nothing is safe from the content vortex

March 30, 2018 8:31 AM

"On March 21st, New Yorker food correspondent Helen Rosner tweeted a photo of her pointing a Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer at a raw chicken. She was trying to remove moisture and maximize the crispiness of the chicken skin before roasting it, and she wanted to share her snow day plans with her followers. But this story is not about chicken. Well, it’s kind of about chicken."
posted by everybody had matching towels (73 comments total)

Helen Rosner in the New Yorker: Yes, I Use A Hair Dryer To Make Roast Chicken - Here Is The Recipe
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:33 AM on March 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Reducing the surface moisture on meat before roasting/frying/searing/whatever was probably the biggest bang-for-your-buck cooking trick I ever learned. It can make a huge difference, and I had never thought of using a hair-dryer, so this is awesome.

Secondly, as far as twee cooking tips go, this barely even ranks. People buy no-kidding actual torches to finish their sous vide steaks.
posted by skewed at 8:44 AM on March 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

Not just any hair-dryer, a $400 hair dryer.. The Root's response served it up.
posted by k5.user at 8:45 AM on March 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

My favorite response from her to this nonsense was also the one that made me the angriest because of its accuracy:

@hels: The last week has basically been a relentless reminder that women are presumed to do things out of idiocy instead of competence
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:52 AM on March 30, 2018 [109 favorites]

Man, people really like to find fault with stuff, right? Or rather, the prevailing business model of the internet all but requires people to find fault with stuff, no matter how trivial.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:55 AM on March 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

The Root's response served it up.

Eh. While I'm usually onboard with Harriot's "what white-ass bullshit is this?" I think he's off-base here. Especially with the Lawry's Seasoned Salt. Has he never heard of Old Bay? Zatarain's? Or just plain making your own?

The dudes freaking out over her recipe by frothing at the mouth about SCIENCE and LOGIC and RATIONALITY, tho? Fucking gold.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:55 AM on March 30, 2018 [19 favorites]

And of course, finding fault with women hardly needs a business model to flourish.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:56 AM on March 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

For shit's sake, Rosner fully admits that the $399 Dyson Hair Dryer is absurd and frivolous on her part, and that this would work with any hair dryer.

I'm a dude, I'm and I'm white, but I make a mean roast chicken, and I might just use this trick next time I make one. I'll combine it with my usual technique of spatchcocking the bird so that it cooks more evenly and faster.

Also, while I will season the hell out of my food, especially now that I have a nice pepper grinder, a good roast chicken will be good with just some salt and cracked black pepper. If it's a _good_ roast chicken.
posted by SansPoint at 9:00 AM on March 30, 2018 [13 favorites]

Eh. While I'm usually onboard with Harriot's "what white-ass bullshit is this?" I think he's off-base here.

I tend to agree, but the phrase "Chicken à la Wypipo" is a keeper.

Anyway, yeah, you dry foods out in the fridge overnight or longer, sometimes; why not speed the process up with a hair dryer?
posted by uncleozzy at 9:09 AM on March 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

For shit's sake, Rosner fully admits that the $399 Dyson Hair Dryer is absurd and frivolous on her part ...

... for the cooking task. She says that any cheap dryer is fine for chicken-skin-drying, but she has no regrets about the pricey purchase for her hair styling as it's so much quieter than any dryer she's previously used. Also re not adding salt right before cooking: If you use Lawry’s after a 24hr dry brine it’ll be so salty your tongue will reject your body.

Anyway, she linked to this recently, so I have to try both the chicken technique and a new-to-me way of cooking potatoes soon. (Which turns out to be from a book that I recommended in AskMe a few days ago, and which I just checked out of the library. Win!)
posted by maudlin at 9:16 AM on March 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Trolling points will be awarded to the first food blogger who can combine a recipe involving a hair dryer and a custom made egg spoon.
posted by jeremias at 9:17 AM on March 30, 2018 [24 favorites]

I refuse to believe anyone ever did this and that refusal feels good to me.

