Trends - - Page 20

by gansie

Keeping Track of Your Corkscrew

By the end of this week we will enter the crazy zone. Everything will revolve around toys, bargains, 3am sales, wish lists and underpaid and overworked Target employees. The season of “I want” is upon us.

And then I saw this humble, adorable and useful work of DIY. My friend Anna sawed off the top of a Morton’s salt container and filled it with wine supplies. She saves her drawer space for big things, like cooking utensils and graters. She didn’t want her corkscrews to get lost in the back of the pull out and wanted to show off this darling girl in a yellow slicker.

This is simple, for sure. But it made me realize I’d rather have someone make this for me (and maybe stuff it with a Wine Doctor Intelli-Stopper) than buy me something new.

(Please remember this post when we’ll push all of our favorite products on you!)

Photo via (MHM-DLO5) in Infinicam.

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by gansie

Pizza: Now a Vegetable and a Sleeping Bag

Pizza found itself in the press this week when Congress caved to the food lobbies – and ignored the health of the nation’s children – and agreed that pizza, with just a splattering of tomato paste, can count as a vegetable in school lunches. Total horse dung and totally watch Jamie Oliver mock the hell out of it.

Anyway, I’m here to restore pizza’s reputation. Because now the beloved slice can provide even more comfort: as a sleeping bag.

(Photo: The Clearly Dope)

by gansie

The Ghosts of Gourmet Past

Relive the golden era of food magazine goodness. The Way We Ate combines Gourmet‘s archival advertisements (hello, Teacher’s Scotch) with ancient glamour cover shots and extreme food close-ups. It’s still not the same as flipping through the soulful pages of the magazine, but with tumblr’s emphasis on photographs , it’s easy to fall in love with Gourmet again.

(Photo: The Way We Ate)

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by ML

Spike Your Juice: ES Taste Tests the Newest High School Trend

Here’s a post just for all of you who think whipped lightening is too fancy.

Apparently one of the newest trends among high schoolers this year is this stuff called Spike Your Juice. It was described to me by a former co-worker as “stuff you put in juice to make it alcoholic.” Naturally, as soon as I heard those words, instead of being appalled or horrified, I immediately ran over to my computer to figure out how I could get some of this stuff. I’m on a budget, ‘yo.

After some googling, I discovered this is supposed to taste like federweisser, some alcoholic German drink that I did not consume in Germany. When I asked my German resident expert, she said it “sounds like the stuff they give babies to get them to like beer.” Typical.

Make your own alcohol without a bathtub and the potential for blindness? Too good to be true. After gathering information and convincing the company to send me samples, I either thought this was a) a scam or b) a packet of yeast.

I poured it into a measuring spoon. It’s just yeast. But then I started to freak out about homemade alcohol horror stories. Would I die if I consumed this? Is this a terrible idea? Should I just walk down to the store and buy a $6 bottle of Jacquins?

No, no, and NO.

So I followed the directions and added one packet (contents in the picture above) to a 64oz container of cran-pomegranate juice that contained sugar. And I waited 48 hours. I tasted. It tasted like juice with yeast. So of course instead of waiting just one more day, I waited nine.

Ghost Ride the Whipahol

Finally, for those of you sick of just drinking your cocktails (so cliché), I have discovered yet another way to shove booze into your bodies!

My friend Dayna and I were spending a leisurely Saturday afternoon perusing a giant liquor store (you know, just the normal weekend activities) when we stumbled upon something that simultaneously delighted and horrified us: Whipped Lightning, aka whipahol, aka whipped cream alcohol! To be clear, I’m not talking about whipped cream flavored vodka (although, full disclosure, I have treated myself to that before and it is more delicious than I would like to admit). No, this was honest-to-god whipped cream infused with booze. To be more specific, as the can informs us, infused with “grain neutral spirits with natural and artificial flavors and artificial colors.” Oh good, grain alcohol and artificial colors, the cornerstones of any healthy diet.

Why the delight and horror? Well, obviously alcoholic whipped cream is hilarious. But also, scary, because it could be a slippery slope. The world doesn’t really need to make it more convenient for us to slip some booze into our everyday activities. Regardless, we decided the good outweighed the bad, so we selected our flavor (a simple “spiced vanilla” seemed like the safest bet) and trotted on home to spend some time with our new friend.

Food Heroes Shake Confidence

Sometimes we find heroes. Not often, but sometimes people push their way to the front. Expel wisdom. Shake confidence. And sometimes their name isn’t even Cecilia.

Anyway…

This person is Michael Pollan. He might not always be right. Or first. Or the best. But this dude’s got ideas. And I’m willing to listen.

For example, he tells the Washington Post’s Tim Carman:

We’ve gotten really good at it, but it turns out…that cheap food has enormous costs. In the same period of time that we went from spending 18 percent of our income on food to under 9 percent of our income on food, we’ve gone from spending 5 percent of our national income on health care to 17 percent of our income on health care. So we’re paying for that cheap food with our higher health care costs.

While he acknowledges low food price isn’t the full reason we’re struggling as a nation, he does consistently give valid points about our current life in food. And, he chooses to converse with Tim Carman, a wonderfully, metaphor-friendly writer, who knows a fucking thing about our collective relationship with food.

Join their conversation. Here and here.

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by gansie

Where’s the Toothpick? Lessons in Sustainability at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market

I saw cheese. I wanted to try. I couldn’t figure out how. Where were the toothpicks?!?!

While in San Francisco last month, my guide Justin took me to the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Browsing the strange, west coast juxtaposition of (summer) tomatoes—which are grown without water and is apparently a thing out there—and (winter) squashes and (tropical) avocados, brought this Northeasterner much pleasure and jealousy. But I found my curiosity pointed to a particular paper product.

I saw a stack of thin paperboard (pictured above) where a cup of toothpicks should have been. We got to the market late. My stomach growled. I needed samples to carry on, but my cross-country journey left me with little brain capacity.

How. To. Eat. Cheese. Where. Toothpick. Caveman thoughts bounced around in my head.

What. Is. Paper. Thing.