Inventions for our time
OR
Was Leonardo as Broke as I am
Being inventive and creative is a wonderful thing. However, in this humdrum society, becoming rich from such creativity is between slim and non- existent. Therefore, I take up pen, or rather a word-processor, to inspire you to some new ideas, and to, perhaps, help better your lives.
BUTTERFREE
About five years ago, while on my 97th diet, I decided that my greatest weakness was butter. Being a butterball turkey was not my idea of a career, and as I am not balding quick enough, my chance to fill in for Willard Scott is some ways off.Butterfree is an all-dairy (REAL) bread spread that has approximately seven (7) calories per tablespoon (in comparison to 100 calories of butter or margarine) that I conceived. If it had ever reached the marketplace, it would have been next to the "Squeeze Parkay", as it is a squeeze product as well.
I developed a recipe for it, but every dairy company I ever called and asked about such a product stated "We're working on something like that." I decided to just let it go, and maybe I can sue whomever markets it.
All you need is one quart of nonfat milk, three cups of dry nonfat milk, one packet of gelatin (i.e. its not kosher (sorry) but guar gum didn't work well), yellow food coloring (because no one ate it when I colored it green), imitation butter flavor or "real butter flavor" extract (approx. 1/2 tsp) and salt to taste.
In a saucepan, bring the milk to a "milk boil" (light foam). While stirring, add nonfat dry milk until fully mixed. Put the gelatin in 1/4 cup of cold water and stir until it is fully dissolved, as it states on the package, and leave it alone.
Add the 1/2 tsp of extract, the food coloring (as many drops as you feel you NEED so that you will eat it), and as much salt as you wish butter had (I recommend that you taste it while doing this). Then take it off the stove and pour off two cups into a bowl.
To the bowl, add the gelatin, which should by now be thinking that you've been ignoring it far to long, and mix until you think that either your mixer needs a rest, or that your arm may fall off into the bowl and spoil the batch.
Place the bowl in the refrigerator, and let it firm. Usually, this takes about four hours. Now pour the saucepan stuff into a second bowl and put it in the fridge as well.
Four hours may seem a long time, but it may be enough to go out and buy a "mustard" empty squeeze bottle from a local store. You know, the type for your bar-be-que that you see kids fighting with in TV sitcoms.
By now, you arm should be better. So once the gelatin has set, you can beat it to mix with the un-gelled stuff, and then pour this stuff into the squeeze bottle. You may find that you have a lot left over. I did. This excess will keep for about two weeks in the fridge, but I'd bet you could freeze it.
In either way, if you use Butterfree instead of butter, you will find that it melts great on vegetables, and mixes well in recipes, and works great in replacement for butter in all aspects except as an oil, as it is at least 99% fat free.
Et Tu, A-1
Hear's just a quick note for steak lovers. I discovered, and I'm sure that others have too, that if you mix 2 parts catsup with one part Worcestershire sauce, you get a very good A-1 sauce clone.
Whistling Dixie
For years, Dixie cups have printed names of beverages on the outside of their cups so that some of us, while drinking water, can at least imagine that we're drinking grape juice, tea, or cider. It would seem a neat trick to spray the insides of cups with a coating that, when someone added water, the cup would miraculously fill with the drink displayed on the cup.The nearest I've seen to this trick was a company that simply packaged powdered hot drinks (coffee, cocoa, or soup) so when you pulled a cup, it had a ready to make portion. However, a coating would allow for me to pack two or three cups into my son's lunch sack so he could get something fun to drink at school when all he asked for was to get a glass of water.
Scorekeeper
This product I have just about completed. It is so mundane and simple that I figure just about anyone can build it for less than $5.00 if they already have a rake and a roll of tape.Where I live, tack-weeds, thistles and other "noxious" weeds seem to be taking over, and when I asked my dad about how to control tack-weeds (weeds which make seeds that look and feel like thumbtacks), he said I should water them and then pick them before they can produce more seeds. I now have a well watered back yard that is overgrown with these, and most have gone into full production.
Taking a piece of foam, like that you use for under your sleeping bag, if you have one, rap it around your rake's head. Then just drag it over the weed seeded area, and using a pocket comb, remove the tacks into a garbage can. In this way, you too can become a scorekeeper; You're raking up points.
The destruction of my first car
As an avid inventor, I discovered more from making mistakes than from finishing each project. However, my first car was my worst mistake.Actually, the car worked very well, even though I drove it into the ground, decimating its interior and destroying its integrity. However, it was an invention that killed it.
In 1979, I was on the road to inventing a balance for a high octane, high heat fuel additive that was a mixture of alcohol and naphthalene. You see, if you add alcohol to gas, you get a higher octane, but the fuel burns at a cooler temperature, thus lowering your overall effectiveness.
I was determined to find a balance between naphtha flakes (moth flakes) and the alcohol. My only mistake was that I used my own car for the testing.
There are two types of mothball chemicals. Paradichloral Benzene (known at my school as PDB) and Naphthalene. However, when PDB burns, it leaves a residue of Hydrochloric Acid, which isn't too good for your engine.
The alcohol, I found, would dissolve the naphtha quite well. However, being non-scientific, as I was, I didn't measure how much I actually added. I simply dissolved as much as it would allow, and then stopped. Then, pouring from off the top, as to not get any of the precipitate at the bottom, I added some to my gas tank.
Well, the performance increased almost immediately, and I was just coming home from my trial run when I began hearing the "tick- tick-tick" coming from my engine. In fact, the sound was getting louder, block by block. "Bink-bing-Bang-Bonk" it continued.
Reaching my house, I was able to keep it running long enough for a friend to come listen to it. "You've thrown a rod," he decided. Oh well, so much for inventing.
© 1995 David Brager/Ace Development & Integration