(As a side note WHY are so many food articles like this now..."yes I did this crazy thing aren't I precious!")
posted by agregoli at 9:19 AM on March 30, 2018

AvE did a teardown of that particular hair dryer, if I am not mistaken.
posted by smcameron at 9:20 AM on March 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Probably pointless to say that the op was, as they said, only kind of about the chicken. It's about content farms endlessly repackaging twitter moments, very few of them saying anything new.

Being a web content writer must be so demoralizing.
posted by Think_Long at 9:23 AM on March 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

(As a side note WHY are so many food articles like this now..."yes I did this crazy thing aren't I precious!")

The NYT article was in the form of "Yes, I did this thing..." because it was about the response to her tweet where she had offhandedly mentioned how silly it was to be using a hair dryer in the kitchen, and implying how extra silly it was that it was an over-the-top fancy hair dryer. So, it was specifically in response to being called out for doing this "crazy thing".

When Alton Brown uses a blowtorch from the garage to crisp a dish, nobody gets into such a dither over how dare he.
posted by Karmakaze at 9:29 AM on March 30, 2018 [42 favorites]

well i am glad to learn of this hack and want to try it now. so i fully support her ingenuity. that manicure, though... not so much. i do admit, if i could afford one of those hairdryers, i would buy one.
posted by lapolla at 9:32 AM on March 30, 2018

Karmakaze: Alton Brown would also be the sort to say "I'm using a blowtorch, but if you don't have one lying around, you can stick it under the broiler" or something like that. Remember, he's the anti-kitchen unitasker guy. I suspect he'd be in favor of the hair dryer technique.

I actually did a cursory Google to see if he'd said anything about it, but all I see is other articles about the hair dryer thing, and they're all more about the choice of hair dryer than the methodology. Which is, again, ridiculous. SHE SAID YOU CAN USE ANY DAMN HAIR DRYER. SHE JUST HAPPENS TO HAVE THAT ONE AT HOME.
posted by SansPoint at 9:35 AM on March 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

But...how does that work with using it for drying your hair? Do you offer it to visitors to use and not mention it’s been up a chicken’s bum?
posted by lesbiassparrow at 9:38 AM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

There is no skin up a chicken's bum. She is just pre-drying the skin before she roasts it. I do the same with an overnight dry brine, but I am very tempted to try her method when I didn't think that far ahead.
posted by agentofselection at 9:40 AM on March 30, 2018

The tweet from @hels referenced by a fiendish thingy above was attached to a retweet that included a photo of Alton Brown using hair dryer in the kitchen.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 9:42 AM on March 30, 2018 [30 favorites]

everybody had matching towels: Thank you! So, it's looking more and more like a combination of OMG A WOMAN THINKS SHE CAN DO COOKERY HACKS and OMG A WOMAN IS COOKING USING AN OVERPRICED HAIR DRYER, both of which are absolute nonsense bullshit.
posted by SansPoint at 9:44 AM on March 30, 2018 [14 favorites]

And now I've heard of it. Hurray.
posted by Naberius at 9:48 AM on March 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

In the Glorious New Regime, most of the people criticizing her will be dragged off to work in my nightmarish smelting facilities, and most of them will be grateful to have received such mercy.
posted by aramaic at 9:52 AM on March 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

Ok, let's say it is about the choice of dryer.

I like knives a lot, it is amazing what us monkeys can make with iron and carbon and a few millennia of accumulated knowledge.

I notice knives.

And I rarely see, and not at this scale, reactions to some internet dude showing you how to make a grilled cheese sandwich using a $500 bread knife.

I've seen some amateur home cooking videos where the dude has on display over 10k worth of knives.

And if we move away from cooking to power tools... the internet is full of "How I fixed this drawer pull just using the plasma cutter and the industrial grade 6 axis CNC mill I keep in my garage."
posted by Index Librorum Prohibitorum at 9:58 AM on March 30, 2018 [60 favorites]

Frankly, if that hairdryer doesn't make a noise that sounds like the end of the goddamn world, I would happily pay $400 for it.


Or I would if I still had hair. Maybe I'll start roasting chickens again.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:01 AM on March 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

FFS Alton Brown used a box fan and bungie cords to dehydrate food. He’d have been excited to try a new roast chicken prep method like this if he hadn’t already.

