Virginia Ben

A few months ago, I purchased a The Clapper from Ace Hardware. It looked like it had been in storage for ages-- covered in dust and with tattered cardboard. My uncle had a The Clapper at some point when I was a kid and I haven't thought much about these devices since. I love this thing.

The Clapper is a plug-in device that controls flow of electrity to devices at the wall outlet using the input of a series of two-to-three percussive sounds in a specific rythm. I'll throw a Technology Connections video below that lays out the beautiful mechanism by which this device works.

Anyways, how do you use it?

Method 1:Open a beer.

The crch-cha sound is the perfect pitch, volume, and rythm to trigger The Clapper

Method 2: Drop something long.

A long, hard, item typically will fall on its base first, flop over, and the long-side of the item will hit the ground with a second sound. This will trigger your The Clapper.

Method 3: Prop your composter lid open

A kitchen compost container like this one pictured below will snap into an open position at the peak of their lid openness. This snapping sound activates The Clapper.

Method 4: Clap

Boring

In my opinion The Clapper is much more user friendly than a smart plug for many tasks. Smart plugs require you to speak to robots in your phone or home automation speaker setup thing or to use your phone. Both of those things suck. I'd rather open a beer to turn my lights on remotely.

I made a great red lentil dish the other day that I want to memorialize as my first blog post. It was italian and pantry inspired. I used the following ingredients.

• Trader Joe's Grecian Style Eggplant
• Leftover pint of pureed, canned tomatoes
• Chopped mixed olives
• EVOO
• Red Lentils, picked over for rocks
• Red pepper flakes
• Jarlic

So you just heat up some EVOO and then toss in your tomato, canned stuff, lil jarlic, half the chopped olives, and whatever else sounds good (red pepper flakes, pepper, salt, etc.) and cook down.

Once that looks and smells good, a few minutes, stir in as much red lentils as seems right (maybe a little less than seems right) and add enough water to cover plus some. Bring to boil, then simmer and cover.

Let cook for like 15 minutes-ish (look at your red lentil packaging or google it or smthn). When it is ready, stir in reserved chopped olives. Serve with olive oil drizzled on top, or feta, or parsley, or mozz.