A few months ago, Bill told me that for Christmas, he wanted an Anova Precision Cooker.  He’d seen it advertised on Facebook and thought it looked “cool”.  A friend of mine in California bought one and was raving about it, so I ordered one.  I hoped it would arrive in time for Christmas, but it only got to us a couple of weeks ago.  Anova Culinary won’t ship to APO and I didn’t want to have it sent to my German address because I feared the duties I’d end up paying.  And then, it appeared that they had a backlog of orders, so although I ordered it in November, it didn’t get to my mother in law until December 23.  She sent it to our APO box, but I guess it got put on the slow boat.

We bought the version that is 220 volts because we may be in Germany for awhile.  You can also get a 110 volt version.  I believe there are a few accessories one can buy for this gadget, too.

Anyway, Bill decided he wanted to try his new toy yesterday, so he bought a duck breast and used the Anova Precision Cooker to prepare it.  I made a video of the experience, which some readers might find interesting.  The duck breast turned out great, although the process of cooking it took a few hours.  I think it’s cool that this gadget runs off your phone or an iPad.  Check it out!

You can use this thing to cook all kinds of meats…  Bill is having fun learning how this new (for him) way of cooking.

Besides cooking duck breast, Bill also brewed his first batch of beer since we moved back to Germany in 2014.  When we lived here the first time, from 2007-09, we were under the impression that homebrewing was illegal.  But then from 2009-11, we lived in Fayetteville, Georgia for about 18 months, and Bill got hooked up with a great homebrewing guru who had a store.  He learned the basics of brewing there and then continued his hobby until we moved back to Germany.  Because he thought homebrewing was still illegal, he left his equipment in the States.  He has since purchased new equipment from Austin Homebrew Supply.  Although shipping costs were a bitch, the stuff made it to our APO box with no problem.

So I made another video of Bill as he brews beer.  It’s about fifteen minutes, but it covers the first steps in making beer.  I’ll make another video in a week when the brew has had some time to ferment and we move to the second step.

Bill makes beer!

I should mention that I filmed all of this on a new camera I bought last week.  My filmmaking skills are still developing, but I think Bill did a good job!