Misogyny isn’t enough of a word anymore - maybe “disogyny” for the continuously caustic reaction to women and their ideas.

Being a web content writer must be so demoralizing.

Being a web user is depressing as hell nowadays.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:03 AM on March 30, 2018 [15 favorites]

So the issue is about the cost of the hair dryer? Okay then. I was about to mention using a hair iron to cook grilled cheese sandwiches but never mind.
posted by fuse theorem at 10:05 AM on March 30, 2018

the internet is full of "How I fixed this drawer pull just using the plasma cutter and the industrial grade 6 axis CNC mill I keep in my garage."

As someone with the spirit of a DIYer but the bank account of a normal human, this is the absolute scourge of YouTube DIY/woodworking. Like, I'm really happy for you that Ryobi or Dewalt or whoever sponsors you and gives you $10k worth of free shit on the regs (nice work if you can get it, bro) but your information is not actually useful to me if I need to possess both a planer and a drum sander to complete the task.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:38 AM on March 30, 2018 [20 favorites]

but your information is not actually useful to me if I need to possess both a planer and a drum sander to complete the task

Quoted for truth, but also to note that both of these items are at the top of my Amazon wishlist (as well as a router and a scroll saw).
posted by elsietheeel at 10:51 AM on March 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

I once repaired a broken drawer using a takeout chopstick. One of the drawer slides had broken, it was the same width as the widest end of the chopstick, so I cut the chopstick to length using my handy 5-euro stainless steel knife from the local Asian supermarket (Chinese-Thai-Cambodian-Japanese) and glued it in. It still works ten years later.

I suspect that if it were called a poultry desiccator and used by a man it would get less lulz, amirite. sigh.
posted by fraula at 11:01 AM on March 30, 2018 [11 favorites]

Trust me, you want to understand how people could possibly think someone could cook a chicken with a hair dryer, just spend a couple of hours on YouTube life hack channels. The stupid is contagious.
posted by Samizdata at 11:27 AM on March 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

The hair dryer trick is an old one I first heard of used for Peking Duck. If this was Kenji or Alton, we'd see copycat blogs and recipe vids for days. (Chef John probably wouldn't attempt this trick even if he used it privately, as he deliberately keeps his equipment to a minimum to make the techniques accessible for everyone. Freakishly small spoon excepted.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:30 AM on March 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

More than a little disappointed that Alton Brown hasn't piped up in her defense.

Of course, it's a top-of-the-line hair dryer. When you've been given a regular place in the New Yorker to write, you can afford all the Dyson appliances. It's just nice that the New Yorker has room for a food writer who's a woman who isn't Alice Waters.

Anybody have a culinary use for a Dyson vacuum cleaner?
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:32 AM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

men who spend $400 on some not-needed-for-survival toy somehow get way less shit in our culture than a woman who spends $400 on a blowdryer.

which she probably uses every day! unlike, say, all those guys who dropped $1000 on a drone they’ve flown once, or a DSLR they don’t use, or power tools they don’t pick up, or......

(I also suspect that even a New Yorker food writer is not actually rolling in cash.)
posted by faineg at 11:35 AM on March 30, 2018 [30 favorites]

Fraula, we also regularly use takeout chopsticks in our house to repair and/or modify so many things! Best multi-use eating implement ever; high five.

> Anyway, she linked to this recently, so I have to try both the chicken technique and a new-to-me way of cooking potatoes soon

maudlin, if you try it, let me know how it works out. I tried to make hashbrowns using grated potatoes following some highly rated online recipe recently, but despite multiple soaks and drying like mad, using most of a whole roll of paper towel, it was the worst, mushiest, grossest thing I think I've ever turned out. The only thing I can figure is that the sort of high-walled frying pan I used didn't let the lingering moisture escape. I would suspect too low a temperature, but our weirdo gas stove only has three temps: Quite High, Very Very High, and Super Duper High High High So High.
posted by taz at 11:36 AM on March 30, 2018 [13 favorites]

I haven't tried the stir-fried potatoes yet, but it seems as if prolonged soaking in cold water is key:

The one important thing to note is that you have to rinse the shredded potato before cooking. If you have enough time, let the shredded potato soak in water as long as possible. Not only does it remove extra starch, but the soaked potato will harden up so the potatoes won’t stick together or break apart during the stir fry process, and this method generates a extra crispy texture once cooked.

