Some weeks ago I acquired a SousVide Supreme, a bit of kit that promises "perfectly cooked meals ... at the push of a button". Until recently, cooking sous vide was the preserve of the restaurant, a buzzword for food geeks cooing over pinkish beef and a nifty means of guaranteeing a restaurant's consistency.Sales of home sous vide gadgets are on the rise and this elegant, simple-to-use piece of equipment (available in John Lewis for a mere £359) will help you to achieve restaurant-quality dishes in your own kitchen. At least, that's the theory – and, up to a point, it does hold water, insofar as it is very simple to use and does look rather swish. Those in favour of sous vide seem to be drawn by several factors. The first is reliability: water temperature can be controlled so precisely that "perfect" results are almost guaranteed. This means that your steak, for example will be cooked to an even pinkness throughout. Perhaps even more persuasive, though, is the fact that you can forget all about it: stick your food in, disappear for a few hours, and come back to a bath of succulent whatever.

Yet all the people I spoke to (pro sous-viders, mind) reckoned they used their machines once every couple of weeks. Odd, given it costs the thick end of £400 and makes flawless dinners, that they wouldn't use it more often. Well, whatever people may say, this method of cooking is not without hassle. To cook some pig cheeks, as I did, you marinate them, drain them, brown them, get out your vacuum-packing machine (another £93) and a bag, package the meat, warm the water bath to the desired temperature, cook the cheeks for a few hours, remember you need a sauce, make said sauce, remove the meat, add to the sauce, et voila! You have a dish that's as easy as … er … braising pig cheeks (except not as easy and with oddly mushy meat). Another issue is that it doesn't work with everything. Fish, most seem to find, comes out with a deeply unpleasant texture. Game, I'm told, can become livery and bitter, while scrambled eggs … well, enough said. Crucially though, and particularly for people who enjoy cooking, sous vide nixes the role of the senses.

One of the greatest pleasures of putting dinner together is the smell it brings to the kitchen – onions sweating in butter, a curry puttering away on the stove, a cake baking in the oven. Smell also tells you when things are done, or indeed burnt. Touch helps, too, a prod telling you how rare a piece of steak is; a squeeze revealing how close to baked a spud is. And we constantly make decisions about a dish's progression based on sight and sound, listening for something frying too hard, looking for a piece of fish colouring too quickly, or catching those mutinous bits of rice that scale the side of the saucepan. And as any chef will tell you, taste is the most important sense of all. You can't do any of this with sous vide. Your lump of protein/handful of carrots/half-dozen eggs sit, arms folded, in their sterile bag and their sterile bath for anything up to 72-hours (15-minute meals this ain't) until all sorts of miraculous things happen to them and they're just perfect. No touching, smelling, tasting, listening, looking, or engaging with the food is required.

Science has got your back. Sous vide has taken all the guesswork out of cooking. It has also sucked out its soul. Is a sous vide just a posh boil-in-the-bag device, or can it really offer more for home cooks. Yorkie Puppies For Sale NlHave you tried one? White German Shepherd Puppies For Sale MnOr would you rather spend your notional £400 on another fancy gadget?Kitchenaid Artisan Mixer Speed Control ProblemsOHS offers the following list of resources and links to help people find pet-friendly housing for rent. Please note that the links provided will take you away from the OHS website. The Oregon Humane Society is not affiliated with these outside organizations; we offer these resources as a courtesy to pet owners.

Pet-friendly rental properties in the Portland, OR area » Resources for renters with pets » Sample documentation for landlords » Please note that you may need to select cat, dog, or pets from available filters to sort these listings by those that are pet-friendly. It is with extreme pleasure that I write this letter of reference for (Your Name Here) and her (cat/dog), (pet name here). (Pet name here) has been a regular patient at (Vet Clinic/Hospital name) since he/she was adopted by (his/her) caregiver (Your name here), from the local animal shelter seven years ago. (Your name here) is a model pet caregiver, and I wish all pet caregivers were as conscientious as she/he is in her care of (pet name here). (Pet name here) is (neutered/spayed), receives yearly checkups and necessary vaccinations, and is on a flea-control program. Please feel free to contact me personally or any member of my staff to discuss (Your Name here) and (pet name here) unquestionable suitability as housing residents.

It is with pleasure that I write this letter of recommendation for (Your Name Here) and her (Cat/Dog), (Pet name here). I wish all my residents were as well behaved as (pet name here). When (Your name Here) and (pet name here) vacated their apartment unit, it was in better condition than when they moved into it. During their five-year residency at XXXX Apartments, (Your Name Here and (pet name here) have been excellent members of our rental community, and I would be very happy to discuss why they should be welcomed in yours. Buddy is a well-behaved, friendly cat who enjoys the great indoors. When he’s not busy sleeping in the sun, he enjoys playing with his toys, gazing out the window, and watching baseball on TV with his owner. He is litter-box trained and always uses his scratching post. Buddy has been the beloved animal companion of Ms. Peterson for seven years. Buddy is neutered and flea-free. He enjoys regular grooming and is a longtime patient of veterinarian Dr. Joe Doctor.