food

florence streets
egg noodle and mushroom truffles

I’ve been dancing and prancing around Florence for the past week and will finally have time to check out the city over the weekend. A stop by the Duomo, the huge galleries, and famous churches is a must. The architecture here is charming, unique, and fluent thriving with colors and hand made rustic materials. Food so far has been ok….a few amazing meals (truffles above, egg noodles, mozzarella(buffalo), meat, salads), and a few misses due to my trust in touristy areas. An endless supply of amazing wine, cheese, coffee, and gelato exists in every corner while the weather has been cloudy, rainy, but sunny at times. If the weather is nice over the weekend, I’ll probably rent a Vespa and cruise abouts the hills fashionably with my camera in one hand.

The people I have met so far locally are incredibly friendly, fashionable, jazzy, and passionate about Italy. Many of them smoke, all of them ride Vespas, and all must have coffee. The city of Florence is annoying to an extent that there are toooo many tourists and some local businesses take advantage of that in unkind ways. The nightly streets are packed full of fake brand goods, but it gives the place charm in a funny way.

I’m trekking over to Milan on monday, so if you have any must do’s there, let me know..otherwise, I only plan to visit a few churches and the Italian Design Triennale as my flight is the next morning back to gloomy yet good ole Boston.

I’ll have a more visual report once I return, but for now, I’m going to experience Italy and try to stay away from my laptop as much as possible besides work reasons. Ciao!

dark restaurant

Here’s something I would have never thought up….serving dinner in total darkness as a restaurant theme. I love the idea of heightning your senses for food, but I wonder how many times I would flip food into my face or nose. I guess I’d avoid the noodles or soups and hot BBQ plates. Otherwise, I wonder if the users eat like blind cavemen using their hands. A dark room food fight with thousands of marshmellows could be fun.

“The first dark restaurant in Asia is officially opened on the 23 December 2006. This restaurant, located in Beijing, China, has its interior painted completely black. Customers are greeted by a brightly lit entrance hall and will be escorted by waiters wearing night vision goggles into the pitch dark dining room to help them find their seats. Flashlights, mobile phones and even luminous watches are prohibited while in this area.

The meal will be taken in this environment with the complete loss of vision. By starving one’s sense, your other senses are stimulated to full alert – all so the theory goes – and your food will taste like it’s never tasted before. In case you are wondering about the washrooms, they are all brightly lit. Link [in Chinese] ”

via neatorama

g pure energyA few weeks back the iconic creators of Voss Water sent me a case of their new drink G Pure Energy to try out.(thanks melissa!) At first I thought it would be another over caffinated and marketed drink in a very busy sector, but oh was I wrong. I was sent two awesome flavors: Orange Blossom and the Zero Carb Lime both in their squeeze shaped glass bottles with metalic covers. I was also sent a folder containing some zesty cocktails mixes which I have not had a chance to try out but will do so for some upcoming spring parties. So now for testing it out… I snapped open a chilled bottled and gave it a sip. It was snappy, fresh, smoothe, and poppy like champagne. It had a soda like touch but much cleaner without the sugar though sweet enough to enjoy. Unlike many other energy drinks, it didn’t leave a weird after taste, but more like a healthy dose of carbonated water with a kiss of sweetness. Super chilled was a must. It was almost like carbonated water with a bit of a zest which I enjoyed. The only minus was that these bottles emptied fast at 200ml. I’m not sure how much energy these actually gave me but the refreshing zest made me smile. I’ve never seen these in stores, but if you do, give it a go! I’ll post a pic of two of the bottle chillin in the snow on my porch after the jump.