[Two images of soaked potatoes with caption]: The picture on the left shows the potato before soaking and the picture on the right shows 30 minutes after soaking in the fridge. You can see the potato slices turn from being soft to being almost like pricks.

[From the instructions]: Usually 30 minutes is a good amount of time to soak them, but I have been known to soak them overnight in the refrigerator.

Maybe they would also benefit from being finished off with a hair dryer?
posted by maudlin at 11:40 AM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

Maybe it’s my eyes or my screen resolution but isn’t that chicken already roasted?
posted by mono blanco at 11:48 AM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

> oneswellfoop:
"More than a little disappointed that Alton Brown hasn't piped up in her defense.

Of course, it's a top-of-the-line hair dryer. When you've been given a regular place in the New Yorker to write, you can afford all the Dyson appliances. It's just nice that the New Yorker has room for a food writer who's a woman who isn't Alice Waters.

Anybody have a culinary use for a Dyson vacuum cleaner?"

No, but I hear there are some interesting ideas for lonely Saturday nights.
posted by Samizdata at 11:48 AM on March 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

And I rarely see, and not at this scale, reactions to some internet dude showing you how to make a grilled cheese sandwich using a $500 bread knife.

Watch BBQ videos on Youtube. Some guys have Saturn V rocket engines in their back yards.
posted by srboisvert at 11:56 AM on March 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh YES, those BBQ videos are a perfect illustration of the “frivolous spending” double-standard. Higher-end backyard smokers start in the $800s and can run into thousands and thousands of dollars.

But have you ever heard anyone shaming white dads for dropping that kind of coin on fancy meat cookers?
posted by faineg at 12:01 PM on March 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

I got a $35 smoker at Home Depot and the employee who helped me get it down from the top shelf gave me an extra 15% discount just because she could. Frugality is delicious*.

* Using a high-end hair dryer you already own to do something other than dry your hair qualifies as frugal. Sometimes I (carefully!) use my GHD hair straighteners on heat shrink tubing when I don't want to go find the heat gun.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:21 PM on March 30, 2018 [14 favorites]

I'd never read anything by the writer in The Root. Does he always try that hard? Because "But Black people walk like this" has not gotten any funnier with the passage of time.
posted by the sobsister at 12:28 PM on March 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh yeah, you don’t have to spend much at all on a perfectly good smoker! But that’s not what Fancy Hobby Dads are after - yet we pretty much leave them alone for their frivolousness in our culture.
posted by faineg at 12:33 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

men who spend $400 on some not-needed-for-survival toy somehow get way less shit in our culture than a woman who spends $400 on a blowdryer.

Anybody have a culinary use for a Dyson vacuum cleaner?"
No, but I hear there are some interesting ideas for lonely Saturday nights.

Some of us knew all along that was what Tim Allen really meant when he called for "More Power!"
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:00 PM on March 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

May I suggest, instead of a debate over the article, a lovely round of singing based on the title of this MeFi page?

(to the tune of 'What can you Do with a Drunken Sailor')
Nothing is safe from the content vortex,
Nothing is safe from the content vortex,
Nothing is safe from the content vortex,
Er-lie in the morning!
posted by Quackles at 1:02 PM on March 30, 2018 [14 favorites]

but our weirdo gas stove only has three temps: Quite High, Very Very High, and Super Duper High High High So High.

Look behind the stove. See the hose coming out of it and into the wall? See the knob/valve control? Turn that down.
posted by sexyrobot at 1:43 PM on March 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

but our weirdo gas stove only has three temps: Quite High, Very Very High, and Super Duper High High High So High.

the most efficient low-tech solution in my kitchen for this is just adding a stove trivet or three-legged stand, to add distance to the flame.

