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robot de bucatarie

Robotul de bucatarie

Arranging Matches

Odata ce am devenit mama, am descoperit ca nu exista o reteta ideala pentru cea mai buna rutina zilnica si ca trebuie sa confrunt toate ca sa gasesc un echilibru in vietile noastre. Am nevoie de multa energie si cumva gasesc multe lucruri de facut in plus fata de orice mi-as fi propus intr-o zi. Incep ceva si apoi sunt intrerupta, ma impiedic de tot felul de cereri intre nevoile mele si ale copilului, ca sa nu mai mentionez si ale bietului partener. Uneori poate ma gandesc undeva in cotloanele mintii mele ca exista o inventie acolo in lume care sa ajute mamele cu parte din muncile caznice. Eu ma gandesc la un robot care sa inteleaga sarcinile date: prepara mancarea, curata casa, du gunoiul. Sigur ca asta provine dintr-o frustrare personala cum niciun partener nu face vreodata ceva cand il rogi, barbatii isi iau timp. Tu ca mama nu ai niciodata acest privilegiu. Tu ramai mereu fara timp. Asa ca o sarcina simpla are nevoie de un bun executant. Cumva am gasit un aspirator robotel. E perfect pentru curatenie rapida cand esti plecat de acasa. La intoarcerea acasa de la plimbare gasim o curatenie decenta, mai ales dupa mizeria facuta de copil la masa. Totusi ordinea intre jucariile copilului este inca pe umerii mei ca mama. Cumva comportamentul meu obsesiv-compulsiv s-a accentuat de cand am copilul. Nu pot trai cu mine daca ceva nu e estetic sau geometric aranjat.

Dar pe langa curatenie si “aranjarea chibriturilor”, ai nevoie sa te ocupi de arta gatitului. Gatitul este cea mai usoara sarcina cand copilul este foarte tanar pana la aproape 12 luni ale copilului, dar pe masura ce incepe sa manance lucruri mai normale, atunci incepe nebunia. Daca nu ai intreaga familie la o dieta foarte sanatoasa, nu exista cale sa mancati toti mancarea copilului. Asa ca trebuie sa prepari ceva sanatos pentru copil, ceva pentru tine si uneori ceva diferit pentru sotul carnivor. Iata unde robotul de bucatarie ar fi foarte de folos: un robot care sa gateasca diverse feluri de mancare pentru intreaga familie, preferabil pe straturi diferite ca toata lumea sa fie satisfacuta cu rezultatul. Inca visez cu ochii deschisi. Si voi va puteti imagina ca nu exista o asa inventie. Am tot cautat. Am vazut chiar si ceva extrem de scump pe care era cat pe-aci sa il cumparam. Sunt toate aceste “oale minune”, dar recomand sa te cantaresti bine decizia. 

In primul rand a fost promovat ca robotul cu panou digital in care introduci ingredientele disponibile si iti ofera retete realizabile, ai putea chiar sa il programezi de la departare. In al doilea rand, suna minunat. In al treilea rand costa cam 1500 euro, ceea ce m-a facut sa ma gandesc ca daca salveaza timp, ar putea merita. Unii oameni gasesc masini second hand la acest pret. Si aceasta oala se presupunea sa amestece si sa faca tot gatitul cat timp tu iti vezi de alte treburi. As putea visa ca mancarea mea e pregatita in timpul plimbarii mele sau chiar peste noapte si dimineata sa o pun la frigider. In prima faza ai spune ca e ceva minunat, i-am oferit si eu acest credit.

Dar iata o lista de lucruri pline de suflet pe care niciun robot nu le poate prepara cum le-am prepara noi. Spre exemplu fac ciorba de pui si uneori un pilaf intrucat ramane prea multa carne doar pentru o gura micuta. Deci fierb puiul, apoi il iau de pe foc si pun puiul si zeama ramasa partial intr-o oala si partial intr-o cratita. Una va forma supa impreuna cu ceva legume, iar cealalta pilaful. Cum ar face robotul aceasta impartire? Apoi, alteori, prefer dupa ce fierb carnea separat de legume sa unesc zeama rezultata de la ambele fierberi intr-o ciorba. Este un mod de a face lucrurile si cata vreme copilului ii place, de ce sa ma opresc? Cum ar face robotul aceasta fierbere separata? Intreb asta pentru ca am un steamer pe niveluri si totusi marul pus la abur deasupra a prins gust de morcov care era la nivelul inferior. Am incercat sa fac paine naan. E chiar usor, intrucat mi-a iesit, dar chiar trebuie sa lasi faina sa isi faca dospeala, apoi sa o tai si sa framanti fiecare bucatica pe care o pui in tigaie la prajit. Poate asa ceva fi facut in robot? Cred ca nu. 

