Toothpicks aren't glamorous but they beat food in the teeth. Instead of hiding them in a drawer, these porcupines allow guests to help themselves as needed. The Suck UK Pick UR Pine by Studio Mango is available at Greener Grass Design. Holding 29 sticks, the porcupines are made from food-grade silicone and available for $18 each.
I love freshly cut pineapple but it's a pain to start from scratch. The Vacu Vin Stainless Steel Pineapple Easy Slicer allows you to ignore the outer-layer while getting rid of the solid core. I've always thought Williams-Sonoma had already released every possibly kitchen tool possible but here's one to add to the collection. The slicer was found on The Fancy and available for $14.62 at Amazon.com.
My blog has featured numerous tools and appliances for the kitchen but this is the first time particular foods and recipes received special attention. All three items below were found on The Fancy and each looks so perfectly good that the calorie count (somewhere nearing infinity) is irrelevant. The food found on The Fancy matches the same criteria I use when finding modern objects for my blog: unique, aesthetic, and useful (more or less).
The Ham and Egg Crepe Squares were featured on Framed Cooks, a blog following Kate's exploration with cooking and photography. All her final products look absolutely delicious but the crepe squares appear unparalleled.
The S'mores Candy Bars were originally featured on Not So Humble Pie and look enticing. What I like about this recipe is its simplicity; three ingredients combined with two special tools create these dessert pieces that look professional and delicious.
The Cake Ball Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies take two of the best things in the world (chocolate chip cookies and gooey red velvet cake) and create a single product of (presumably) sensational taste. Originally appearing on SugarDerby, I'm sure you'd need to jog two hours to counterbalance one treat.
The BLANCORONIS Sink from Blanco features perfect accessories for the most convenient experience. Found on Yanko Design, the sink features a rotating glass cutting board and two stainless steel bowls. More details are available on the website but you'll need to visit a dealer to find it available for sale. Blanco also offers plenty of other sinks with similar concepts of modern design and sliding cutting boards to fit every kitchen.
The Artifact Lunch Bag is a classy and environmentally-friendly take on the classic brown paper bag. Found on Uncrate, the bag is made from waxed canvas and features a Horween leather strap and hand-hammered copper rivets. The $45 bag is more fun than buying lunch everyday but you'll need to wake up extra early to prepare it.
Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, found on Uncrate, explores the art and science of cooking through explanations that accompany six volumes of recipes. The 2,400 page collection gives you the expertise and techniques to cook and adjust with confidence. Available for $467 on Amazon, the new skills are sure to impress others.
The Flying Saucer Bowl Set by Museum of Robots is a modern take on retro design. The piece looks too perfect when assembled to actually utilize as a bowl but the sculpture adds character to the kitchen and pays homage to the world of robots. Available for $300 on AllModern.com, the piece was designed by Richard and Vicki Küng. The pair own both Museum of Robots -- a modern housewares company -- and Küng Design, which specializes in design for the web.
This nutcracker is a mixture of crazy good aesthetics minus practicality plus fun. The concept of Deez Nuts by Tan Jun Yuan reduces the necessary hand strain in favor of gravity. Found on Yanko Design, the concept uses a weight to crack nuts and keep the discards contained. Crack, life tube, eat, repeat.
Although no recipe or fresh produce will recreate the French Laundry, this mortar and pestel from Alessi can give your food an extra edge by helping you provide the freshest of spices. The kitchen instrument will force portion control on its users but you get to enjoy great aesthetics in conjunction with your health. The full name -- bear with me -- is the Alessi Cum Grano Salis Mortar and Pestel by Giovanni Alessi Anghini and Lorenzo Piccione di Pianogrillo. Available directly from Alessi for $27.00 it makes a great counter addition. I've featured Alessi before but this would make a particularly great pairing with the Alessi Kitchen Scale.
For $45, the Fresh Traveler by Arian Brekveld features two compartments for your parfait to avoid lunchtime sogginess. The double-walled stainless steel bottle keeps the upper chamber cold and the bottom half screws in to keep the dry food fresh. Uncrate mentions it would be good for mixed drinks but I'm not quite sure why you wouldn't mix your drink before hand, or why it's appropriate to travel with a big cup of alcohol when a flask is usually more appropriate. Whatever you decide (cereal and milk?), the container will help you get there. If you want a matching cup to drink from, check out the Tkara Water Bottle.
