Cookers

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 199

Versatile one pot meals

Fagor 3-in-1 Multicooker

Last summer I tried some carrot soup that tasted like buttered toffee. It had been made in a pressure cooker, which heats water vapor above boiling temperature, greatly reducing normal cooking times. I told my parents I was going to get a pressure cooker, and they recommended the Fagor multi cooker, because unlike most pressure cookers it has an electric browning feature, which lets you brown beef, fish, or chicken right in the pot before you pressure cook it, greatly improving the flavor.

The Fagor is also a slow cooker and a rice cooker. Because it is so versatile, I use it almost every day. The throw-everything-in-the-pot-and-push-a-button approach has broadened my cooking horizons. I’ve made rib roast in the slow cooker that had my in-laws coming back for thirds. I’ve made mouth-watering chicken stuffed with sun-dried tomato pesto, basil and goat cheese in a matter of minutes. I’ve made salmon with spinach and lemon sauce, fennel and Italian sausage, creamy risotto, and spicy Bolognese sauce. Thanks to an online army of pressure-cooker devotees, I’ll never run out of recipes.

The only negative thing about the Fagor is that the user interface doesn’t make it clear when it is cooking. A couple of times I’ve set the timer and forgotten to press the start button, only to find out twenty minutes later that it never started. I’ve learned not to do that. — Mark Frauenfelder

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Instant hot water source

Zojirushi Electric Dispensing Pot

Like the rice cooker, the electric dispensing pot is an appliance that EVERY Japanese household has. Its function is simple: It heats and dispenses hot water at just-below-boiling, as much or as little as you want. Perfect for a cup of tea or a cup of noodles. There’s even a “Keep Warm” feature for maintaining the water temp at 208F, 195F, or 175F for a set amount of time.

We picked up Zojirushi’s 3.0-liter US version when we moved back from Japan. It’s performed flawlessly for well over a decade. Lots of nice little touches: The “MagSafe” magnetic power cord featured in Apple’s laptop computers? Zojirushi did it first; makes it easy to move the pot to the tap to fill it up. — Robert Woodhead

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Best cheap nuke-it popcorn maker

Nordic Ware Microwave Corn Popper

This microwave popper is simplicity itself: 1/2 cup of corn, a little oil (or not), and a little time in the microwave yields a low-cost, low-cal snack you can eat right out of the popper. Unlike other poppers or Tupperware containers, the Nordic Ware’s top cover has nifty ridges that facilitate comfortable removal — i.e. when everything is very, very hot (If you don’t remove the cover immediately, the popcorn gets too moist).

I’ve tried a variety of devices on my long march to the perfect popper… table-top poppers often made a mess (and big noise) and they’re not machine-washable. Some microwave poppers require pads that deteriorate with use and need to be replaced, but are difficult to find. The stove top method, I just could never fully master: burned pans, burned corn, mess to clean. Lastly, microwavable bags of popcorn: If you eat a lot popcorn, you’ll be spending exorbitant sums and — depending on which brand — consuming chemical additives. The Nordic popper does not require oil, so the end-product is essentially the same as an air popper. The Nordic can go in the dishwasher, or just be wiped clean. Plus, the Nordic is perhaps the least expensive one out there. As of late, we’ve been producing popcorn five nights a week. — Daniel Wilson

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Smart grain cooker

Zojirushi Rice Cooker

This is the best thing with a plug. Pop water and rice in the bowl, set the timer, and you’ll have a perfect bowl of rice waiting for you when you get home. Don’t worry if you get hung up in traffic, the Zojirushi will keep your rice perfectly moist, and warm.

— Chris S.

Commonly used in Japan, this type of fuzzy-logic rice cooker can be set ahead of time. I’ve purchased several for friends and family and have settled on the Zojirushi brand. I’ve used a Zojiriushi for several years, and it has held up well and completely changed my cooking habits.

In the evenings I load up the pot with oatmeal and/or grain mixture for hot breakfast the following morning. And the mornings, I load up the pot for dinner – rice, whole grains, barley, lentils, beans, and/or spices. When I walk into the house after work, the air is fragrant with cooking. The cooker can keep its contents warm and fairly fresh for a few hours after the timer goes off.