(eta: ha, jinx-ish)
posted by cendawanita at 1:47 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

The internet absolutely fucking sucks I’m sorry I hyped it up back the 90’s I hate this fuck.
posted by Annika Cicada at 3:19 PM on March 30, 2018 [20 favorites]

Yeah hair dryer to improve roast pork is a known Chinese technique that I heard through my mom a couple years back.

Also I wonder if it could be used to for home made french fries, because the Modernist method asks for a chamber vacuum to perform a dehydration step.

And thanks for the link for chicken which I'm looking forward to try… Albeit since hearing about how my Chinese folks do it, I've always had some concerns about long-term harm as a hair dryer may heat up bits of internal plastic compounds such as pthalates and studies show that such compounds show up in fast food which partly why it harms people. That's why real kitchens have industrial food-grade driers, probably.
posted by polymodus at 3:22 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh and looking at the link for stir-fried potatoes makes me so happy. As a kid at home, my family would not often serve it but when we did, it was a delicious treat (to be had with your rice and other dishes too).
posted by polymodus at 3:33 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

The point the author makes about how women are presumed to be stupid or ignorant is something I've been noticing so much on social media lately. Just a few examples:

- Last week, a woman on my neighborhood facebook page wrote a post to let people know that no items sold by the deli of our local grocery store were actually gluten-free. She was upset because her kid with (actual, not hand-wavey self-diagnosed) Celiac had eaten a few bites of one of the items. She was upset but mostly was just writing to let other people know. No fewer than 4 different men posted lengthy, condescending "explanations" of how gluten cross-contamination works, and how she can't expect anything to be gluten-free unless she is sure it's a gluten-free facility. These men felt it necessary to "explain" this to a mother of a child with Celiac Disease.

- A few months ago, I posted some news item and made a joke about how I wished there was a Yiddish phrase for the particular mix of emotions that news item made me feel. A male friend posted a couple of suggestions, none in Yiddish (including one in German!), all of which I knew and none of which was what I was looking for. I told him politely that none really worked and he got huffy and said "well, that's all I got." Even though I hadn't even been asking for his input!

The thing that was amazing to me in both of these cases is that we were both assumed to be looking for advice or explanation, and were both presumed to have less knowledge than our male interlocutors. And the men in both case got huffy with the women - in the first case, the men were clearly annoyed that the woman "didn't understand" cross-contamination, and in my case, my friend was annoyed that I wasn't thrilled to receive his suggestions that had little to do with what I'd initially posted. As women, we are not only assumed to not know what we're talking about, but we're supposed to be on board with this assessment and thrilled with the crumbs of knowledge dudes throw our way.
posted by lunasol at 3:53 PM on March 30, 2018 [19 favorites]

I don't cook a lot of meat. Is that what a dry brined chicken looks like after 24 hours? It's so golden/brown that I assumed from the photo (before reading) that it was mid-cooking.
posted by acidic at 5:45 PM on March 30, 2018

In addition to drying your soaked potatoes, how about using a hair dryer to quickly dry fresh rice for use in fried rice. Normally I just spread it out on a cookie sheet but combining the two should be quicker.

Also, don't tell me wife I user her expensive dryer to melt ski wax all the time.
posted by misterpatrick at 6:00 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I didn’t RTFA because Helen Rosner is a national treasure and I’m not in the mood for what is sure to be misogynistic drivel, but I did want to jump in and say that if you have $400, or can get several people to go in on a combined birthday/holiday gift for you, that hairdryer is worth every single penny. I wanted one and kept talking myself out of it, then used one in a hotel and it dried my hair in five minutes flat. I didn’t even towel dry. By my calculations using it will save me what amounts to 87 DAYS OF BLOWDRYING MY HAIR over the course of my life. Plus it is crazy quiet, leaves my hair smooth and shiny, and in addition to being supernaturally fast at its primary job, can apparently dry the hell out of some chicken skin.
posted by stellaluna at 6:01 PM on March 30, 2018 [17 favorites]

But...how does that work with using it for drying your hair? Do you offer it to visitors to use and not mention it’s been up a chicken’s bum?

Unless they are licking the hair dryer, I don't think it would matter where in the chicken it has been.

