Coffee Product Review: Fellow's Electric Atmos Vacuum Cannister

 

Coffee beans are spoiled by oxygen, light, heat, and moisture, so storing them in an opaque vacuum canister is a great idea ... in theory. I've tried several different vacuum storage canisters for coffee over the years, and they all suck (pun intended).

They mostly don't hold a vacuum, and it's just all too common to start your coffee routine by finding that the vacuum canister has equalized overnight, exposing your beans to at least oxygen and humidity.  Some of that can be explained by fresh beans giving off CO2, so the vessel may be filling carbon dioxide (harmless) and not oxygen, but the vast majority of outgassing is done 3 days post-roasting ... and I regularly find broken seals weeks after roasting. Sometimes bits of bean build up on the gaskets, breaking the seal, but even regular cleaning didn't solve it.

So for years, I've used the Airscape canister, which was one of the best solutions inexpensive solutions out there, and it works by using a valved collapsing lid (it's the equivalent of squeezing all the air out of a plastic bag), which reduces the volume of air that comes into contact with the beans. I kept a week's worth of beans in the Airscape and stored the rest of my coffee in canning jars that I vacuum-sealed with a jar sealer.   Canning lids and rings tended to hold a vacuum reasonably (but not perfectly) reliably.

Fortunately, Fellow recently released a coffee storage solution that doesn't suck, their electric Atmos canister (it's battery-operated and only needs charging every couple of months). It's super easy to use. You push a button, and it vacuums itself closed. Push it again, and the vacuum releases so you can get the lid off.  And best of all, it monitors the pressure in the canister and automatically adjusts should the pressure change inside.  

I've been using mine for several months, and I'm delighted with it. It keeps my current bag of coffee fresher than the Airscape, but it's not cheap ($75-$85 depending on size) but it does a really good job. Whenever I put a fresh bag of coffee inside, I brush down the rubber gaskets, and along the inside/top of the canister to prevent bean bits from interfering with the seals.  The top section contains electronic equipment so it's strictly wipe-down only. No running water, and definitely no dishwasher.  But I'm finding that it doesn't need much cleaning anyway.

The bigger size is good if you tend to buy your coffee in 1-pound bags (454g), and the smaller will hold 12-ounce bags (340g).

Paradigm Shifts and the Romance Novel

It’s a little bit hard to write about this openly because for so much of my life, I was embarrassed (even a little ashamed) that I enjoyed reading romances more than any other genre. If you asked me why I liked them, or even why they were worthwhile, the best I could come up with was that I learned a lot of history (which is true - and the historical romances are still my favorite flavor). In other words, I bought into the idea that they were trashy.

Note: Click on the image to enlarge it, then step through the whole meme within the image viewer.

I know some folks think romance novels are just thinly-veiled soft-core porn, and as someone who has been reading romance novels since I was 14, I can tell you unequivocally that they are wrong.  Yes, they usually do contain (sometimes explicit) sex.  And while there IS a sub-genre called steamy romance which comes - ahem, pun intended - close to that description, the erotic scenes are not the point of the genre.  Except for the clean romance subgenre, which specifically excludes sex, those scenes exist only as a support for the story itself, usually to demonstrate that the heroine's partner is an unselfish and passionate lover who cares about the heroine's needs, both in the sack and out of it.  But, even if you remove the sex scenes, the overarching romantic story is still there.

Anyway, a couple of years ago, my daughter sent me the meme I've included here, and it was wonderfully paradigm-shifting. I felt validated, and letting go of my embarrassment was more than a little freeing. I stopped being ashamed of the woman-centered escapism that I enjoyed so much, and last fall, I got to visit a small indie romance bookstore called Tropes and Trifles in Minneapolis, and it was wonderfully COOL. There are only about 20 such bookstores across the country (up from 2 just four years ago). Even though I don’t read paper books very much anymore, I’m grateful that the store exists.  I bought a book, a T-shirt, and a tote bag, and got a recommendation for a book about a suffragette in the late 1800s.

I don't read exclusively romance - I read a lot of science fiction, WW2 historical novels and nonfiction, and really a smattering from nearly all genres (whatever catches my fancy, really), and I have an ongoing project to read as many Great American Novel (GAN) candidates as I can.

Dudley Do-Right Escorts an Old Train

Prompt - Murder on the Train (500 words): Imagine you are on a train or at a train station when a murder takes place. Expand upon this scenario by writing a story of 500 words or fewer. Use the title of your story to maximum effect. Can it infer backstory, help characterization, or lead us directly to the action?

***

 

   Constable Dudley Dougal stood next to an 1880s-era train car, nodding to each passenger as they climbed aboard. Jesus… an RCMP officer named Dudley.  He’d taken the ribbing at the academy and tried to laugh off the photoshopped images of him sitting a horse backward. He couldn’t believe his first ceremonial duty was to escort an old train across Alberta. The railfans petitioned the RCMP for a Mountie to lend authenticity, and Dudley had been selected as his dad had worked the railroads for 43 years, and he’d chosen to wear the red serge to make the train nutters happy, even if it wasn’t authentic.  Bored, Dudley glanced around. Ahead of the passenger car was the dining car, then a coal car. The black-painted engine was enormous.

