Firefly Drinks

Just a quick post to say that Firefly drinks are on to a good idea with the packaging. For each of the drinks in their range they feature a photo on the front of the pack that sums up the mood that the drink is intended to generate. For "Wake Up" below the picture is of a bloke jumping with energy...



The photo was taken by someone called Phillip Spears



What a stroke of genius from Firefly. Simply take an inspiring photo that sums up the mood that their drinks are trying to evoke, send it in and if they think it is better than what they already have they use your picture instead. Great marketing idea. Basically it is a much better version of what Jones Soda and Veddett beer do. I can imagine it working really well for Sharyn Wortman's Today was Fun teas.

Cool Chocolate Calorie Counter

I love this. Would it work for any other product I wonder?

This is from El Manco

"“Rompibollo” is a chocolate board which can be easly divided in pieces of different dimensions. On the relief of each piece, it’s shown the caloria count of chocolate."

Self Stirring Tea Cup

From the Telegraph - that bastion of tea drinking:

"The teaspoon could become a thing of the past after the invention of a mug that can stir liquid by itself.

All a drinker has to do to work the clever cup is gently swirl it. This sets in motion a ceramic ball positioned at the bottom of the mug that stirs the contents.

The device was invented by two French designers, who recently displayed it at the London Design Festival. Florian Dussopt, 23, said: "The cup aims at introducing a new way of drinking tea or another warm drink without using a spoon.

"The ball is put into a slightly protruding base to keep it in place when stirring and drinking.

"Users gently move the cup, like you would when swirling a glass of cognac, and the action pushes the ball around.

"The ceramic ball mixes all various sugars and milk at the same time, thus eliminating the need for a spoon. When you drink it the ball is blocked by the gravity in the recess of the glass. This eliminates the need for a spoon. Ceramic is a material that is hygienic and beautiful at the same time. The combination of glass and ceramic is aesthetically appealing in its formal interpretation of the traditional cup and saucer."

Bad news for teaspoon manufacturers everywhere. Personally, I don't see what's wrong with mugs? They've got these clever inventions called handles that stop you from burning your hands. They come in lots of different styles and it could be argued that they are a British icon. So why do we need some sort of Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker device for our tea?

Chocolate Pencils

Amazing choclate pencils from Off the Meat Hook:

"I've been drooling over this photo of chocolate pencils from Le Chocolat de H, an arty, high-concept, high-end chocolatier in Tokyo.

They wanted to emphasize the shavings- which in a pencil constitute waste- as a positive product instead of a waste product, so they've included a handy dandy sharpener so you can shave your pencils on top of a dessert. Brilliant and interactive!

They don't appear to be for sale online yet, so unless you are reading this post from Roppongi you may have a hard time getting your hands on a set."

Awesome Chocolate Keyboard

Geeky chocolate. Nice.

From Gizmondo.

Can you believe it?

From Slashfood but originally from Trekking Mahlzeiten

"This makes as much sense as "hot dog in a straw" or "soup in a bag," but it's real and it's ready to order: cheeseburgers in a can!

Yeah, I don't know what the hell to think about this. First off, I don't know if food like this is supposed to be in a can, and second, that cheeseburger couldn't have come from that can. It's bigger than the can is, and too put together and too neat. Then again, McDonald's burgers never look like they do in the ads either."

I've got a feeling this is for backpackers who couldn't possible cope without a cheese burger.

Sentimental Chocolates

I saw these on Coolhunting and thought how awesome they are. Would make a great little valentine's day pressie.

The only downside is that the only place that sells them seems to be in Austrailia called BaskaJon.

Scrabble Chocolate

This is brilliant. I really want this. Nerdy and tasty. Could it get any better? You can get it from Mary and Matt's General Store.

I guess they'd better watch out that they don't get sued like the guys who invented Scrabulous on Facebook. For more on the scandal read the Guardian aticle here.

Isn't cooking exhausting sometimes?

I saw this and got really excited given my new found interest in cooking using a car! This design for an exhaust pipe modification that cooks things won an award for the best idea that we could all be using come 2015! This extract is from Inventor Spot.

"Designed by an Iranian team, the "Exhaust Burger" transforms the tailpipe of your car into a mobile grill of sorts. Wow. Now that's creative, and also a little disturbing. The idea is that you stop the car when you are hungry, install the device (and pack some ground round into it - so hygenic) and you're on your way to a delicious hamburger, ready for you at your next destination."

The site also features some other brilliant ideas such as...

Wallet Cutlery





"Italian designer Alberto Ghiradello has come up with a creative solution to carting around cutlery. I don't know about you, but somehow I tend to find spoons hanging out in my bag all the time, and it can get quite annoying, especially when there's none in the kitchen drawer. This "Cutlery in a Wallet" set can be assembled whenever you need them, and then can be reinserted into the flat mold and housed in your wallet again, hopefully after a cleaning."