Anybody have a culinary use for a Dyson vacuum cleaner?

The kind of people (mostly men) who have expensive smokers and BBQ set-ups will sometimes use a shop vac on the blower setting (hose connected to the exhaust) or a leaf blower as a kind of bellows to stoke the fire. I'm sure someone out there has figured out a way to use a household vacuum instead.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:32 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't cook a lot of meat. Is that what a dry brined chicken looks like after 24 hours? It's so golden/brown that I assumed from the photo (before reading) that it was mid-cooking.

Ever since picking up a copy of Lucky Peach's 101 Asian Recipes, which calls for everytime you buy a supermarket bird to take it out of its meat sack and dry it out for a few days in the open-air fridge, I haven't turned back. If salted properly, and you can elevate it out of its own moisture, it really does darken quite a bit, just from air-drying... to the point where raw-wet chicken kind of swicks me out. That photo looks a bit darker than I usually see when we dry our birds, but yeah, you see some serious discoloration. Chefsteps has an overly-complicated (god bless them) recipe for ultimate roast chicken, and their photos show the darkening a little better/more realistically. I could see how the photo is a bit misleading.

My heat gun is pissed because now it's getting kitchen duty too....basically every tool in my house just gives off a heavy sigh when they realize they've been drafted for kitchen duty.
posted by furnace.heart at 7:04 PM on March 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

> Annika Cicada:
"The internet absolutely fucking sucks I’m sorry I hyped it up back the 90’s I hate this fuck."

'S not your fault. It's all our fault.
posted by Samizdata at 7:58 PM on March 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Michael Harriot is being a gross, sneering misogynist again? Shocker.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 8:44 PM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah the ChefSteps recipe looks amazing, but I've been hesitant to attempt it unless I figure out how to approximate the vertical hanging with a home oven.
posted by polymodus at 10:15 PM on March 30, 2018

When I saw the hairdryer chicken thing being shared online, the context made it sound like she was cooking the chicken using only the hairdryer, which brought back memories of the whole medium rare chicken debacle. The cost of the hairdryer hadn't even come into it.
posted by divabat at 2:29 AM on March 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I follow their instructions up until that point. I roast it horizontally and it turns out fine. The hardest part (and only reason I’m not a paid subscriber of theirs) is that’s its hard to determine with some recipes what is essential, and what is them being picky perfectionists. In this case, the prep is pretty good but the roasting is difficult-ish. I was mainly linking that because I knew it had a good photo of a brined and dried bird (which, again, oh god so good in all manner of preparations).
posted by furnace.heart at 8:37 AM on March 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oof, that take from the root seems super mean spirited. Their stuff is usually funny but that just felt cruel for the sake of it. If not punching down at least punching sideways.
posted by Ferreous at 8:54 AM on March 31, 2018

I'm pretty happy with my technically unnecessary (we had a (heavy, corded) Hoover Windtunnel already) and pretty well expensive Dyson Cordless vacuum, so if that Dyson hair dryer actually delivers improved performance on multiple fronts, more power to anyone who is enjoying theirs.

Blow-drying long hair until it is dry is a stupid, boring, and noisy task and I would pay a lot of money to have it go more quickly, quietly, and turn out less frizzy.

But as others have noted here, improved performance for lady tasks is just sheer vain indulgence!
posted by Squeak Attack at 9:14 AM on March 31, 2018

But why does a $400 hair dryer even exist? Is Dyson just trolling people? Are there $400 Dyson shoe horns? Is this what we get for letting Nike sell us $200 Jordans for newborns?
posted by Brocktoon at 9:28 AM on March 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

But why does a $400 hair dryer even exist?

The same reason Makita makes $300 cordless electric drills and Robot Coupé makes $800 food processors and Snap-On makes $500 torque wrenches - it's a tool that does the job more efficiently and reliably than the $30 Walmart model.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:25 AM on March 31, 2018 [11 favorites]

It's like buying a quality kitchen knife if you're doing prep work everyday.