Toate lucrurile sanatoase pe care oala le-ar face sunt feluri cu sos intrucat incalzeste legumele si/sau carnea si le amesteca impreuna. A, am uitat sa spun si despre cum fac mancarea de mazare. Mazarea, care este excelenta atat pentru copil cat si pentru mine si sot, este cea mai simpla alegere. Iata interpretarea mea asupra acestei mancari: fierb mazarea sau uneori folosesc mazare din cutie sau congelata, separat fierb morcovi si cartofi. Intr-o tigaie pun separat niste ulei si ceapa. Las sa se caleasca un pic ceapa si apoi adaug mazarea fiarta, un pic de sos de rosii, morcovii si cartofii fierti, sare, piper si zeama de la fiertura de cartofi si morcovi. Le las pe toate sa scada in tigaie amestecand din cand in cand pana devin o mancare veritabila de mazare. Deci cum ar face robotul asta? Pot sa imi imaginez niste maini magice care sa faca scamatorii cu tigaile, oalele si cratitele pe foc in bucatarie. Bineinteles ca aceasta nu este inca realitatea. 

Si de asemenea, reteta de maioneza amestecata cu diverse. Cum face robotul asta? Am salvat intr-o zi o maioneza si a iesit mai mult decat aveam nevoie asa ca a trebuit sa o impart in doua portii. Pun pariu ca masinaria nu poate face asta. Prin salvat vreau sa spun ca m-am apucat din nou sa o fac si apoi am adaugat treptat amestecul neomogenizat de la prima incercare. In cele din urma a iesit mai multa maioneza decat era nevoie. Asa ca am facut doua amestecuri: maioneza cu ciuperci si maioneza cu oua. Evident ca cele doua nu au fost consumate in acelasi timp, ci la momente diferite. Poate robotul sa faca asta? Bineinteles ca nu. Si sa imparta maioneza in doua portii si sa urmeze si pasii urmatori.

Toate aceste decizii sunt interventii umane in magia gatitului. Pun pariu ca mai e mult de munca in lume pana cand un robot poate reduce stresul mamelor in legatura cu lucruri stupide precum ingrijirea copilului, a casei, gatitul si munca. Am lasat munca pe ultimul loc intrucat acolo, in functie de ce muncesti, poti face algoritmi care sa te salveze de rutina zilnica. Spre exemplu un raspuns automat la emailuri: “stimate domn, am primit emailul dumneavoastra si facem tot posibilul sa revenim la dumneavoastra cu un raspuns cat mai curand posibil”. Asta e doar un exemplu minor. Dar robotul care sa prepare potiuni magice nu exista. Ai nevoie de minte, de suflet si ceva experienta in bucatarie pentru a negocia cu focul. Aceste lucruri nu pot fi facute de un robot pentru ca nu iti ajunge sa ai doar inteligenta artificiala. Sunt chiar curioasa sa testez Inteligenta Artificiala in bucatarie. Oare asta va fi provocarea anului sau a deceniului?

P.S. Si toata bucataria este cam dezastru intrucat nu am vazut bucatarie functionala si curata.

Cooking Machine

Once I became a mother, I discovered there is no real recipe to the best daily routine and I am struggling to achieve balance in our every day lives. I need a lot of energy and somehow I find a lot of things to do on top of anything I had in mind for the day. I start on something and then I get interrupted, I stumble across different requests between my needs and the baby’s needs, not to mention the poor partner. So at times I am deeply thinking there must be an invention out there in the world helping mothers with some part of the house work. I am thinking of some robot to understand my task: prepare food, cleanup the house, take out the garbage. Of course, this comes from a personal frustration as no partner would ever do anything when asked, men usually take their time. You never have that privilege of time. You are always running out of it. So, each task needs a very good executer. Somehow we have found an independent vacuum cleaner. It’s perfect for the duty call when we are away on our stroll. Upon our return it’s a decently clean house. Especially after a kid has created a real mess. Still the order among the toys of the kid is still on my shoulders. Somehow my OCD has escalated sky high since having the kid. I cannot live with myself if something is not there geometrically or esthetically arranged. 

