Cookaholics Bulletin Board

In a moment of unbridled optimistic insanity, SLT has decided to release their own tablet computer. After all, it worked out so well for HP and B&N, they couldn't help but plunge into the personal electronics market.

And, just to earn the adoration of Scrabble players everywhere, they've named the device "Qooq". Yes, really: two Q's and two O's. Please let me know your impression of how to pronounce this brand name.

Aside from the name, it has these other delightful qualities:

• Made in France, a country renowned for its excellence in electronics manufacturing.
• It's "spill-proof", kinda like the $12 kitchen iPad sleeve sold in the same catalog.
• Offers "over 4000 recipes", kinda like the free website, Epicurious.
• Offers "HD cooking videos" taught by unnamed "top chefs", kinda like the free site iFood.tv.
• Comes with three whole months of the above before you start having to pay a subscription fee.

So, to sum up: for the cost of a brand-new iPad2 ($399), you can buy a tablet which has essentially one app, which you also have to pay a subscription fee to keep using. I expect a run on the stores when this goes on sale, myself.

Of course, it wouldn't be an SLT holiday catalog without many items of questionable utility and taste. Among them:

• Carrot, Potato, and Tomato peelers with identifying handles: because of course you couldn't possibly use the same peeler for two different kinds of root vegetables!
• Keep Calm coffee mugs: simply proving that this meme not only jumped the shark, it had the shark's babies, got divorced and moved back in with its mother.
• The Manatea tea infuser. You need to see this: http://fredandfriends.com/products/view/manatea-infuser
• The "Better Beater Auto-Whisk". I have no idea what it does, I just like to say it. "Better Beater Auto-Whisk". Presumably for your better beater butter battles with butter batter beater beetles.
• The copper "Moscow Mule" mug. 16oz. Comes with inflatable matress for you to land on.
• Mason Jar Cocktail Shaker, to add the perfect "touch of class" to your apres l'opera gathering.
• Tovolo spherical ice maker: I just wanna see people trying to get the last ounce of their Long Island Iced Tea with this gigantic ball o'ice in the way. And then dropping it on the floor. Kitchen polo!
• "Chef'n Buttercup Butter Maker": leaving aside that this is basically a mason jar with a yellow lid, WTF is "Chef'n" short for? It would make some kind of sense if there was a word after it, you know, "Chef'n'Captian" or "Chef'n'Sommelier", or "Chef'n'AWhiteWineSauce". But it doesn't.

So, how would you pronounce "Qooq"?

Hey, wait, wasn't that a Melville character?

I would guess cook because naming it cook would be too simple.

Kook? as in what a kookie idea...

The Manatea tea infuser -- For those who like the idea of a grinning sea mammal leaving brown liquid in their mug.

There's such a thing as a peeler optimized for potatoes that is different than one optimized for carrots?

Mason jars have a certain charm, but if you are unable to rig pretty much any vessel you desire out of one, you are probably missing the point of that charm which is supposed to be a kind of down-home ingenuity that does not include buying $30 specialized lids. Really, this is the sort of thing people use to mix sidecars at their hobo-themed weddings.

The tablet is ridiculous and will be a big seller with people who don't actually WANT technology but are forced into it, probably by a relative.

I actually kind of like the looks of the mug, but I am a sucker for all things copper. It is crazy big though, I am drinking 12oz coffee out of a good sized mug now, and you can't finish it before it gets cold.

The worst designed thing I saw on their site most recent was a citrus reamer ... looking... the Rösle Citrus Reamer. It has a lovely straight stainless steel handle which would be impossible to get a grip on if you got something on your hands. You know, like citrus juice. ARGGH.

--Lisa

Are you thinking of Queequeg from Moby Dick?

And, the tablet is ridiculous.

Amy

I'm thinking Crystal will be buying the "Mason Jar Cocktail Shaker"

Close your eyes really, really tight and say "COOK" with a French accent. It might just come out "QooK". Since it was released in France in 2009 and the USA in 2012, it hardly qualifies as SLT's own tablet. It sounds more like SLT giving entrepreneurs national exposure on a product that, while it may be perceived as "too expensive" by many, has some good qualities that deserve being offered to the consumer.

A dude named Steve believed that people who are really serious about software should build their own hardware. Whatever happened to his company?

Three years from now, QooK might be on the techno trash heap or may have matured into a product that works beautifully for its intended purpose or it may have been bought out by a bigger fish. Even if it fails, some of its better qualities and features will be adopted and adapted to other tablet computers for use in the kitchen.

Jim,

What better qualities and features? I don't see any.

It might have been a cool tablet *in* 2009. Today, it's not competitive at all. To make it as a "cooking tablet" they'd have to offer something more innovative than a subscription service to a cooking site ... several of which already exist for iPad, Android and Kindle. Or be much, much cheaper.

No, this is going to end up in the same place as the HP TouchPad and the Kobo: being sold for $50 at rummage sales.

I have to say that I can find every application offered by Qooq on my iPad and would not see a reason to ever purchase this. However, my sister, who is not interested in having much to do with techno gadgets, might like this because it would not confuse her. It is for cooking and nothing else, which may appeal to those who have no interest in a multipurpose tablet. So, she would have this for cooking and an older version of the Nook for reading....both single purpose and fitting her lifestyle.
I agree that it will eventually be phased out because the market for this cooking tablet is very small.