Food & Design | My dear Urbanite, we give you fresh sprouts from your own Microgarden

So you live in an apartment? No balcony to speak of. Definitely no garden or a yard. No worries. INFARM, a multidisciplinary firm and a research lab from Germany, has partnered with Tomorrow Machine, a Swedish design group, to provide an answer made of recyclable polypropylene sheet folded like an origami into a “greenhouse” inside of which sprouts can germinate and grow on a bed of seaweed-based gel, and appear in just 3 days. They have been crowd-funding for a while and now you can get the kit delivered to your door (look, read and select your perk here). Then, “peppery rucola, crunchy mustard and spicy radish” are not far off for your nibbling pleasure. Images from INFARM.

Food | Instant Noodles

Hooray for the instant noodle! Why? Around 57 years of age does not a nice round birthday make... So what?! Hooray because. Thank you Momofuku Ando. Where would a student and a “student” be without you?!  What I didn’t know, or rather didn’t as yet practice beyond fiery spice addition to the blander flavor packs, is the art of dressing up instant noodles. Yes, the concept of adding extras such as vegetables, eggs, meat, seafood, even milk or thicker sauces, is a revelation to me. Omelet mode, anyone? See for yourself if you are new to it, too – oh you, future master of Maruchan gourmet (see hack 36).  My mind boggles. Easily done. I am simple about it. Just the block of instant noodles boiled with included seasoning; I reserve the resulting broth for the cooked noodles to float in as I slurp them and to be drank. That’s the way I heart them. And the simplicity is the why I heart them so. What’s your way?

BOTH: INSTANT NOODLES FOR DUMMIES by ADJI HERDANTO via BEHANCE

Happy Thanksgiving!

Every day.

Norman Rockwell (1894 – 1978) is known for his depictions of American culture. “Freedom from Want” is from his “Four Freedoms” series, and is currently displayed at Art Institute of Chicago as part of “Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine” (Tuesday, November 12, 2013–Monday, January 27, 2014).

Food | Chopstick Know-How and Style, or Chopstick Etiquette with a Wink

SOURCE: KEN CORPORATION LTD. BLOG

Food & Fashion | Make it a meal. Chanel encased meal.

I am not sure if this is quite the nosh Mademoiselle Coco would've indulged in, but let’s not forget that the reigning Kaiser, Karl Lagerfeld, knows about indulging in food. His strict diet was survived potentially only by Diet Coke, so much so that he advertised the drink. I am also not sure if “Fashion is the healthiest motivation for losing weight”, but boy, it can be a fierce one. Still, a burger meal encased in Chanel insignia?! I’d eat that with styling gusto!

Food | Pizzeria in Shanghai

“As of May 2012, the city of Pudong in Shanghai, China has been going Italian crazy. The cause is made up of 5 simple letters that have been making everyone drool with just the hearing of the name; MATTO - meaning crazy mad or wild. An Italian restaurant that has made every resident in Shanghai gladly put down their chopsticks for the feeling of the pizza dough in hand.” – from yatzer

Food & View | Luncheon in the Alps?

Chamonix, France by Lu Chien-Ping | Source: TRAVELINGCOLORS via METROPOLITAN style

Cartoon & Food | Shichimi and Motsu

How has your week been? How about some irreverent nutty weirdness to get the weekend on the way?  And how about some nourishment ideas, too?
	“Shichimi Togarashi "Seven Spice" – This traditional seasoning from Japan means “seven flavor chili” and varies by the region. We handcraft our version by mixing together toasted and black sesame seeds, orange peel, white poppy seeds, Hungarian paprika, Chinese chiles, Szechwan peppercorns, ginger and toasted seaweed. The flavor is intense and does a fast paced dance on the tongue filling your mouth with a new sensation.”  – from Savory Spice Shop	“Motsu-nabe is a type of (hot) pot dish, which is made from beef or pork offal. A hot pot (nabe) is filled with soup, prepared beef or pork offal and boiled for a while; cabbage and garlic chives are added. The base soup is usually soy sauce with garlic and chili pepper, or miso. After eating offal and vegetables, champon noodles are often put into the pot and boiled to complete the dish.”  – from Shin-Sen-Gumi