    He knew there were train experts aboard, but the engineer seemed less . . . experienced than usual. He had a surprisingly long full beard and kept tugging it and singing a train whistle “Woo-woo!” in time with the pulls.  Dudley sighed.  We’re going to be a good four hours late to Jasper. At least the fireman seemed knowledgeable.

    “Mom!  It’s Dudley Do-Right!”   

    Dudley closed his eyes for a moment, then smiled at the mother and son.  

    “Constable Dougal?” The mom asked, brandishing her phone questioningly.  He nodded and posed for a selfie with them. He heard the the engineer and the fireman arguing, and revised his estimate.  Five hours.  He texted his wife Nell that he’d return home tomorrow. 

    After the last passenger boarded, he went to the engine and climbed up, interrupting the bickering fireman and engineer. The firebox door stood open, and glowing red light spilled out; the fireman had spent hours gradually bringing the temperature up. Unfortunately, the engineer had little self-restraint, fiddling with valves at random.   

    The fireman flinched, snapping, “Stop fucking around!  I promised you could drive, but only if you did what I told you!” He glanced sideways at Dudley before muttering, “…and I called in favors for this.” 

    Six hours. “Ready?” Dudley asked.  He ignored the sullen engineer, and waited until the fireman nodded before returning to the passenger car.  He took his seat and gestured to the conductor who enthusiastically sing-songed, “Aaalll aboooard!”  The train began to move, and everyone cheered, almost drowning the shouting up front.   

    Mercifully, the arguing eventually died off, and Dudley was able to relax into the clacking rhythm of the train. Pork chop scent wafted back from the dining car, making him hungry, so he started in on his packed lunch.  The passengers detected the smell, too, and the selfie boy made his way to the dining car, only to come back shaking his head.  “They just have boxed lunches. Choice of cheese or chicken salad.”

    Almost on cue, the stench of burning hair hit, and everyone recoiled. Dudley dropped his lunch, shot to his feet, and sprinted toward to the front, radioing for backup.  

    It wasn’t such a boring assignment after all, but he was never going to live this down.

--March 8, 2020

***

Knitting Techniques - Cables

Cables are magic.  They are super cool, look incredibly complex, and make the knitter look quite talented.  But I'll let you in on a little secret: cables are easy and are barely more than beginner-level in difficulty.  

Cable crosses change the order of the stitches on the needle, crossing them in front of or behind the ones next to them.  And by combining cables, you can make incredibly complex textures and designs.

There are two main kinds of cables: 

• Right (or back) crosses - the cable leans or travels to the right
• Left (or front) crosses - the cable leans or travels to the left.

Right Cross (back) instructions: Slip the called-for number of stitches purlwise onto a cable needle. Dangle the cable needle with those stitches to the BACK or behind your fabric.  Work the appropriate number of stitches from the left needle, then pick up the cable needle, and work the stitches from the cable needle. In effect, these stitches crossed behind the ones you already worked.

Left Cross (front) instructions: Slip the called-for number of stitches purlwise onto a cable needle. Dangle the cable needle with those stitches in FRONT of your fabric.  Work the appropriate number of stitches from the left needle, then pick up the cable needle, and work the stitches from the cable needle. In effect, these stitches crossed in front of the ones you already worked. 

Here's a pretty good video that demonstrates how to create cables:

The terminology varies from pattern to pattern, but some use the front/back notation with abbreviations like C4B or C4F (ex., C4B = Cable 4 stitches in total, two onto the cable needle which you hold to the back of the work, plus the next two stitches from the left needle) and some use the left/right (ex., LC 3/3 = left cross three stitches by putting 3 stitches onto a cable needle, holding them to the front, working the next three stitches from the left needle, then working the three stitches from the cable needle).   

I myself prefer the front/back notation because it tells you what to DO, whereas the right/left tells you how it looks when you are done, and I have to translate where to hold the cable needle in my head. But the charting software that I use to create my charts uses the left/right notation, so when I'm designing, that's what I use as well.

There's a nifty pneumonic that helps, though:  "I left through the front door, but I'll be right back!"  Left crosses dangle the needle to the front, and right crosses dangle the needle to the back.

Links to other cable tutorials and informational articles.

• TECHKnitter - an excellent, in-depth explanation
• Purl Soho
• Cabling without a needle (I only do this if I'm working 2, 3 or 4 stitch cables, crossing only 1 or two stitches - more than that, and I'm not confident I won't lose a stitch or two).

Note: When cabling without a needle, I do my right crosses a little differently. I don't like pinching the loose stitches on the back of the needle, both because I can't see what I'm doing and I prefer to pinch with my thumb, and at some point I realized you could accomplish the same result by reversing the left/right needles:

1. Slip all stitches to be cabled to the right needle.
2. Insert the tip of the LEFT needle into the first (far) stitches slipped onto the right needle behind the work.
3. Pinch the left/near stitches against the left needle with your left thumb. 
4. Withdraw the RIGHT needle from all stitches to be cabled. 
5. Immediately insert the right needle into the loose stitches
6. Slip those stitches back to the left needle.
7. Knit across.