of trigger or firing control for each hand. This does the same.

It works with over 750 iPhone games including some of the biggest: Minecraft, Final Fantasy 7, Halo, FIFA16, Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto… the company makes an app that lets you check which games work with its controller.

Pricing is £79.95 (€109.95) for the iPhone version – there’s also one available for the iPad Mini – and you can order online or find it in Apple stores.

Polaroid Zip instant photo printer

Once upon a time, in the olden days, we’d put film in our cameras, take photos and then get the film developed – which usually took about a week if you were relying on someone else to do it.

Then came the Polaroid camera, which produced instant pictures on special film.

And then came digital cameras and smartphones, which made it easier to print photos at home.

But there’s a bit of a trend away from printers at home – most of the time you don’t need one – which almost seems a backwards step, particularly when more photos are being taken than ever before.

So along came the Polaroid Zip instant mobile printer earlier this year. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth (and if you’ve got NFC technology on your phone, you can connect simply by touching the two devices together).

The Zip printer itself is around 4 inches long: 120mm x 74mm x 23mm, weighing 186g and running off rechargeable batteries that’ll last for around 25 prints.

It costs £109.99 (around €150) and needs special photo paper, which works out at around 50p a go. This is Polaroid’s own paper called ZINK, which is short for zero ink. That means you don’t need to buy ink cartridges; like the old-fashioned film, the clever technology is in the paper. And what’s rather nice is you can peel off the back of the photos and they’ll stick to things. Photos are around 2 inches by 3 inches and, unlike a wet Polaroid, won’t smudge.

If you want something a little different, there’s a similar product on its way that actually clips to an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy smartphone - this is the Prynt case - but that’s probably not going to be available until January next year.

Vinturi wine aerator

With red wine, most people tend to agree that it’s best to decant it or at least allow it time to ‘breathe’ before you start drinking – because it improves the aroma and the taste.

Which is all very well, but it doesn’t really work if you decide you fancy a glass of wine or if someone turns up for dinner with a bottle that you want to start straight away.

That’s where you need your Vinturi aerator. It’s made of clear acrylic. You hold it over a glass, pour your wine through and it’s ready to drink.

The way it works – and you can hear it work – is that the wine pulls in air through little holes on the side of the device as it pours through. Unlike other devices, it doesn’t need batteries and it doesn’t need any waiting time, it simply uses basic physics.

I was given one of these for Christmas last year and I love it. I’m a bit embarrassed because they’ve been around for a few years but I’ve only just discovered them. Apparently it’s even dishwasher safe, although I just run it under the tap when I use it.

Pricing is usually somewhere around the £40 mark but here in the UK a few places have them on offer at the moment.

Perhaps best of all, it's a Christmas gadget that doesn’t need batteries!

Millennium Falcon Multi Tool

The new Star Wars film comes out next week - and I’ve talked before about the Star Wars BB8 droid, which is going to be at the top of a lot of people’s Christmas shopping lists.

But I’ve found something else that’s much more practical and costs a fraction of the price. It’s a multi-tool in the shape of the Millennium Falcon (which, if you don’t know, is flown by Han Solo in the film).

Anyway, this is a modern version of the old bicycle spanner, which was a flat piece of metal with various hexagonal holes in it.

This Millennium Falcon Multi Tool is made on the same principle – and it can do 11 different things (12, if you include 'looking like a tiny spaceship').

There’s a screwdriver, a bottle opener, a wire stripper and a ruler as well as various spanners and a couple of other tools.

It’s officially licensed, it measures around 13cm long and 8cm wide – and it’s £9.99. Keep it in your glovebox, in your handbag, in your briefcase, in your backpack – or in your cycle bag.

Once again, no batteries required.

Trusting TripAdvisor

Online customer reviews are useful, but it's a system that may sometimes mislead. Positive and negative votes can be influenced by social media campaigns and an assortment of irrelevant factors, which is why I approach The Shed in Wadebridge with caution. At the time I visit it's number 3 in the TripAdvisor.com list of restaurants in Wadebridge, yet its tiny size makes it an unlikely candidate in any foodie directory.

First impressions are... how on earth can they cook anything in there? Yes, the venue's small - a few tables outside and some seats indoors - but the kitchen area itself is barely larger than a wardrobe. Service is friendly and helpful, demonstrating a genuine desire to please. We've arrived at lunchtime - walked in from Padstow, since you ask - and are feeling pretty hungry, which means we order our food and drinks quickly but carefully.

Our coffee arrives. It's good. Really good. These days most cafes are capable of producing a decent cappuccino. At The Shed, the coffee blend and the construction of our cappuccinos is exceptional.

Our food is equally impressive. Imaginative, well presented and packed with flavour. I've chosen oak-smoked kippers on toast with pink grapefruit (£5.95). The citrus cuts through the oil of the fish; simple, good-looking and very tasty. My wife's frittata is accompanied by a colourful 'superfood' salad: she's impressed with taste, quantity and appearance. A visiting customer suggests that Gordon Ramsay may want to add The Shed's 'Beached Benedict' - an updated Eggs Benedict with samphire replacing the bacon - to his menu. It certainly wouldn't seem out of place. Perhaps he'll become a regular visitor, having recently bought a holiday home a few miles away.

Ultimately, The Shed is somewhere I wish was my local cafe. And somewhere I'll make a point of returning to when I'm next on holiday in Cornwall. Thank you, TripAdvisor reviewers.

The Prawn Supremacy

Prawn on the Lawn has recently appeared on Duke Street in Padstow, replacing the long-established Margot's Bistro. Much like the original PotL fish restaurant in London, Padstow's new seafood bar is also a fishmonger's shop, which means you could easily buy the main ingredients to re-create their dishes at home. Except... well, there'd be something missing. Because there's magic in the air here. The food is joyful. Simple in theory but, with apologies for the cliché, much more than the sum of its parts. We chose tapas-style dishes: seared tuna, razor clams, scallops and the open prawn sandwich that gives the place its name. All delightful.

But this isn't a review of Prawn on the Lawn. I wasn't making notes, mainly because I was enjoying the experience too much. Margot's was a Padstow landmark for over 20 years. Based on my visit, I'd say Prawn on the Lawn is guaranteed an equally long tenure here.