Food | Weekend nosh

Source: pinterest.com via Monika on Pinterest

Food | Fed Saturday – Roasted Vegetables

Photo ©MAK @ M / M Details

Olive oil ● Potatoes cut into chunks ● Onions quartered if big, halved if small ● Pumpkin cut into chunks ● Carrots cut into chunks ● Celery stalks cut into chunks ● Salt and freshly ground black pepper Pour the olive oil into a roasting pan and put into preheated oven at 400 degrees F / 205 degrees C to heat ● If the vegetables are wet, pat them dry with a paper towels ● Remove the pan of hot oil from the oven and add the potatoes, onions and pumpkin ● Carefully toss the vegetables until the vegetables are coated with oil, then return to the oven and cook for 20 minutes ● Add the carrots and celery to the roasting pan and carefully and gently toss all the vegetables around to ensure even cooking ● Return to the oven and cook for a further 30 minutes ● When ready, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper and serve as a side dish, or the one and only dish you just have to have for comfort ● Enjoy!

Design | Still fascinated by “Save[ing] Food from the Refrigerator”

In Design | Recycle, Save and Style I mentioned a Korean artist who designed shelves that save food from the refrigerator. In this video Jihyun Ryou talks about the concepts behind her nifty shelves. 

Still liking it. A lot.

Design | Recycle, Save and Style

There is this guy out there (industrial designer Samuel Nelson Bernier) who takes recycling to creative level. His Project RE_ is a DIY haven that will tickle a greenie, saver, miser, inventor, xyz-er and/or kid in you. Kid you not! … ahem … never mind … For the iThingy lover who still wants to draw like in the olden days, we have a stylus made of a metallic paint brush, an eraser tip and some conductive foam. And Bob’s your uncle! And there is always a way to reuse those cans that lives up to the phrase “pushing iron”.

There is a gal out there (artist Jihyun Ryou) who can show you how to “Save Food from the Refrigerator”. I like her. See, she listened to those who observed what food needs to survive without technology, i.e. the refrigerator. She listened to the traditional oral knowledge and designed little shelves with add-ons that let you dry that parsley how it’s supposed to be dried, keep those spring onions upright and at right humidity to stay fresh longer, store eggs so they do not absorb refrigerator smells and can be tested for freshness right there and then. Ooo! Yummy! Did I say I like her?

There are these two dudes (designer Yves Béhar and entrepreneur Assaf Wand) who banded together and made pill popping, or rather storing, dosing, transporting and cutting, a beautiful proposition to those of us who are on a pharmaceutical regiment. Sabi is the name. A pill folio?! One could not enjoy one’s secret life as pill popping celebrity in more style and still, at least initially, keep it under the radar. And if in a sharing mood, there is a pill splitter, too. Oh my my, the parties! But seriously. We all need nice design no matter the reason why those pills are in our lives.

Food | Yakibuta Ramen by Cooking with Dog

There is 3-minute ramen, staple of many a student, and there is real ramen. My fav “chef”, Francis from Cooking with Dog, narrates the recipe dutifully demonstrated by his “assistant” (note to self: find out “assistant’s” name) this time for real Japanese ramen dish that originated in China. Yummy!

 

Food | Sushi “Inflight Passenger Announcement”, or Sushi Etiquette with a Wink

“Maa maa maa maa”      “Oh toh toh toh”

“Maa maa maa maa”      “Oh toh toh toh”