Bubble Wrap Tableware

"I always like when everyday objects take on new life with a different function, such as this unique crystal "china" modelled after bubble wrap. "Bubble" is made of cast polyester resin and looks like it would be a real pain in the butt to clean. This was a collaborative effort by U.S. artists."



And Musical Dining

"This piece, entitled "Musical Dining" was envisioned by Fumiaki Goto from the Netherlands and promises to bring some musical entertainment to your dining experience. It's made like a marimba, so when you place plates, glasses or different items on it at various points, different tones will emerge, transforming dinnertime into a jam session."



If you want to see even more weird and wonderful culinary inventions have a look here.

Fruit bowl to die for

I don't buy much fruit. I should buy more. Cowie would appreciate it if I did!

But if I had one of these I wouldn't be able to stop buying apples and oranges!



I found this on Treehugger and have fallen head of heals in excitement about it. It covers everything I like: food, design, green stuff, quirky things and the internet!

Slartibartfast was particularly fond of the fjords, but the whole world is covered in wonderful topography that one can read from contour maps with a bit of training, but cannot feel without being there. Until now, with Fluid Earth. This brings together so many ideas that we love at TreeHugger; mass customization, downloadable designs, creative use of the latest technologies to develop beautiful things. And what could be more beautiful than your favourite place on Earth?

"Fluid Earth bowls are unique works of art in the form of your chosen part of the earth. The beloved On-line Service Google-Maps enable you to quickly and easily design your own work of art. The world is truly at you fingers and can be filled with the fruits of the earth."



You go online and find your favourite spot and fiddle with the scale and dimensions; (most contour models have to be exaggerated vertically unless you are in the mountains) and play with it until you are happy;



then add to your cart. "After ordering your bowl the Algodes software generates the required production files. This is feed into the computer controlled (CNC) milling machine that forms a block of wood into your personal Fluid Earth. Since every bowl is different the surface is sanded and polished by hand and finaly protected with a natural oil. To keep your bowl looking fresh and new, simply apply a new coating of olive or sunflower oil."

Two weeks later you have your own little piece of planet Earth, preserved in wood. What a fabulous mashup of technology, art and design to make what must be the most creative use yet of NASA's databases, Google Earth, CNC technology and online shopping. ::Fluid Earth via ::Product Dose

Radiator Mug

Wow. I simply have to get my hands on one of these puppies. Awesome.





From Charles and Marie

"Ahhh, finally, is all we can say! We first met Stephen Reed at 100% Design in London last year where he sold the first prototype of his ingenious mug at the Super Design Mart, but it took 15 months to get it produced and it is perfect! Read on and see for yourself:

Anyone who has ever opened a PC or worked on an engine will see a resemblance to the fins that are used to cool specific parts that shouldn't get to hot. Well, the same applies here. Those fins – called heat sinks if you really want to know – cover the entire base of the mug, this way you can hold it without burning your fingers. Pretty nifty if you ask us… But don't be fooled by the temperature of your favorite beverage, whilst you may be able to hold the mug, it does not imply that it's ready to be enjoyed.

Next to the fact that it is a very cool idea, it is also a very elegant and good looking one and at 3.5" (9 cm) wide and 4.5" (11,5 cm) high, impeccably proportioned…"

Brilliant Bread and Butter

I've got a couple of week's off work so I pottered down to the Northcotte Road after spending all morning with the Sky Plus man to indulge in some artisnal purchases for brunch.

I got my bread, butter and pasta eggs from Breads Etcetera and some pasta flour and pancetta from the Italian deli opposite in preparation for tomorrow's lasagne.

The bread is a delicious seeded number and was delicious simply spread with slightly salted South Downs butter.





And it was even better still with some sausages, bacon, mushrooms and a gently fried, bright orange pasta egg.

Pain Quotidien Bread Menu Holder

From Flick via Boing Boing

Condiments to the Chef

I love the idea of using used (and washed) red L'Oreal shampoo bottles for ketchup dispensers. Likewise I've tried to turn Dove moisturising shower gel into mayonaise squirty dispensers! Colman's mustard is well catered for by popping it in a yellow fake tan tube.

The only problem is no matter how many times I wash the used cosmetics bottles out their's always a residual taste. I need to find a stronger cleaning solution.

I seriously want one of these!

From Boing Boing

"The Penguin Teaboy is probably the cutest way to be obsessive about your tea -- wind the timer in his belly, hook the teabag's string around his beak, and when the timer runs down, he'll raise his head and lift the bag out of the mug."

I am so excited about this and can't wait to get my hands on one of these puppies!

