The most beauitful artowork (media: paint) that I have seen in years

http://www.ranortner.com/

Rainbows in all foods

in jelly: http://dobetter.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/rainbow-jello/

in cake: http://www.omnomicon.com/rainbowcake

Luxirare has the most innovative culinary concepts I have ever seen

http://luxirare.com/thanksgiving-part-i/

when pyrotechnics and musicians merge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBydVCF4DrY&feature=player_embedded

“cute as button” soup!

Recipe + [pic]

If you can’t read french, the translation is as follows:

Ingredients

20 sprigs fresh chives

1.25 liters (5 cups) chicken broth

1 leek, coarsely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 sprig fresh thyme

Salt and pepper

2 to 3 large carrots

 

Directions

Dip chive 10 seconds in boiling water. Then rapidly cooled in ice water. Drain and keep.2. In a saucepan, boil the broth with leeks, garlic and thyme. Cover and simmer gently for about 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper. Strain the broth through a sieve. keep warm.3. Peel and cut carrots into slices 1 / 2 cm (1 / 4 inch) thick .4. Using the tip of a bamboo rod, drill to mimic a button. Slip the chives into the holes as a thread and tie the strands. If desired, cut the ends .5. Dip the buttons in the broth and simmer about 5 minutes. Serve the soup into bowl.

—

If I made it, I would exchange the chicken broth for vegetable.  It has also inspired me to make a cupcake to resemble a flower pot, topped with edible flowers

“Meatini”

Meatini  :  \ˈmēt\  \ˈtī-nē\

A scrambled egg, non-alcoholic drink, adorned with haslet (pork meatloaf) “ice cubes” contained within a martini glass made of bacon and haslet.  Accompaniments include a mushroom umbrella and black pudding (pig blood sausage) slice.

 

This sounds really unappealing to me, but it reminded me of the potluck assignment, and thought some of you might get a laugh out of it, if not like the idea.

“Banana Injector Fills a Banana With Ice Cream”

Such a patent was filed 77 years ago (in 1932).  Essentially, the device is two-fold.  It extracts the center of a banana, and then fills that hollow with ice cream, as depicted in the diagram.  The author of the article jokes, or perhaps encourages, that it is due time such a tool be brought to the public. While I like the possibilities of the  idea, I feel it is a bit fanciful, as bananas (these days) are not straight. , and therefore a simple straight rod device could not hollow out the banana.  

SIDE NOTE:  As the banana split, a popular dessert item involving halved bananas and ice cream was created  28 years before this patent, in 1904, maybe the inventor wanted to use this extractor/injector to create a simple on-the-go version of the banana split.

Be wary of what you invent…

Inventors Killed by Their Own Inventions 

Pseudo-support

On the bus ride home today, I saw that the Domino’s (fast food pizzeria) was declaring it’s Penn State “pride” with:

GO PENN STATE — BEAT AKRON

Yet I’m sure that in Akron, Ohio, the Domino’s are voicing: “Go Akron, Beat Penn State”

Ice cream, Inspiration, and Insomnia

I loved the first assignment given in class (ENGR 407).  We had to make a dish to bring to a potluck, with the only requirement being that the dish must include flavors that we would not typically consider to be synergistic.  Many ideas came to mind… lavender lemon cookies, lime bars with paprika and red pepper toping, pumpkin muffins with avocado icing… numerous possibilities!  I planned to make multiple dishes, but only had time to make the lavender lemon cookies, and though the flavors did compliment each other, I didn’t much care for the combination.  Maybe it was the butteriness of the cookies, that soured the clean taste of both the lemon and lavender.  Regardless, I recieved positive feedback from the other students.  

 

Since then, I have continued to think of “unusual” or “unthought-of” food possibilities…. corn-on-the-cob with blueberry butter, orange muffins with rose icing, basil ice cream…. and a friend thought to make curry carrot ice cream.  He is in the other section of ENGR 407.  I helped him make it, and it came out so delicious! If you love curry, or carrot, you’ll love this.  Just think of spicy indian food, complimented by  cool yogurt!  

 

When he first told me the idea, I thought to search the internet for other unusual ice cream flavors.  I hit the jackpot – a site listing 101 of seriously bizarre flavors for ice cream, or food in general.  Some notables:  fried eggplant, cactus, lettuce and potato, SOY SAUCE, CHARCOAL???!, silk??, SQUID INK… . whatever makes you happy 🙂