What’s a mandoline?
I was coming in to say electric kettle, but I see it’s in the OP. At home in Western Canada, they’re everywhere, and inexpensive. Around here, they’re in the $60 range and hard to find. I gave up and bought a hot-pot, but use the stove kettle more often.
I was about to ask if an electric kettle was the same as a hot pot (ubiquitous in college dorms) but I guess this means it’s not.
Plus, we all have microwaves and we use tea bags. So just nuke the mug of water for three minutes, drop in the tea bag, and you get what passes for a nice cuppa tea over here.
Probably only what passes for a cup of tea. Unless the water is actually boiling you are not going to get it right.
No, it’s a container of water with an electric heating element in it. You pour the water in, you turn the kettle on, and two minutes later it’s boiling nicely.
Unfortunately, our kettle seems to be in the process of giving up the ghost. Oh, well.
Did you look at Target or other such retailers? I bought a cordless electric kettle (the cord is attached to the base) at Target up here in the Frozen North for about $20. At the time, they had several brands & options, all around in the $15-$30 range.
For what it’s worth, I love my electric kettle. In the winter we keep it out right next to the coffee pot for a quick cup of tea. It’s also handy for when I need a large quantity of hot water for things like water baths when making custard.
Yup - that’s the gist of a hot pot.
This is what we all owned in college & called a hot pot. All it really makes is hot water for the purpose of making coffee, tea or cup-o-noodle type things.
Most of us had the variety I linked to rather than the tea-kettle shaped ones because they were cheaper.
This may help to explain why my American-born-and-raised wife still puts the kettle on the stove when she makes a cup of tea. Even though I brought my perfectly good electric kettle to the relationship when we got together years ago, she still refuses to use it. Maybe she doesn’t trust it–I’ll have to ask.
She has noticed that in Canada, however, we have no (or very few) in-sink garbage disposals, like she knew in the United States. I’ve never seen one, except in TV or in the movies.
Appliances I had difficulty finding in Japan:
[ul]
[li]garbage disposals[/li][li]ovens (most apartments and smaller houses don’t have one)[/li][li]meat thermometers (probably related to the rarity of ovens)[/li][li]slow cooker (crockpot)[/li][/ul]
What they do have (that’s rare in America) is dispensing pots for hot water. We used to use pump pots which are thermos bottles with a manual pump for dispensing the hot water. These days electric dispensing pots like this became more common. These are basically electric kettles with pumps (either manual or electric), and once the water boils it’s kept at a constant temperature. You can keep it filled and plugged in all day, and you never have to wait for your tea. Like all things Japanese, modern ones have microprocessors, fuzzy logic and all that. (I’ve even seen a prototype with an Internet connection - it sends an alert if it’s not used for 24 hours because it may indicate the owner is ill or injured.)
When I was a child, we lived in a house that had a boiling-water tap in the kitchen. I shiver to think of what kind of energy it used up, and I don’t think the water was quite boiling. I have never seen or heard of such a thing since… I guess it was a silly idea. Also, there was a “power source” in the counter that a number of appliances could be plugged into–blender, mixer, etc. It was rather like the base for electric kettles (which are common, in my American experience), but permanently installed in the countertop. It was a very silly idea because it took up countertop space, and one had to use the special appliances with it…
What you call a hotpot looks very much like the thing we would call an electric kettle. Most of the ones in use now ( called jug kettles )are of that shape and are made of plastic . There are a few around with the original kettle shape, but they tend to be more expensive , made of metal and considered to be more trendy by the design gurus.
Yeah, that’s exactly like my electric kettle, except mine is white.
My dad installed one in his hoity-toity custom designed (by him) kitchen. I love it. The water’s not quite boiling, you’re right. It’s 200 degrees. It’s actually perfect tea and instant soup making temperature.
As far as energy usage goes, I believe it only heats 1/2 a gallon at a time, and you can get something like 60 cups an hour from it. The website says it’s 120 VAC, 750 watts, 6.5 amps, whatever all that means.
My contractor friend just looked over my shoulder and says he installs them in high-end kitchens all the time, but not in “normal people’s houses” 
They cost him about $70, so he supposes they cost about $150 retail.
Here’s what I meant by vegetable peeler .
Yes , got one of those. It’s useful for peeling potatoes and carrots. The swivel one is the best.
Last time I measured the voltage at the wall outlet in my house, it was 119 V, and I’ve got 20 Amp breakers with 12 gauge wiring in my house, so let’s say I can actually draw 18A and not have to worry about tripping the breaker.
119 V * 18 A = 2.14 KW.
If you’re in an old house with 15 Amp breakers and higher gauge wiring, then you are dropping down in current, but the voltage supplied by the electric company is supposed to be 120 V, not 110 V.
The Canadians, as I recall, are on the same system as us (didn’t need an adapter for my hair dryer or anything else when I was last up there) yet they seem to have more ‘electric kettles’. Perhaps this is because Americans don’t, as a rule, drink as much tea?
I’ve got a stick blender and use it quite a lot, more than the regular counter-top blender, as a matter of fact. (I’m in the US, BTW)
I didn’t know garbage disposals were so uncommon in other parts of the world till I was reading a recent thread on the boards. I don’t know what I’d do without my disposal. I can’t stand having food waste rotting in the garbage can in the kitchen.
I’ve seen electric kettles, but I just use my tea kettle on the stove top. If it’s not filled all the way up, the water boils pretty quickly.
I had a hotpot in college, and used it mostly for boiling water or heating soup. If it has a wide open lid, you can dump soup or ravioli in there and heat it up. Mine was plastic with a metal bottom.
I think the British are the only ones to have built-in electrical connections and electric kettles supplied as vehicle equipment in their tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, to handle the British soldier’s ritual tea ceremony .
That is the best thing ever. I think I could spare $200 on that if I ever get a house.