[Semaphor]

I often have multiple timers, that gets crowded fast. And even manual timers require me to touch them, while the whole point is that I can set a timer while my hands are full of raw sausage mix or whatever.

And my Alexa has no display, so it’s just "Alexa, timer [Name] status"

Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in changes how much X of that unit means.

[jsjohnst]

> Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in changes how much X of that unit means.

If it’s so hard for you, then buy measuring cups in US sizes or stop using US recipes. These are trivially solved problems in a low tech way. You’re like an addict trying desperately to defend why they need a fix. Yeesh!

[breakfastduck]

And you're desperately coming up with nonsensical solutions that aren't as practical in any meaningful way.

You honestly think having measuring devices for two entirely different systems or not using US based recipes is trivial compared to asking for the conversion out loud and getting it immediately? Yeesh!

EDIT: even going back to your timer comment (to which you completely ignored the response), your 'trivial' solutions effectively boil down to 'get more kitchen space'. Totally trivial.

[jsjohnst]

> You honestly think having measuring devices for two entirely different systems

If you want to make recipes based on imperial measurements, YES, and I’d also say the vast majority of people here would agree with me.

Having a full set of imperial kitchen measuring cups costs less than any meal you are bothering to prepare and takes up less kitchen space than a single salad bowl.

For your follow up edit:

> to which you completely ignored the response

I’m under no obligation to rebut every thing someone says, whether I find it correct or not. I said why I hate using Alexa for timers, I didn’t feel the need to go any further there.

[evandale]

This whole conversation is pretty pointless and "Having a full set of imperial kitchen measuring cups costs less than any meal you are bothering to prepare and takes up less kitchen space than a single salad bowl" demonstrates exactly why.

Having an Alexa and asking it how many grams are in 1 1/4 cups of white wine vinegar is easier than having 2 sets of measuring cups. It's easier than having 1 set of measuring cups.

0 measuring cups takes up 0 space and I have no use for them. I use a bowl and a scale. That's easier for me than messing with measuring cups and having more crap to clean.

[jsjohnst]

> This whole conversation is pretty pointless

Couldn’t agree more. Knew I should have backed away after my first post in this tree, the only one I stand 100% behind out of context of the rest of the replies around it.

[ghaff]

For that matter, my measuring cups have both imperial and metric units and my digital scale handles both as well. Seems far more foolproof than doing a lot of unit conversions.

[jsjohnst]

Yup. Like I don’t even get the conversion argument at all. “1 cup of flour weighs 125g”. Except when the recipe was using something other than all purpose flour. I’ve had Alexa incorrectly hear the specifics necessary to answer those type questions too many times to ever trust it, let alone to take the preposterous stance that Alexa is the only way to solve the problem.

[jamespo]

No one said it was the only way, you seem personally offended no one is keen on your weird alternatives though

[breakfastduck]

Not a single person arguing against you has ever said it's the only way.

You just can't comprehend the fact some people think it's more convenient to use a voice triggered device when cooking than have numerous conversion charts or multiple measuring devices (especially in kitchens where space is at a premium. Let alone messy hands).

[CrazyStat]

> buy measuring cups in US sizes

Measuring cups are an objectively terrible unit, since (1) the volume of a cup, while officially standardized, is not consistent across the measuring cups you'll find in stores, and (2) the amount (mass) of common ingredients in a cup can vary wildly--50% or more--depending on how densely packed the ingredient is.

A "standard" cup of flour is generally considered to be 120-130g, but if you buy a brand new bag of flour at the store and scoop a cup off the top you may be getting as much as 200g, since it's densely packed. This obviously has serious implications for whatever you're baking.

TL;DR: Don't buy measuring cups.

[jsjohnst]

> A "standard" cup of flour is generally considered to be 120-130g, but if you buy a brand new bag of flour at the store and scoop a cup off the top you may be getting as much as 200g, since it's densely packed.

I’m not debating if the US method of measurement in recipes is terrible or not (it is!). But taking an imprecise unit of measurement and lossy converting it to another is better (edit for clarity what I meant) each time you cook, while in the middle of cooking!?

[CrazyStat]

Yes, converting a cup of flour to 120g of flour is absolutely better. That way your measurements will be consistent from day to day, so you can learn and make adjustments--"This recipe calls for 300g flour, but the dough was a bit loose last time--I'll try 315g instead." (In practice I'd probably first adjust the liquid content rather than the flour amount, but you get the idea).

If you're measuring 2.5 cups of flour one day you might get 317g and another day you might get 362g, so you can't even make the same consistency dough twice.

[robonerd]

If you're simply trying to follow volumetric recipes, then volume-to-mass conversions are useless because you'd be trying to follow the recipe with more precision than the person who wrote the recipe in the first place. It's like converting "1 meter" to "1000 millimeters"; it's false precision from not being careful with significant figures. The recipe says "1 cup of flour" and the bot says that means 120 grams of flour. But that's false precision, specifically because volumetric measurement of flour is inherently imprecise. There is no way of knowing the recipe author actually used 120 grams of flour.

However, you mention that you iterate and refine these recipes, effectively writing your own recipes using volumetric recipes only as a starting point. In this case, the conversions have real utility. But if you're doing it right, these are conversions you only need to apply once per recipe, after which you'll never use that original volumetric recipe again. Such once-and-done tasks don't really seem worth automating to me, but for each their own I guess.

[CrazyStat]

I have hundreds of recipes in my file that I've never tried, requiring thousands of conversions. Even if each conversion is only done once it's absolutely worth automating.

[jsjohnst]

> Yes, converting a cup of flour to 120g of flour is absolutely better.

Yes, but you do that once and done and then continue using the recipe in the future with the new quality measurement (adjusting as needed on future cooks). OP was advocating for using their Alexa to convert every time they cooked, specifically when their hands were full of raw sausage for example.

[CrazyStat]

Maybe they make new recipes on a regular basis, so they're doing it once per recipe but still fairly often. I have hundreds of recipes in my file that I haven't gotten around to trying yet, I could easily make a new recipe every day for a year.

I use a recipe app that has built-in conversions I can configure, but if I'm making a recipe out of a paper book I sometimes use Alexa to do conversions for me. Ideally I'd do all the conversions before I got my hands dirty, but that doesn't always happen.

[dragonwriter]

Most baking recipes that use volumetric units actually use standardize mass units converted in a conventional way (based on material and form) to volumetric units, because the recipes are done by pros for the kind of newbs that disproportionately consume recipes. They aren't imprecise measures they are measures for people who are more comfortable with imprecise tools.

If you prefer to work in mass, you reverse the conversion.

[CrazyStat]

One of my greatest cookbook-purchase disappointments was an English translation of a popular Italian cookbook, which converted all the mass measurements for ingredients like flour in the original to absurd volume measurements--"2 cups plus 5 tablespoons plus 3/4 teaspoon". The conversion can be reversed as you mention, of course, but it pains me just to read the recipes.

[ghaff]

>Measuring cups are an objectively terrible unit

For baking, I'll generally weigh and, for flour, pretty much always. However, I use measuring cups all the time for other cooking where recipes may not even give a weight equivalent to a volume of something.

[CrazyStat]

That's fair. In many recipes volumes can be taken as vague suggestions.