Owl Wine Opener by Hagino Mitsunobu

I'm always a sucker for cool little kitchen gadgets, and this one caught my eye browsing Notcot today. It's quite sexy. Gunna hunt this sucker down when I'm in Japan later this week!!






(images from notcot.com)

Read more here:
http://www.notcot.com/archives/2010/04/kd_style_wine_opener.php

Koshi Kawachi

Stumbled across an awesome-fun Japanese artist named Koshi Kawachi today on Pinktentacle (via Tokyomango). He finds everyday Japanese things and transforms them into new forms of everyday life and art. Love it.

"うまい仏 - Tasty Buddah" Figures carved out of Japanese sweet snacks, or dagashi.





for more images:
http://www.koshikawachi.com/gallery/02ub

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Also found out he's into gardening. Manga Gardening to be exact.









for more images:
http://pinktentacle.com/2010/04/manga-farming/

Edible Flags

A friend sent this to me today, and i thought it was pretty darn awesome, so decided to respost.

"Whybin TBWA Australia and The Sydney International Food Festival cooked up a clever way to promote last year’s fest — they used iconic foods from the participating countries to recreate their flags. From the green-white-red of basil-spaghetti-tomatoes to the orange-white-green of tikka masala-rice-saag, the results are both appetizing and a little reminiscent of middle-school geography class. Which brings us to our challenge: Can you correctly identify these 12 culinary flags?"

Here are a few of my favorite ones:











Check out the full article and rest of the flags here: http://flavorwire.com/83573/guessing-game-edible-flags

Sea Salt Caramels

I've been meaning to blog about these guys for a few weeks, and now I'm finally getting around to them. Ever since experiencing raw caramels earlier this year, I feel like I have gained a new level of appreciation for caramel and the rich simplicity behind them. So I was overjoyed when a good friend got these for me.

The Little Flower Candy Co. specializes in caramel creations and are obsessed with making quality products from simple quality ingredients. They are located on the border of Pasadena and Eagle Rock, in a nice little quiet neighborhood.

I had to eat a few on different occasions to finally make up my mind, but you can really taste the quality and time put into producing these candies. They may not be as orgasmic as the raw caramels, but a great product never the less. But it did take a few sittings for me to really appreciate them.

Impressions: Off the bat, they come across almost too salty, it's almost shocking to taste candy this salty. But then the sweetness kicks in and becomes a little more bearable. But the finish is still a little overwhelming, the candy leaves your mouth a little tingly, that feeling when you know you had a little too much salt on something. Initially, I also thought they might be a little too oily, but changed my mind as I was chewing them. If they were any less oily, they would be too sticky to chew properly and would probably be a distraction from the experience.

But the epiphany came tonight as I was sipping on some late night coffee, and wanted something sweet to accomodate my late night sweet tooth. I quickly ate one caramel, and proceeded to sip on my coffee, and instantly realized that these caramels and coffee complement each other perfectly! The borderline overwhelming salty and sweetness of the caramel became balanced because of the coffee's bitterness, and they both started to bring out each other's more subtle notes for a perfect pairing. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but I now have a new favorite accompaniment for coffee.





The Little Flower Co.
http://www.littleflowercandyco.com/
1422 W. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena 91105

My new friends.

Got a bunch of new cook books to add to my food library! Traded them for a bunch of art books I did not need anymore, so got all but one for almost free!



Just want some books by TK and Rick Moonen, and I'll be set for a while.