Our deepest thoughts

Frustration with formatting

Aug 2, 2016   written by John Lamerand
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I don’t know about you, my dear reader, but when a piece of software promises “what you see is what you get” then I am inclined to take them on their word. That is, until now. You see, I did not ask for the text in my blog to have a random text size. I specified the text size. Here is proof:

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But instead of formatting the way I want I find this instead:


formatting-error And that is enough to bring a perfectionist to tears.
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Move over Heston Marc Blumenthal!

Aug 2, 2016   written by John Lamerand

 





Years ago I bought a kitchen kit from a little company from Québec called Molécule-R. The kids loved it. They really, really loved it. This was before I’d had the idea to start steamkits so I bought it without thinking “great, a Christmas present that I can declare on my tax as a business sample.” Dear ATO, I am kidding, really, really, I am.

What got the kids so excited? As they put it they “did a Heston” and turned dinner on its head. The vinaigrette pearls, spinach gel “pasta” and mock raw egg dessert complete with liquid yolk in a gel sleeve was the talk of the neighbourhood, the playgroup, the classroom. It was a real buzz.

Well, since we first dipped our toes into molecular gastronomy we have seen the rise of Master Chef and sous vide cooking for the masses (thanks to the crowdfunded Nomiku circulator).

If you don’t know what I am talking about google Heston Blumenthal and you will quickly learn why your class will go absolutely wild for the Molécule-R kit.

Sadly there is a catch: you cannot buy the kits directly from Molécule-R any longer. Boo. 

The good news is that we are going to get some stock in so that you don’t have to resort to ebay. Of course, the added advantage of buying through steamkits is that we have identified where use of the  Molécule-R kit satisfies elements in the  Australian Curriculum – making lesson delivery that much easier.

So if you are looking for a chemistry or a food lesson that is safe and straightforward, think Molécule-R and Steamkits. Your students will love you.

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This is what we found when we tried buying kits from the Molécule-R site today.

Site development

Jul 31, 2016   written by John Lamerand


It is half past one in the morning and I am tired. For a moment I reflect on how our mission is to prevent this from happening to teachers and I chuckle at the irony.

I will be back in front of this computer in seven hours to modify the design of the website. We have been using one platform to produce our wordpress theme and we are about to migrate to another platform. The site will start looking nicer this week. That is a promise.

The other thing that will change on this site is that there will be pricing for the items in the store, there will be a bank account linked to the shopping cart (so that you can buy things and we can send them to you) and there will be sample pdf content from the lessons that we are creating so you can get a sense of why our content works so well in classrooms.

I look forward to starting a conversation with site viewers, and for now the best email to contact me at is john@lamerand.com.au. Yes, it should be john@steamkits.com.au, but this is just one of the many wrinkles in the site administration that we are ironing out in this first week of August. Goodness, is it August already?