If you only cut food rarely a the value of a knife isn't apparent but it's certainly apparent to the person who uses it daily. The same is true for a person who has to dry a lot of hair often
posted by Ferreous at 11:48 AM on March 31, 2018

Why does Dyson make a $600 vacuum when you can buy one for $40?

I think partly, with Dyson, is they do a lot of re-engineering and design innovation when they launch a product. Their hairdryer will likely get better and cheaper over the next few years.

Their cordless has come down quite a bit in price, or they've spread the price point out over a greater range since I bought mine.
posted by Squeak Attack at 11:50 AM on March 31, 2018

This is dumb. People are incredibly mean for no reason. Why are people so mean? I don't get it.

Also,

Rosner shared her Chicken à la Wypipo recipe with the readers of the New Yorker, known for its unfunny cartoons and other stuff I would list right now if I weren’t black or had ever read a copy of the 93-year-old hallmark of highbrow East Coast sophistication.

This is my favourite criticism of the New Yorker because it's actually rather middlebrow.
posted by pmv at 12:58 PM on March 31, 2018

I finally broke down and bought a $300 Dyson vacuum as a birthday present to myself (I know how to live) because my dog’s hair threatened to swallow my apartment whole and I am so happy with my purchase I’ll tell you what.
posted by lunasol at 3:48 PM on March 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Makita, a top shelf power tool manufacturer, makes a $120 coffee maker that runs on drill batteries. Every construction worker I’ve showed it to said three things:

1) that’s so sexy (actual phrasing varies)
2) good tools cost a lot
3) Makita tools last for ten years

What was weird to me was that they each became nervous when I told them the price. Not because they couldn’t afford to consider it. As far as I can work out from the varying replies, they were ashamed of desiring it, and worried about being criticized for wanting one.

It sure would be nice if men would stop shaming women about luxury spending, seeing as how they’re clearly all worrying about being shamed themselves.
posted by crysflame at 4:03 PM on March 31, 2018 [5 favorites]

I am suddenly reminded - my wife's "name brand" Conair hair dryer crapped out on her when she moved in with me before we were married. I was gonna surprise her and make it right. This is before Amazon was as comprehensive an online shopping outlet as it is now, and the Wirecutter did not exist.

I marched into the professional hairdresser supply shop in our town, and asked for their finest hair dryer, and to explain to me why it was the finest. The proprietress was an African American woman in her 50's, and TO BEGIN WITH, this model had a re-settable fuse built right into the plug. It was safe to use anywhere, even without a GFI outlet. I was the customer she had been waiting for, for a long, long time, and as a nerd, I really got where she was going with her hair-dryer expertise. It had a high and a low ceramic, not wire, heating coil, each with their own circuitry, so it would last a long time as each element could do its thing without trying to do something else, as well as no-heat. The basic fan was rated for some flow-through metric I forget and stepped precisely between lo and hi. Low heat low fan, low heat high fan, high heat high fan, high heat low fan, cool low fan, cool high fan. Also, turbo hot and turbo cold setting, where a secondary fan kicks in!

It was $85, which in the later years of the reign of Bush the Younger, was an absolute fortune to spend on a dryer, when name-brand Conair units could be had at Wallyworld for $10. There was a $120 model that was identical, only it had a metal rather than plastic body, but this was a step too far.

Dear reader, this was a Conair ThermalCeramic Pro. One of the real Conairs. It still gets daily use, and has once thawed out a frozen pipe in the kitchen, on high turbo!

$400 for a cordless hair dryer is right in line with current prices for corded drills vs. cordless drills, when applied to quality hair dryers. None of my drills gets the daily use this unit does. It's more than a decade old at this point.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:58 PM on March 31, 2018 [7 favorites]

... people didn't know about the hairdryer trick?

Not only can you use it to make Peking duck, but you can use it to-- and this is what I consider the true revelation-- make Peking goose. And you get to see the skin break out in goosebumps, and it's all very cool and incredibly tasty.
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 9:25 PM on March 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I used the hair dryer trick for oven baked wings yesterday evening and they came out great! Far better than they do with just towel drying. Thank you Helen!
posted by Ferreous at 6:09 AM on April 1, 2018 [5 favorites]