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pink pitaya dragon fruit

Wow…OMG that looks soooo good! I personally loooove eating dragon fruits, but I’ve never seen a flamming pink one like the one above! As much as I crave dragon fruits, this picture made me mentally drool. Not only does an image like this capture my attention, curiosity, and thoughts, but it ignites my tastebuds. I’ve always wondered how to extract that magical element in food into product design. Sure, there’s amazing packaging, housewares, utencils, glasses, and items that surround food, but how can product designs in say laptops, pens, chairs, cars, etc make me drool like food does? I’m not sure, but I do believe in the idea of sense being enhanced or triggered by the other senses…like hearing through images, or seeing through touch.  Here’s a pretty cool thesis bases on that idea called “Synesthesia”.

via deliciousdays (a very inspiring tasty blog)(fyi: designers looove kick butt food)

urban exam all look the same
The incredibly fun and rather tough “We All Look the Same” test to differentiate between images of Chinese, Korean, or Chinese people that I posted about before has expanded their face test to several other cultural tests in their “Exam Room“. Besides faces, the test now includes Modern Art, Architecture, Photos, Urban Scenes, Food, and Architectural Details. I took the food test and scored 14/18, but I failed miserably at the Art test with 9/18. Go take the tests and feel proud or miserable about your eye for asian culture.

FYI: If you prefer not to create a login account, use one I created:
login: designverb
password: designverb

bossa acai juice
On one of my “let’s try a new drink” journeys at the grocery store, I grabbed a small bottle of Bossa Acai Juice(mango). So, what is Acai exactly? According to the label Acai is a purple rainforest berry that claims to be the “World’s most healthy Fruit” with the highest amount of antioxidants surpassing our beloved Pomegranate fruit. This was enough for me to give it a go, and I’ll have to say, it was delicious! Served chilled, it was very refreshing, and just enough to give you a boost of energy from the 10 oz bottles. I’ll have to grab a case of these next time around.

fizzy fruitIn the past few years, there have been tons of companies trying to find the next big snack for kids that are actually healthy. Well, for my taste, “Fizzy Fruit” just might be this next big thing!!!

“Fizzy Fruit — whole grapes or slices of apples or pineapples carbonated in a secret process with the same carbon dioxide that’s in soft drinks but without added sugar.”

Yup, it’s giving healthy fruits that pop much like in PopRocks, a fresh sparkling apple cider, or a nice bubbly Bellini. Personally I get that snap in a nice crisp cold grape, but this only guarantees that pop in a fizz format now.

I have not actually tried FizzyFruit yet, but I first heard about carbonated fruit at PopTech! when Chef Homaru Cantus of Moto Restaurant in Chicago showed us how he used carbonated oranges to squeeze fresh orange soda for customers right in front of them.

Another great find by the BookofJoe along with a “how to” for making this carbonated fruit yourself ;). Pretty simple.

steps:
1. Place dry ice in cooler.
2. Place fruit of your choice in cool, but NOT touching the dry ice.
3. Close the cooler and let it sit overnight.
4. Enjoy your carbonated fruit!

USAtoday article.(article after the jump)

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POM juice teaI just treated myself to a refreshing glass of POM Juice Tea (Pomegranate Lychee Green Tea to be exact). Besides the zesty taste I’d like to point out the simple and sustainable container, which is shaped like a glass cup! Yup, it’s that simple. You pop off the top, and enjoy it like a fresh glass of juice. Better yet is that you can add it to your shelf for reuse. It’s a good thickness glass which I like more than most of the glass cups I have anyways. If your more of a herbs person, the cap pops back on airtight. Extra points for POM, their wonderful juices, and now their sweet sustainable glass containers!

Robin Hood Restaurants

What a kick-butt idea!!!

“These pay-as-you-can cafes have missions that are unapologetically altruistic—call it serving up fare Robin Hood style. “Our philosophy is that everyone, regardless of economic status, deserves the chance to eat healthy, organic food while being treated with dignity,” explains Brad Birky, who opened SAME with his wife, Libby, in October. Customers who have no money are encouraged to exchange an hour of service — sweep, wash the dishes, weed the organic garden — for a meal. Likewise, guests who have money are encouraged to leave a little extra to offset the meals of those who have less to give. “We’re a hand up, not a hand out,” says One World owner Denise Cerreta, who prides herself on the fact that everyone can afford a meal at her café.