My favorite model is the Zojirushi NS-ZAC10 (5 cup capacity) though I’d get the larger model if I had a bigger family. — Douglas O’Heir

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Non-Electric Slow-Cook

Nissan Thermal Cooker

Ever wish you could whip up a pot of chicken and dumplings, go on your bike ride or canoe paddle or even just hike, and have it piping hot and ready for you when you get back to the car? Ok, more likely it rained or snowed on your ride/paddle/hike and you’re shivering and wish you had any hot food back at the car. This is experience speaking.

Nissan, the makers of vacuum mugs to keep your coffee warmer longer, also makes a 4-quart powerless crockpot. No plugs. No heater. It’s wonderful.

Here’s how it works: pull the inner pot out of the device and put it on the range at home (or the stove at camp). Insert ingredients. Heat ’em up to a boil. Put the inner-lid on, then insert the inner pot into the outer pot. Seal the outer-lid. Put the whole device in your car (or your boat, or your dogsled). Have some fun for 3-6 hours. Open the pots and dish out the steaming food.

Incredibly, the first time this device was debuted in the U.S., it was marketed towards tailgaters and, well, flopped. But I had heard about it, and even though it was unavailable on this continent, managed to have a pot shipped over from Taiwan.

Avid outdoorswoman that I am, I had other uses for this kitchen gadget then side dishes for the football stadium parking lot. One morning, I shucked into my wetsuit and paddled into Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe and back, fighting the chill May wind both ways. After landing the boat, I hopped on my mountain bike and rode the famous Flume trail from the highway up to the snow line. I saw thunderclouds across the mountains and booked down to the car, 2,000 feet below, almost making it before the rain began. I was shivery; just short of hypothermic. I was also happy that before I’d launched the bike, I had the foresight to boil elbow mac, burger, and canned tomatos in the Nissan Thermal Cooker. Hot food = life.

The crock pot has recently come back on the market, and is again being hyped as a tailgater essential. Bah. Tailgaters and church-potluckers aren’t going to shell out $149 for a crockpot. People who do endurance races in the northern climates: now there’s your target audience. And don’t forget that this crockpot is more electricity-efficient than the normal kitchen plug-in models; it takes none once it’s hot so it makes a great kitchen addition for the average treehugger. — Rita Nygren

Simple recipes:
1 lb hamburger, browned
2 cans diced tomato
1 lb of elbow mac
Combine ingredients, bring to boil, seal, wait 3 hours. Serves 2-4 people.

Rice-a-roni (any flavor)
Butter
Canned chicken
Fresh veggies, diced
Prepare rice as directed on box. When you get to the cover and simmer stage, dump in the chicken and veggies, then seal in pot. Cook a little longer then directions call for. Servers 2.

2 cans chicken broth
1 can chicken
2 cups wild rice blend
2 cups Simply Veggies (freeze dried vegetables)
Bay leaf
Salt & pepper
Combine ingredients and boil, leave over heat for 5-10 minutes. Seal in pot. Wait 2-4 hours. Serves 4-8 people.

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Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

07/20/26

Hoppers / Cognitive shuffling / Airplane phone holder

Recomendo - issue #523

Pixar’s animal spirits

Pixar has been in a slump, but their newest release is fun and has some of the old magic back. Hoppers (Disney+ or BluRay) carries a convoluted plot involving animals and animal robots, downloading avatars, and key species in wildlife ecology. And for the memes, lots of beavers. It’s a fully realized world, lighthearted and whimsical, with some interesting ideas, and not too predictable. — KK

Cognitive shuffling sleep trick

This article introduced me to cognitive shuffling, a very simple word‑based visual exercise that helps the author fall asleep faster. You pick a random, emotionally neutral word like “duck,” picture it, then move to another unrelated word, and keep gently shuffling through these images until you drift off. I’ve been trying this for about a week now, and one of two things keeps happening: I either slip into a liminal hypnagogic state where the imagery shifts and takes over until I fall asleep, or my mind gets quickly bored by not getting to make associations with the non‑linear images and just shuts down into sleep. It might not be my favorite entry into sleep, but it did work and could be helpful to those struggling with insomnia. — CD