Black and Decker Power Tools for Real Men in the Kitchen

Wouldn't it be great if Black and Decker brought out a range of kitchen kit for men.

It would all be heavy duty, slightly rubberised, strudy looking stuff that would catch the eye and show everyone around you that you're serious about cooking. I've had too many appliances that break through fairly agressive use. Black and Decker kit would soak up the pain and just keep going.

You could draw inspiration from the way that Caterpillar moved from their digger base to selling clothing. In terms of build quality and masculinity brand like Hummer, Jeep, Land Rover and other rugged brands spring to mind.

They already have a range of fairly basic kitchen kit such as microwaves and coffee makers but it would be much more fun to rev things up into more heavy duty kit targetted at men.





Any feedback and ideas would be great! Let's see if we can get someone from Black and Decker interested!

VW Van Egg Cup

House mate Henry Richardson brought the best house present back from Devon... our very own VW camper van egg cup. I love stuff like this.

Lego Salt and Pepper Shaker

I am in love with my Lego Salt and Pepper Shakers even though both are pretty much unusable from a cooking point of view! Especially if you are using proper salt and pepper.

They are guaranteed to cause a stir.

Salt

I used to use Malden Sea Salt which is great but then I found Noirmoutier Fleur de Sel. It looks a bit like crushed, crystally marble. It's almost sharp to the touch but sprinkles on food like snow and I love it!





Wikipedia says Fleur de Sel is best used like a herb; simply sprinkled on food just before serving.

"Fleur de sel ("Flower of salt" in French) is a hand-harvested sea salt collected by workers who scrape only the top layer of salt before it sinks to the bottom of large salt pans. Traditional French fleur de sel is collected off the coast of Brittany & Noirmoutier, and is slightly grey due to the sandy minerals collected in the process of harvesting the salt from the pans. It is also produced in Camargue.

Also known in Portuguese as "flor de sal", the hand-harvested variant from the Algarve region of Portugal is becoming known, as it is of similar quality to the French fleur de sel or better. In addition, it has the advantage of being pure white and usually sells for half the price of the french fleur de sel.

Fleur de sel is best used similarly to fresh herbs, sprinkling it onto food just before serving."

Pepper

Good pepper makes such a difference. It's nose-tingling, lively, feisty and the making of many a meal.

A quick look at Wikipedia reveals all:

"Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The same fruit is also used to produce white pepper and green pepper. Black pepper is native to South India and is extensively cultivated there and elsewhere in tropical regions. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is a small drupe five millimetres in diameter, dark red when fully mature, containing a single seed.



Dried ground pepper is one of the most common spices in European cuisine and its descendants, having been known and prized since antiquity for both its flavour and its use as a medicine. The spiciness of black pepper is due to the chemical piperine. Ground black peppercorn, usually referred to simply as "pepper", may be found on nearly every dinner table in some parts of the world, often alongside table salt.

The word "pepper" is derived from the Sanskrit pippali, the word for long pepper via the Latin piper which was by the Romans to refer both to pepper and long pepper, as the Romans erroneously believed that both of these spices were derived from the same plant. The English word for pepper is derived from the Old English pipor. The Latin word is also the source of German pfeffer, French poivre, Dutch peper, and other similar forms. In the 16th century, pepper started referring to the unrelated New World chile peppers as well. "Pepper" was used in a figurative sense to mean "spirit" or "energy" at least as far back as the 1840s; in the early 20th century, this was shortened to pep.

Pepper gets its spicy heat mostly from the piperine compound, which is found both in the outer fruit and in the seed. Refined piperine, milligram-for-milligram, is about one per cent as hot as the capsaicin in chile peppers. The outer fruit layer, left on black pepper, also contains important odour-contributing terpenes including pinene, sabinene, limonene, caryophyllene, and linalool, which give citrusy, woody, and floral notes. These scents are mostly missing in white pepper, which is stripped of the fruit layer. White pepper can gain some different odours (including musty notes) from its longer fermentation stage.

Pepper loses flavour and aroma through evaporation, so airtight storage helps preserve pepper's original spiciness longer. Pepper can also lose flavour when exposed to light, which can transform piperine into nearly tasteless isochavicine. Once ground, pepper's aromatics can evaporate quickly; most culinary sources recommend grinding whole peppercorns immediately before use for this reason."

So pepper is a fruit! Never knew that.

Here's the pepper I've been using recently. I bought it from the pepper man at Borough market...



It's called Tellicherry Garbled Extra Special Bold and is superb. I love the way all the pepper corns look like mini footballs. Just don't spill it all over the floor!



With such good pepper, it would be sacrilege to use a crappy pepper grinder... so I invested in my pride and joy... my baseball bat pepper grinder.