The Kalamazoo Outdoor Pizza Oven beats the heating coils at Domino's but the $6,495 poolside appliance doesn't come with an employee to staff the machine. I'm sure the food tastes great but you're going to need some spare time to buy and prepare all the ingredients to turn dinner into your own. Found on Uncrate.com, the oven gives the option of using a composite baking stone or integrated wood trade depending on the goal of your taste buds for the night. There's also a digital thermometer but without a pizza box to tell you what temperature and how long, there are going to be a few trail and error runs before it's mastered.
A long time ago I was looking for some black flatware to post on the website but I could find any I liked. Last night I was browsing the Design Within Reach website and came across their Almoco Flatware Set. With a simple design, matte black finish, and only $60, the set is an modern economical substitution to traditional silverware. Picture was retrieved from Chow's Winter Gift Guide.
As I was getting coffee today to help jump start homework, I saw a commercial for the new Delta faucet that features their Touch2O technology. For those times that you want to wash your messy hands but not the handle afterwards, you can tap anywhere on the spout or handle to get the water flowing. Also convenient when your hands are full, it allows you to use your arms or wrist, also helping to reduce the spread of germs and bacteria. When washing dishes, it makes it especially easy to conserve water by providing an easy on/off that reduces the incentive to letting the water flow until done, even turning itself off if you forget. Also available, and better-looking in my opinion, is the Venuto Smart Touch kitchen faucet from Brizo. Like the Delta faucet, the Venuto faucet uses touch technology to make kitchen work that much easier.
[/caption]
[/caption]To make the bread that prompts the beard bin purchase, you may want a kitchen scale that can accurately measure the precise weight of your ingredients. The electronic kitchen scale from Alessi is available for $169 and offers gram-by-gram measurements with inch-by-inch design.
As much as I like fresh bread, I don't have the time to knead and let rise, knead and let rise. The few times I've baked from scratch I didn't have a place to store the left overs... so I ate them. With a modern Bread Bin from Morph, you can store your homemade or bakery bread, or simply remove the bag your store-bought arrived in. Available for $89.00 on Generate Design, the wood block serves as a cutting board, making eating as easy as storing.
The Vinturi Wine Aerator and Tower add a dramatic flare to a routine glass of wine. Enhance the flavor of your favorite wine or make box juice feel classy. The actual aerator and tower are sold separately for $39.95 each or you can buy them as a set for $69.95 on the Vinturi website.
Philips recently released the new Robust Collection, a retro 5-piece set of kitchen appliances. Trying to convey a sense of durability, Philips has adopted an industrial silver coating for " the most innovative, durable and tough materials available." My favorite, the hand mixer, stands at £125 (about $200, available on Amazon) and definitely wins the price tag award. Sure, an extra $50 will buy a KitchenAid stand mixer, but for those times that you need to mix something light, style is priceless.
The Bamboo Charcoal Deodorizer, designed by Kiyoshi Nishio and offered through the MoMA for $25, is a compact air freshener for the fridge, closet, car, or wherever you need odor absorption. A lot classier than baking soda, the deodorizer is made of ultra-fine bamboo charcoal and clay mineral powder and can be re-used for up to one year by exposing it to sunlight once a month for six hours to release the absorbed contents.
This modern spaghetti package is a concept designed by Alex Creamer for a class at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. Featured on TheDieline.com, a website dedicated to great package designs, the NYC Spaghetti is modeled after the Chrysler Building in NY, though the concept can be applied to design. Says creator Alex Creamer:
I created this spaghetti packaging for a university project last year. The brief was to package one of 5 difficult items i.e. eggs, a rose, custard powder, spaghetti or marbles. I chose spaghetti. The spaghetti sits on a 3d model of the chrysler building that was modelled on CAD by my friend Ben Thorpe. And then modelled out of high density foam at uni. Creating a spaghetti model of the Chrysler building!
This fruit juicer by Philippe Starck for Alessi was created in 1990 and came from inspiration after a dinner of squid. Philippe Starck has created many great designs that have been featured on various websites that show up on this blog, but this is the first time I featured one of his products. After 19 years, the Juicy Salif Citrus-Squeezer is still available at Alessi for $90 in their online store.