But besides cleaning and “arranging matches”, you need to handle the art of cooking. Cooking is the lightest task when the baby is very young till about 12 months old, but as he starts eating more normal foods, then the mess starts. Unless you have the full family on a very healthy diet, there is no way you can eat baby food. So you need to prepare something healthy for your kid, something for yourself and something for your meat eater partner. Here is where a robot would come in very handy: a robot to cook different dishes for the whole family, preferably on different layers so everyone would be satisfied with the outcome. I am still daydreaming. As you can imagine there is no such invention. We have looked for it. We even saw something extremely expensive that we were very close to buying. It’s all these “magic pots”, but I advice you ponder it very well. 

First of all it was marketed as the digital robot that you can manually introduce the available ingredients and it would give you dish options, you could even schedule it remote from work. Second of all, it sounded amazing. Third of all it costed about 1500 euros, which made me think that if it saves some time, it may be worth. Some people find second hand cars worth that much money. And this pot was supposed to mix and do all the cooking while you are away. I could dream of my food being prepared during my walk with my son or even at night and in the morning just to put it for storage in the fridge. At first you would think it’s an amazing thing, I gave it that much credit. 

But here is a list of heart full recipes that no machine can make as we do. I prepare chicken soup and sometimes rice and chicken dish as there may be too much meat just for one small guy. So you boil the chicken, then take it out and split the remaining juice into one pot and one saucepan. One will turn into a lovely soup with some veggies boiled, another one will turn into the traditional rice dish. How would the robot deal with that? Then, at other times I prefer boiling the meat separate from vegetables and then joining only the clear juice from both boils into the sour soup. It’s a way of doing things and my kid loves it, why would I change how I am doing it? How would the robot deal with that separate boil? I am asking as I have put on layers in my steamer different veggies and finally the apple tasted like the carrot placed below. Also, at other times, I have tried making naan bread. It’s easy actually, except you need some time to let the flour work its magic, then knead it into pieces and put it in the pan. Could that be baked in the robot? I guess not. 

All the healthy stuff the robot would make, are things with sauce, as it heats veggies and meat and just puts them together. Oh, I almost forgot about peas dish. So peas are excellent choice for the kid, myself and my husband. Easy to make, but here is my way: I boil the peas or sometimes I use boxed or frozen peas, then separately I boil carrots and potatoes. In a separate pan I add oil and onion. I let the onion sizzle a bit and then add the boiled peas, some tomato sauce, the boiled carrot and potatoes, salt, pepper and the juice resulted from the vegetables’ boil into the pan and let the sauce boil down the veggies till they become a proper dish. So, how would the robot do that? I can even imagine some magic hands handling the pots and pans on the fire. Of course that is not the case yet. 

Also, mayonaise recipe. How does the robot do that? I have saved a mayo one day and I bet the machine could not do that. Saving it meant I had to restart the process and then gradually add the ruined one. Finally it turned into more mayo than necessary. So, I have put it into two separate dishes: mayo with mushrooms and mayo with eggs. Of course the two were not consumed at the same time. Can the robot do that? Of course not. And also splitting it into portions and so on. 

All these decisions are the human intervention in the magic of cooking. I bet there is still a lot of work to be done in the world before any machine can help reduce a mom’s stress over the stupid things like child care, home care, cooking and working. I have left the work on the last place because there, depending on what we do, we could deal with algorithms to take over the routine tasks. For example the automatic reply emails: “dear sir, I have received your email and we are doing our best to come back as soon as possible”. This is just a small example. But the robot to make magic potions does not exist. You need a brain, a heart and some experience in the kitchen to deal with the fire. These things cannot be made by an artificial intelligence. I am curious to test the AI in the kitchen. Should that be the challenge of the year or the decade?

P.S. All the photos are messy as there is no clean kitchen when you are cooking. 🙂

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