Airplane seatback phone holder

Sometimes I watch a show on my phone while flying. I’ve propped it against a wadded-up napkin on the tray table, watching it slide off every time the seat in front reclines. This small metal clamp from Ugreen grips the tray table (or a seatback lip, luggage handle, or kitchen cabinet — the jaw opens 8–25mm), and your phone snaps onto the magnetic head, holding it through turbulence. It folds flat, rotates for portrait or landscape, and works with any MagSafe case. It also works on a treadmill, nightstand, or car headrest. — MF

Kid phone

You can buy your kid a dumbphone, or purchase an app (with paid subscription!) to make a spare smartphone dumber, but Jeremy White at Wired figured out that you can also use the buried options in an iPhone to craft a perfect device for a kid. These options are somewhat hidden under the Accessibility menu, and seem to be designed for those with cognitive disabilities, but also work to constrain the access your child has. Full instructions in this Wired article, This Buried Apple Feature Turns an iPhone Into the Perfect Kids’ Dumb Phone. — KK

Six additional recommendations

This week’s What’s in my NOW? is my own issue. As editor, I usually feature other people’s lists—and we’re always accepting submissions, so if you’d like to share yours, check out this Call for Submissions. But this time I shared six things shaping my life right now: three physical, two digital, and one invisible. They’re more intimate than what I’d normally recommend here—closer to my inner life and energy healing practice—like a full-body red light therapy mat that puts me into a euphoric state in about 10 minutes, AudioPen for transcribing my dreams, and the invisible one: Ubuntu, “I am because we are,” a reminder that my growth isn’t a solo path but happens in the uncomfortable, relational space between me and others. Read the full issue here. — CD

A reading club for forgotten books

I run a newsletter called Book Freak, and I’ve started a paid feature I’m calling the Deep Cuts reading club. Each month I dig up a great book that time forgot — usually something out of print and not on Project Gutenberg — and produce a clean ebook edition of it in EPUB and PDF, with a cover and a short foreword explaining why it’s worth your time. Subscribers get a growing library plus a discussion thread for the monthly pick. The first one is H.G. Wells’s strange 1928 satire, Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island. — MF

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07/19/26

Gar’s Tips & Tools – Issue #212

Access to tools, techniques, and shop tales from the diverse worlds of DIY

The Accessible Workshop

I’ve had severe spinal arthritis since I was 13 years old. Over the decades, it has done its level best to impede my ability to live my life and do the things I enjoy. By and large, it has failed. I have managed to compose a meaningful and active life around my physical limitations. And now there are the realities of aging, and the limitations that it wants to impose.

Throughout my life, as an appropriate-technology enthusiast, I’ve turned to various technological solutions to improve my quality of life, from reacher-grabbers, “sock buddies,” and garment hooks, to wheel chairs (before my hip replacement) and cutting-edge pharmaceuticals.

As I age, I realize that that I’ll be increasingly looking to more adaptive tools and technologies to keep me going. Since I imagine that many of you, my dear readers, are increasingly facing similar challenges, I thought I’d create this new column to share adaptive technologies I’ve discovered and to get your input about the tech that you might be using.

For my first installment of “The Accessible Workshop,” I thought I’d cover the first few universally useful things that immediately sprang to mind.

Gilhoolie Jar Wrench

When I bought my house in Virginia, in 1999, the previous owners did a wonderful thing: They left a collection of kitchen and maintenance tools (and all relevant service manuals) in the kitchen junk drawer. One of these was a strange-looking device that I initially had no idea what it was for, the oddly named Gilhoolie. It’s a jar wrench and I’ve loved this thing ever since. I have never had a jar (if the lid fit inside these jaws) that I couldn’t open, even with swollen, arthritic wrists. Everyone needs one of these in the kitchen and shop. Much better than rubber gripper pads. Amazon sells knock-off versions of the Gilhoolie. You can get an official one at The Vermont Store.

