The microwave in question (Image: Archi Banal)

Pop CultureOctober 12, 2022

The shiny metal box that changed how I cook

Chief technology officer

The microwave in question (Image: Archi Banal)

For the last few decades, digital technology has played a huge role in our lives. In partnership with Panasonic, we’ve written a few odes to some of our favourite pieces of home tech. Here, Ben Gracewood on his inverter microwave.

You don’t understand how good my microwave is.

You almost certainly don’t understand how excited I was when asked to write 500 words about it. For the longest time, there have been facts about microwaves living in my head that I’ve desperately wanted to tell anyone who will listen. Finally my time has come.

Most people don’t understand microwave ovens. You probably consider a microwave the same way you do a kettle: turn it on to get the job done. You probably reckon all they do is cook food fast and the $85 K Mart special works just as well as the $489 high-end microwave from Harvey Norman, and that you’d only pay more for a microwave if you were rich or wanted one in a special colour.

But what if I told you there was a secret microwave cheat code that you can unlock by not buying that rock-bottom cheapass microwave? A special word to use when searching Pricespy that will change your cooking life for the better?

Cheap microwaves are binary. On or off. Full blast or zero. When you set the power level to 50%, all that happens is the cheap microwave turns on and off so that it’s still blasting 100% power, but for half the time. This is why the edges of your “defrosted” meat are burnt, or why your morning-after reheated BBQ sausage ends up looking like Thomas Kane the moment a Xenomorph bursts from his chest.

Inverter microwaves, on the other hand, actually properly dial down the constant power output so that the micro-waves are more, I dunno, gentle or something. Panasonic have a page with diagrams and stuff that explains it better than I can. Apparently they invented inverter microwaves way back in 1988 and have been perfecting the tech ever since.

If you’ve never used an inverter microwave it’s impossible to understand how life-changing it is to be able to set your microwave to 40% power and gently warm up some cheerios for the kids in three minutes without having them turn inside out. With an inverter microwave, you can gently warm up a slice of pizza without drying the pepperoni, or precisely soften a block of butter without having it boil and splatter everywhere.

Now do you understand? Next time you buy a microwave, look for one with the word “inverter” on the front. Mine has quite honestly changed my cooking life.

Keep going!

Devrim Lingnau as Elisabeth in The Empress (Netflix)

Pop CultureOctober 12, 2022

Review: The Empress is your next costume drama binge watch

Catherine McGregor

Contributing writer

Devrim Lingnau as Elisabeth in The Empress (Netflix)

The new German-language show on Netflix is as smartly written as it is beautiful to look at, writes Catherine McGregor.

This is an excerpt from The Spinoff’s weekly pop culture and entertainment newsletter Rec Room – sign up here.

The lowdown

The Empress tells the true(ish) story of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, a 19th century member of the House of Habsburg whose Austro-Hungarian empire encompassed most of central Europe. In German culture Elisabeth, or Sisi as she was commonly known, is a renowned historical figure, but non-Teutonic viewers will most likely be going in cold. That’s no problem: apart from a few gnarly geopolitical aspects, the story is easy enough to follow.

The six episodes of season one follow the courtship of Elisabeth and Emperor Franz Joseph and the early months of their marriage at the Imperial palace in Vienna. Elisabeth is headstrong, artistic, empathetic – a poor fit for palace life; her new husband is busy fending off attempts to be drawn into the Crimean War while dreaming of ways to modernise his sprawling empire.

Johannes Nussbaum as Archduke Maximilian and Devrim Lingnau as Elisabeth von Wittelsbach, later Empress Elisabeth (Netflix)

What’s good

Much as I love period dramas, I’ve found myself turned off by their increasing desperation to attract younger, more pop-culture aware viewers (yes Bridgerton, I’m looking at you, though your diverse casting can definitely stay). That’s the first point in The Empress’s favour. While it certainly isn’t slavishly devoted to historical accuracy – more on that in a moment – it retains most of the trappings of a classic costume romp. If The Empress was a Jane Austen adaptation, it’d be the swoony Keira Knightley-starring Pride and Prejudice, not Dakota Johnson’s controversial, fourth-wall-breaking Persuasion.

Pride and Prejudice, in fact, seems to have been something of an inspiration for The Empress, at least in episode one. There’s a pushy mother, a pretty but dull older sister, a rakish young man who can’t be trusted, and, at the heart of the story, Elisabeth, the family black sheep. She loves solitude, nature and poetry, and has no intention of marrying at all. Until, of course, she has a meet-cute with the Emperor in the garden.

If it sounds predictable, well, in many ways it is. But The Empress is also full of surprises. Chief among them is Elisabeth herself, played by the wonderful Devrim Lingnau with humour, intelligence and earthy sensuality. The surprises come also in the many fleeting moments of strangeness that keep the story a little off-kilter. In what other mainstream costume drama would you see a lady-in-waiting clean her queen’s teeth with her finger, or the heroine of the show hock an enormous loogie as an expression of unbridled joy?

Almost as importantly, The Empress looks incredible. Forget CGI dragons: this is the show that made me consider springing for a properly big TV. From the costumes to the locations – all real German palaces – to the breathtaking cinematography, it’s television to luxuriate in.

Eliza Schlott as Helene and Devrim Lingnau as Elisabeth in The Empress (Netflix)

The not-so-good

I know I said The Empress was a relatively trad sort of costume drama. But it also boasts a hairstyling choice so bonkers it makes me furious every time I think of it. Remember that blonde bob wig Julia Roberts sports in Pretty Woman? A main character in The Empress has that exact haircut… in the year 1854. Not even Bridgerton would dare.