The cafés’ business models have won fans among the city’s well-to-do residents, many of whom regularly dine there. At One World, patrons have given Cerreta a car, bought new dishes, arranged to professionally clean her carpets, supplied new tile for the restaurant bathrooms, and donated property for an organic garden and funded a new irrigation system for it. Last week, a gentleman left a $50 bill next to an empty bowl of soup at SAME. Since opening, one man has regularly come in and left money on the counter without eating, stating “I was blessed today so I though I’d pass it on.” He’s homeless.” via TIME.

I’ve always been a fan of exchanging ones time for another rather than diving into money talks. This probably occurred when I had to pay a lawyer recently, but I did continue this trend when my friend needed a design for his CD album. I knew he had little money, so I said I’d do it for free in exchange for his time down the road. I spent 15-20 hours designing the cover for him, and in exchange he said he’d give me a free concert (you know who ya are 😉 ). Buh yeah to to community driven ideas!(much like my thoughts on search engines)

SAME (SoAllMayEat.org) was inspired by another cafe, OneWorldEverybodyEats.com, for this great initiative.

Neatorama links us to a great video of a street vendor in China creating sugar animal lollipops by hand. I’ve seen this many times in in person, but it still fascinates me to see it over an over again. This reminds me that if you can spark someones attention through the creation of your art it’ll make the buying and product experience more thrilling than just buying an end product like most objects are sold today.

terracycle inc tom szaky

Wow! What an amazing story, idea, and kick-butt revolutionary company. Terracycle delivers the most eco-friendly consumer product in big box retail shelves made entirely by garbage, yet with a higher quality than most competitors and at a lower price! So, how they they do it? They use garbage!!! Founder Tom Szaky(23 yrs old when he founded TerraCycle and a freshmen Princeton dropout), explains, they get paid to take garbage away and they get paid to sell their new products. Their main product is a liquid worm poop fertilizer which is created by feeding red worms organic waste in return for their castings which get mixed with water to create a rich organic fertilizer that’s proven to be better than MiricleGro or various other competitors which are chemically driven rather than organic.(or as they claim, “The proof is in the poop!”)

Now with a great product came the task of packaging it. When they first started up, they had no money to purchase fresh bottles, hence another innovation…they ran around town collecting used soda bottles, cleaned them, added labels, and used that! They saved tons of money this way and also did something new in the product world; every single bottle was different, be it an old Pepsi bottle, Coke, Water, Sprite, etc. Their spray tops are even extras that have been dumped by manufacturers of other spray-on products and even the boxes that the plant-food is shipped in are misprinted rejects from major companies. Yup, it’s garbage made into huge profits at its best!

TerraCycle is a definite company to watch out for in our sustainably driven world. I’ve seen many companies re-use recycled goods, but I’ve never seen one come out with a product that can be used again, cost less, and is better than competiing products. They also have a pretty cool name tag concept to get kids pumped about recycling. Watch that video here.

For a deep read into TerraCycles company dig into their websites video and stories, this detailed article at Inc.com, or for a quick view, watch the YouTube video above.

More pics after the jump.

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derren brown

Does your environment persuade the way that you think, act, and create? Absolutely yes! Watch this video of mind control magician Derren Brown manipulate some advertising creatives in a little test. Believe the video or not, I’m a huge believer that everything affects who you are; what you eat, read, watch, listen to, and especially the people and environments that surround you. After watching the video, watch the other great videos, books, and observations then question how everything around you influences and creates who you are.

I’m constantly coming up with definitions for a designer, but I never thought I’d say a magician, but I’m adding this to the list since magicians are masters of human observations and directions. As a designer, we have to understand how people perceive products, graphics, materials, instructions, sounds, time, spaces, etc. We create stories to consumers, viewers, and observers. As designers we are psychologists of human behaviors, marketers, advertisers, creators of direction and communications, and a bit of everything else.

Dig deep into Derrens websites here and here and get inspired, educated, and entertained about the human mind and more about ourselves.