Grabber-Reacher

For anyone with spinal issues, or the inability to bend down or reach over their head, a grabber-reacher is an essential everyday tool. There are all kinds of models available. I’ve always been partial to the type that have rubber-cup ends on them. I have managed to pick up pencils/pens, sheets of paper, even coins using one of these. The brand I’m partial to is the ArcMate heavy-duty model. I’ve had these for decades with no issues.

Anti-Fatique Mats

My first job was as an acquisition manager for an outdoor furniture (aka hammock) company. I was in charge of researching and ordering all the tools, materials, and supplies. As part of that job, I was asked to buy a set of anti-fatigue mats for the wood and machine shops. I’d never even heard of such a thing, but I did my research and ordered a bunch of mats from the Graingers catalog. The moment I stood on one (especially being someone with spinal arthritis), I was sold. I’ve rarely been without such mats in my life since. If you stand, in a kitchen, shop, or office, for any length of time, you need one of these mats under your feet.



So, what are some of the “assistive technologies” that you use? Please send me any ideas or recommendations.

Making Your Own CA Glue Applicators

Cut Transform Glue is one of my favorite trash-bash modeling channels. Brazilian modeler Henrique Ventura does such an impressive job of turning old electronics and plastic waste into the most impressive sci-fi models. I learn a lot in watching each of his videos. In this episode, he shows how to heat-stretch plastic Q-tip tubes to create your own precision super glue applicators.

Virtues of the Mechanical

My Arlington, Virginia home came with a very tricked-out washer and dryer. High-end Maytag models from the 1980s, they had all sorts of push-button switches, lots of LBLs (little blinkin’ lights), and features that no one ever used.

When the dryer broke (a component on the electronics panel burned out), the appliance repair guy said I’d have to replace the entire panel and that it wasn’t likely worth the multi-hundred-dollar expense. “Do yourself a favor,” he said, “Get a new unit with the least amount of features possible and mechanical dials — the less electronics, the better.”

I did, and that cheap replacement dryer was with me until I sold the house, over 20 years later. We laughed when we saw the washer and dryer in our house here in California. Also from the 1980s, they are mechanical Kenmore models. We’ve been here since 2021, run countless loads through them, and they’re still working away (knock on wood). And you’ve got to love that ratcheting sound when you dial in your load.

Mechanical.

Zip Tie Aha Moment

The No Way Guy on Instagram is a car and profanity enthusiast. In a recent Instagram video, he shares his discovery that you can chain zip-ties together to keep them organized. Just nip off the lock on a tie and thread the others onto it. If you want to hear a lot of salty adult language, you can watch the video, but that’s the basic tip.

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Thanks to All My Subscribers!

I now have well over 10,000 subscribers to this humble little newsletter. And I hover around 50 paid subscribers. A million thanks to all of you. Doing this newsletters is a true joy for me and I especially like feeling like I’m connected to a community of fellow makers. Thanks to everyone who’s sent me an email, made a comment, shared a tip or tool. Let’s keep the ball rolling for another 200 issues!

If you want to financially support this work, please consider a paid subscription. It helps keep me in FastCap Mechanical Pencils. I appreciate you.

A very special thanks to Hero of the Realm subscribers: Moses Hawk, Jim Coraci, Donobster, Peter Sugarman, and Will Phillips for your generous support.

07/18/26

Book Freak #218: The Magus, by John Fowles

Why no one else can answer your most important questions

Get The Magus

The Magus by John Fowles

The Magus is a labyrinthine novel about Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who takes a teaching post on a remote Greek island to escape a failed relationship. There he meets Maurice Conchis, a wealthy recluse who draws him into an elaborate, ever-shifting psychological game that blurs the line between performance and reality. As the game escalates, Nicholas is forced to confront uncomfortable truths about freedom, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves.

Core Principles

The questions that matter most are yours alone to answer

No guru, no teacher, no book can answer the questions that matter most. Others can create conditions for insight: they can confuse you, challenge you, strip away your illusions. But the actual seeing must be your own. The danger is spending your life waiting for someone else to tell you who you are.

