Stain is a unique tea cup created by Bethan Laura Wood, a designer from the UK. At first, the cup looks like any other cup, but the natural staining that comes from using the cup reveals a hidden pattern.
Bethan writes: “This project examines the assumption that use is damaging to a product (For example, scratches on an iPod).”
Here's a funny short video of Chinese people being exposed to fortune cookies (an American invention) for the first time:
Americans find high emotional attachment to the slips inside their cookies, looking to them for winning lottery numbers and becoming upset when the fortunes inside are unfortunate. The Chinese, on the other hand, would often tell me after trying the curved vanilla-flavored wafers, “Americans are so strange, why are they putting pieces of paper in their cookies?”
Marketers often have to come up with creative ways to gain a competitive advantage and sell T.S.O.C.—the same old crap. This requires repackaging common ingredients and giving them new (and newly trademarked) names and identities. Are they insulting our intelligence with their duplicity or does this type of marketing really work? If you’ve purchased the following products, you may have to side with the latter.
Bifidus Regularis and Bifidus Immunis = Yogurt
Certs—with Retsyn® = copper gluconate (the green specks), hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and flavoring. There is no such chemical as Retsyn.
Scope—with T25® = blend of breath fresheners
Quadratein™=Snickers Marathon Bar blend of non-proprietary ingredients
I must admit that I was more than a little blown away by the facilities at Figueira Rubaiyat in Sao Paulo. The entire restaurant is built around a 100-year-old (maybe older) fig tree that is nothing less than colossal in size.
Brazil has a lot of big trees, but you wouldn’t expect to find one in the middle of a city this size. The restaurant incorporated the great tree into its architecture putting about a quarter of the tree inside the restaurant with the rest outside. The tree appears to be meticulously maintained by experts.
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So much for objectivity. But results like this shouldn't be surprising. I've blogged about this before, but it's such a cool experiment that it's worth repeating. In 2001, Frederic Brochet, of the University of Bordeaux, conducted two separate and very mischievous experiments. In the first test, Brochet invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white wine.
The second test Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was a fancy grand-cru. The other bottle was an ordinary vin du table. Despite the fact that they were actually being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the differently labeled bottles nearly opposite ratings. The grand cru was "agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded," while the vin du table was "weak, short, light, flat and faulty". Forty experts said the wine with the fancy label was worth drinking, while only 12 said the cheap wine was.
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What these experiments neatly demonstrate is that the taste of a wine, like the taste of everything, is not merely the sum of our inputs, and cannot be solved in a bottom-up fashion. It cannot be deduced by beginning with our simplest sensations and extrapolating upwards. When we taste a wine, we aren't simply tasting the wine. This is because what we experience is not what we sense. Rather, experience is what happens when our senses are interpreted by our subjective brain, which brings to the moment its entire library of personal memories and idiosyncratic desires.
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My name is Nick, and I’m an all-you-can-eat-buffet-holic.
Thanks to an incredible metabolism, I’m able to eat 73 pounds of food in one sitting and not gain an ounce. This has spelled disaster for many area all-you-can-eat buffets whose owners break down and cry when they see me coming. I am a master of eating, and you can be too.
Okay, so maybe all-you-can-eat buffets (henceforth simply “buffets”) aren’t the best thing for your body; but a limitless food selection of questionable nutrition at a fixed price is a magical thing for people eating on a budget. One major problem has plagued buffet-eaters throughout the ages: a few plates later and you can’t eat any more. Even folks of gargantuan proportions often find themselves unable to down enough food to justify the price tag.
If things like health and being able to see your feet don’t really concern you, here are some tactics for eating your money’s worth at all-you-can-eat buffets that’ll have you striking fear in the heart of buffet restaurateurs everywhere.
My husband loves buffets, particularly Indian and Chinese, because he can eat a variety of foods. For this reason, buffets can be a wonderful dining experience. But is this necessarily good for our health? It all depends. You probably don’t need to continue reading if:
a. You’re an athlete and in training (and usually eat buffets to keep up your weight)
b. You work out regularly and/or don’t usually gain weight/feel too full after a buffet.
But for those of you who usually indulge at buffets and end up feeling guilty afterwards, this article is for you! A buffet shouldn’t leave you feeling bloated, lethargic, or guilty for consuming food. Instead, it should leave you feeling satisfied because you were able to enjoy a variety of foods and walk away without having to unbutton that first button of your pants!!
So, for you buffet-goers, here are some suggestions:
(CBS) NEW YORK We've been dealing with the pocket-emptying effects of rising gas prices, new electric rates, and an increase in cab fare, but how would you feel about breaking the bank all for...a pizza? Now you can find out thanks to Manhattan restauranteur Nino Selimaj, who has apparently brought from the heavens a real "pie in the sky" with his new $1,000 pizza.
The pizza will be added to the menu at "Nino's Bellisima," one of Selimaj's six restaurants in the city. Forget traditional cheese and pizza sauce, the record-priced pie will be topped with creme fraiche, chives, eight ounces of four different kinds of Petrossian caviar, four ounces of thinly sliced Maine lobster tail, salmon roe, and a little bit of spice with wasabi.
"Let them say I'm crazy," Selimaj says. "But I believe in this product, and it's gonna sell!"
So who's gonna buy this pie? Selimaj is betting Wall Street business types.
The previous international record for pizza found on a menu was $193 at Gordon Ramsey's Maze restaurant in London.
I just caught "Eats of Strength" on INHD. Trust me, you don't want to see ugly, overweight guys gobbling food like maniacs in High-Def.
Flavors: Turkey and Gravy soda, Sweet Potato Soda, Dinner Roll Soda, Pea Soda, Antacid Flavored SodaMore.
[Dessert] Flavors: Cherry Pie, Banana Cream Pie, Key Lime Pie, Apple Pie, Blueberry Pie.
Also included: medicinal cup for accurate servings!
Flavors (click to see nutritional information):Cherry Pie, Banana Cream Pie, Key Lime Pie, Apple Pie, Blueberry Pie.
Fun fact: All sodas are completely vegetarian, certified kosher, and contain zero caffeine, calories, and carbs.
Scott Wilson won't eat his newest flavor of ice cream.
He warns customers at his ice cream shop away from it. And he's not even sure whether he'll make another batch when he runs out.
It's called Cold Sweat.
Along with milk, sugar and the other usual ingredients, the ice cream is made with three kinds of peppers and two kinds of hot sauce. It's so spicy that just touching it makes your fingers feel hot.
The durian is a large, spiky fruit, native to the tropical rainforests of South-East Asia - where is is known as "the king of the fruits".
It is known to those who hate it for its penetrating, powerful smell - and to those who love it for its wonderful taste.
The texture is like a sort of slighly fibrous custard.
The taste is unique. Custard, almonds, and perhaps a hint of garlic. Or perhaps banana, papaya, vanilla, and - rotting onions.
To those who appreciate it, eating durian is often an incredible, beautiful experience.
Disturbing news reports are leaking out of Australia. Apparently U.S. customs has banned the importation of Vegemite into the United States. What will Aussies living here do without their favorite food?
The great Aussie icon - faithfully carried around the world by travellers from downunder - contains folate, which under a technicality, America allows to be added only to breads and cereals.