Food | Skagen

At a restaurant in Gamla Stan, Stockholm. ©MAK

Serendipity is an interesting thing. Before boarding the plane, I perused the magazine stand and grabbed one that I seem to acquire only at an outset of a trip. This time (June), I was on the way to Stockholm. Lo and behold, the front page of Condé Nast Traveler July issue boasted “SWEDEN Europe’s Foodie Sensation (17 spectacular restaurants)”. How’s that for coincidences?! This was a lead for a more aptly titled article, “The Girl with the Crayfish Tattoo: A Tour of Sweden's Rising Culinary Scene.” So here it was. The promise of, what some see as predictable food, but for me, clean palate. And I was up for the titular crayfish, aside from craving the denser bread. In comes Skagen. Crayfish on toast. Named after a Danish fishing port, it is “an elegant combination of shrimp and other ingredients on a small piece of sautéd bread … in Sweden toast Skagen is an appetizer that means “party.” ” As I found out, understandably, the recipe and the presentation come in many culinary permutations, and the appetizer can become a dish of its own: dill flavored sauce on the side, lettuce and asparagus, plus boiled egg (see photo). As Jamie Oliver asserts, it is an equivalent of English prawn cocktail sans ketchup mais avec, the ever important to its taste, dill. Easy, clean, and tasty. Låt oss äta!

Food | Stately Sandwiches

Now this is some fine project! And trending today. Stately Sandwiches is a brainchild of Kelly Pratt and homage to the sandwich as an expression of United States of America. So far, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia have been deconstructed and laid out for your inspirational pleasure, and hopefully debate. What’s your state?

Food | Movies to make you salivate, crave, hungry and even full

In no particular order. For starters J

Like Water for Chocolate Como agua para chocolate Emotions transferred into food. Literally.	Eat Drink Man Woman 理性與感性 Getting dinner ready. Wow. Banquet. Wow. Another dinner. Wow. Lunch … you get the picture.	Tortilla Soup Los Angelino version of Eat Drink Man Woman. I want my pico de gallo! And some.	Frida Not exactly food heavy, but did someone mention mole poblano?
The Big Feast La Grande Bouffe Gluttony par excellence. Is all that really possible?! The deadly part of the sin is the aim.	Chocolat Didn’t you crave some even under the threat of diabetes? Armande Voizin did.	The Mistress of Spices The magic of seasoning.	Eat Pray Love Mangiare. Io mangio; tu mangi; lui/lei/Lei mangia; noi mangiamo; voi mangiate; loro/Loro mangiano. Ancora!
Big Night Take it from the chef - certain food combinations are just criminal.	The Ramen Girl Actor snobs, sue me! It’s cute; it has ramen; it has a cameo from Tsutomu Yamazaki, the truck driving mentor in “Tampopo”; it has ramen. Ramen gooood!	Mostly Martha Bella Martha I want to be her therapist J	Today’s Special The first 10:54 minutes makes you understand how this sous chef’s life friggin’ sucks – demands at work and from ‘proposed’, and being looked over ‘cuz the chef doesn’t get a … just see it. Taxi driver to the rescue!

Food | Ramen Master, or How to Reverence the Ramen

Oh yes, my gentle foodies, savor it all, have affection for, caress and apologize to the pork, then just eat it J

From “Tampopo”.

Food | Tonkatsu serendipity

Couple of days ago, I had an urge to ‘clean up’ my virtual acumen, but what it resulted in was revisiting blogs, sites, diverting to new blogs and sites, establishing a new social link, checking out the current social links, wondering if I should look at or follow new links, adding new ‘Likes’, subscribing … put simply, the opposite of ‘clean up’. The intention was there but not the will. One of the blogs I revisited was Japanina’s Food Corner: Tasty Tonkatsu! One of my favorite Japanese cooked dishes, no doubt because it reminds me of my home’s comfort food. Tonkatsu is a breaded, deep fried cutlet similar to the Italian cotoletta, Polish kotlet schabowy, Austrian or German or Israeli schnitzel, or any other national variant. What makes tonkatsu different for me is the use of panko and the serving style of washoku, that is with rice, miso soup and tsukemono. This is when I started wondering what Francis the Dog and Chef de Francis are up to. Lo and behold, the video featured at their YouTube site was of how to make katsudon: tonkatsu finished off with cooked egg and served on rice. Tonkatsu! Of all things! If the craving continues, I will have to do something about it.

Here is the Cooking with Dog version, but if the egg part doesn’t grab you then see Japanina’s version, one I prefer.

Food | WTF?! Homaro & Ben of Moto totally spin it on its head

Yes, bypass the cow J