A new enviroment work like a mirror

“Greece is like a mirror. It makes you suffer. Then you learn.” To live alone? “To live. With what you are.” Sometimes you need to be removed from your familiar environment, stripped of your usual distractions and self-deceptions, before you can see yourself clearly.

Guard your own integrity above everything else

The self must not be betrayed. Millions lack the courage to be good, far more than the few who dare to be evil. Each compromise with your own integrity, each time you go along with what you know is wrong, is a small betrayal of yourself.

Freedom means giving up your need to know the rules

Throughout the novel, Nicholas keeps demanding explanations: who is real, what is staged, what the game actually is. Conchis never tells him. Eventually, Nicholas stops waiting for the rules and starts acting anyway. Most of life works the same way. You rarely get the full picture before you have to decide, and waiting for certainty often becomes a way to avoid deciding at all.

Try It Now

1. Identify a question you’ve been waiting for someone else to answer for you. What would it mean to stop waiting and decide for yourself?
2. Notice where you’re performing a version of yourself rather than being yourself. What would you do differently?
3. Think of a time you betrayed your own values to fit in or avoid conflict. What did it cost you? What would courage have looked like?
4. Pick a decision you’ve been postponing until you have “enough information.” Ask yourself whether more information is actually coming, or whether you’re stalling.

If you like Book Freak you might like the Deep Cuts Reading Club, a paid-subscriber benefit where each month I dig up a forgotten, public-domain book and turn it into a clean ebook edition, with a cover, a foreword, and a discussion thread. This month’s pick is Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island, H. G. Wells’s strangest and most overlooked novel. Join the club for $5/month or $45/year.

“The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.”

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Book Freak is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run Recomendo, the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, and Book Freak.

07/17/26

Biz Class on Points/Heat Danger in Europe/Contemporary Wonders

Nomadico issue #215

My Business Class Win With Points

I knew I had a long flight back from Asia coming up this fall and didn’t want to face it in economy class. So last May I connected with MileMethod to get help with a strategy to earn enough frequent flyer miles to get back in lie-flat business class. Four credit card signup bonuses and 471,000 points later, we’ll now return in comfort all the way from Ho Chi Minh City to Mexico City via Seoul, then a quick hop in economy to my home in Guanajuato, Mexico. This $9,757 itinerary cost us $444 in taxes + 260,000 points. I doubt I could have pulled this off on my own, especially since it involved an Amex transfer bonus, a Chase transfer, and booking on an airline that wasn’t either one we’re flying with.

Zero to Travel Podcast

Since I travel so often, I don’t actually listen to many travel podcasts. The exception is the Zero To Travel Podcast hosted by Jason Moore. He always pulls the best travel and life lessons from his guests, whether it’s travel legends like Rick Steves and Samantha Brown or everyday people pursuing an unconventional life built around travel or living abroad. It highlights lesser-known destinations, travel trends that will save you time and money, and ideas to help you add more travel into your life. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or just search “Zero To Travel” in your preferred podcast app.

Nomadico is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Upgrade to paid

Pack a Fan for Europe

You might not want to bring up this factoid at a family dinner in Germany, where only 6% of homes have air conditioning, but more people die from heat in Europe each year than from gun violence in the USA. This is partly because of global warming and partly due to historic cultural opposition to A/C—outside of Spain and Italy at least. The toll has been especially bad in France this year. Public Health France logged 8,973 deaths for the week of June 22, cautioning that the number was still only a partial count. The preliminary total was 6,948 deaths registered for the previous week of June 15 to June 21. Since then it has gotten even hotter. At least the Seine is clean enough to swim in now.

Nominate a Contemporary Wonder of the World

The World Travel and Tourism Council announced that it is starting the process to choose the 7 Contemporary Wonders of the World next year and nominations opened yesterday. This is meant to “identify and celebrate the landmarks and buildings created since 1801 that have had the greatest impact on Travel & Tourism, local communities and economic development, and continue to redefine the future of destinations around the world.” See more details and have your say here.

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A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

07/16/26

What’s in my NOW? — Editor Edition

issue #262

Hi! I’m Claudia Dawson, Editor of What’s in my NOW?, co‑writer of Recomendo, and writer of Many‑Worlds Vision, a newsletter of shamanic dreams, visions, and channelings.

I also write poetry, play with altered states, facilitate psychedelic and dream integration, and practice energy healing with sound and light touch.

PHYSICAL

• Full Body Red Light Therapy Mat: This may be my most expensive “tool,” but it is definitely the most magical item I own. Just 10–15 minutes on this full-body mat reliably induces euphoria and a deep sense of calm in my system. I often pair it with meditation or Meditative Mind music to deepen the experience. There are no strict prescription instructions—you can use it any time of day for mood enhancement, to help balance circadian rhythms, and to support muscle recovery after working out.
• Solfeggio Body Tuner Set for Chakras & Meridians: These are weighted tuning forks designed to be placed on acupressure points so you feel the vibrations moving through your body. They’re color‑coded to correspond with the chakras and tuned to Solfeggio frequencies associated with energy balancing and deep relaxation. Like the full body red light therapy mat, using these tools affects me on what feels like a cellular level. The visible, felt effect is that I’m deeply relaxed and in a more energetically coherent state after using them. I also use them on loved ones when I do Reiki, placing the forks on specific points so the vibration can support release and alignment.
• Portable Massage Table: Sound healing and light touch are not a business for me, but I love creating healing, soothing spaces for the people I care about, and having this portable massage table makes it easy to do that. It’s affordable, low‑commitment, and sturdy enough to hold about 200 pounds. I also really love that it’s pink.

DIGITAL

• AudioPen: I was an early adopter of this app, and I believe it’s still run by one indie developer named Louis, who has always been so responsive and helpful. I use it frequently to transcribe my dreams, gnosis channelings, and newsletter drafts, especially when I’m thinking out loud and don’t want to type. You can create folders to organize your transcriptions and choose different writing styles to clean up your ramblings—Academic, Technical, Descriptive, Casual, or whatever tone you want. I even created a custom writing style based on my own writing samples, so it sounds like me, just clearer. There are other features, too many to list here, but it’s seriously my most used phone app, right up there with iPhone Notes.
• ACER Integration Online Community: ACER Integration is an online community and yearlong program that moves through twelve tree archetypes using guided imagery, music meditations, online sharing circles, and other practices rooted in nature connection. Over the course of a year you get to know the trees and their medicine while deepening your relationship with yourself, the natural world, and other humans from all over the world. It’s not a substitute for therapy, but there is an application and selection process, along with clear protocols that keep the container safe, which makes it a very safe place to integrate transcendent and altered experiences alongside the very real stuff of life. I participated as a community member during the first year of its launch and have been a Sharing Circle and Dream Circle facilitator with ACER now for almost three years. It’s a very sacred space for me, and my favorite place that exists only online.

INVISIBLE

Ubuntu Philosophy: “I am because we are”

Ubuntu is an African philosophy of relational personhood and shared humanity, often expressed as “I am because we are” or “a person is a person through other persons.” Ubuntu reminds me that my becoming is not a solo project—it happens in the space between myself and others. When I feel challenged in relation to someone, I remind myself of this, telling myself some variation like, “I become a person through other people.” This helps me remember that growth in this lifetime often means participating in uncomfortable relational dynamics, even when I’d rather detach or dissociate.

I don’t think I’ve ever been a fully embodied person, having spent most of my time in etheric realms and dreams. But now, in my forty-second year of life, I realize that spiritual growth doesn’t happen only in the higher realms or with the angels—it happens here, in the 3D, in the mundane, in the uncomfortable, in the relational.

I’ve learned to love sitting with people in shame, guilt, and fear, in the mud and in the hard stuff, because life is hard and it takes effort just to remain a hopeful, happy, loving person. If I can stay in that state while deepening my capacity to sit with sorrow, misunderstandings, and these human injury games we play, then I’m also deepening my capacity to love.

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07/15/26

What’s in my NOW? — Editor Edition