What goes with what?

What goes with what? Do oysters go with asparagus, bacon and mozzarella? Taste Buds: Complementary flavours, an extremely interesting and accurate infographic created by David McCandless and Willow Tyrer, recommends different herbs, spices and ingredients, for different types of food in order to create a good-tasting meal.

via Information is Beautiful

See also:

• This is not a food blog but…
• A Ming cupcake
• Don’t stuff yourself on this one

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Food for inspiration

Walt Whitman used to have oysters and meat for breakfast, Emily Dickinson preferred her own home-baked bread, whereas Marcel Proust used to drink espresso to write his “In Search of Lost Time “, and not madeleine as we would have guessed.  Even great writers and poets want some little treats for inspiration.

lllustration by Wendy MacNaughton.

via New York Times

See also:

• I shall not live in vain
• In literature / hidden haikus I have found / unexpectedly
• In their own words

Killing time on a tablecloth

Killing time is never easy either you are in an airplane or in restaurant, but it can be creative. Illustrator Guibo draws his napkin tablecloth while he waits for his food, integrating in his drawings elements of the table.

See more after the jump

Read it elsewhere

Slim pickings:

• It’s true what they say, there is a tumblr for everything – fugly android interfaces
• What kind of twitter user are you? (infograph) – daily infographic
• I assure you that a post with the title “Unspeakable Bodily Fluids and Genitalia: A Short, Revolting Intro to the Finest Metaphors in British Food Criticism” is a good read – GOOD.is
• Bringing the bling to Anakin: Darth Vader’s helmet gets the artist treatment – total film
• These post stamps for the 50 years of the Royal Shakespeare Company are amazing – creative review

Broken promises: bergamot cupcakes

A while ago I promised never to blog again about food I made. It’s now time to break that promise. And on good grounds too. You see, this is an original recipe by yours truly. TA DA.

I have a bergamot tree in my garden. Its smell simply makes me happy. But there is not much you can do with bergamot fruits – despite their godly fragrance they are actually very bitter, their juice included. Yesterday we cut all the fruit from the tree because it was ripe and perfect. So there were 4 bags of bergamot oranges in my kitchen. I couldn’t just let them rot. Then the idea hit me: when in doubt, make cupcakes.

So, I used The Hummingbird Bakery‘s recipe for lemon cupcakes as a reference and with a couple of changes and adaptations here and there I created my first recipe. Check it out after the jump.

A Ming cupcake

I love contrasts. Of color, of texture, of style. And a contrast of style is what first caught my eye in Ming Makes Cupcakes. That and my weak spot for cupcakes, that is. But back to the point: I just love the contrast between the luscious maximalism of the cupcakes and the severe minimalism of the layout. Oh the conflict, the tension!

But I want to give (more) credit where credit is due. The recipes themselves are great, with some twists and surprises (flourless chocolate cupcakes anyone? Sour cream fig cupcakes? Port wine and cherry chocolate? Beet chocolate?). I plan to start trying them ASAP.

Oh, and a last note on usability: although every recipe (image & text) is an image, the blog has a text only version where you can read and copy/paste text from. Nothing to complain about.

Don’t stuff yourself on this one

The web might be small but it’s a wondrous place. Filled with exciting things. We blog about them daily. But once in a while you find something that, for some strange reason, completely fascinates you to such degree that you keep thinking “why haven’t I discovered this earlier?”

That’s the case for me with they draw and cook, a little gem of a food blog. The idea is simple: each post is a recipe, but the recipe is illustrated by an artist or designer. Some minimal, some whimsical, some literal, some abstract, every single recipe is a delight. So much so, that I had great difficulty choosing a single one. So here come a lot of recipes:

This is not a food blog but…

I made oreo cupcakes today and I need to share it.

Food blogs have taken the world by storm and, as with craft blogs, everybody and their mother has one. So we are not eager to join the trend. We do enjoy reading them, though, and when I found this recipe at annie’s eats, I couldn’t help myself.

And then I got this urge to blog about it. I finally get why people do it. They fight the ephemeral. Cooking, sewing, crafting are all about making something that will be used and then, sooner or later, consumed. It is not art. It is still somebody’s creation though, and that somebody will fight will all their force to immortalise it. That’s why people blog.

As for me, it’s an one-off thing, I promise. Unless I get addicted to food porn blogging, that is.

See more pictures after the jump.

The ephemeral beauty of bento

The bento is no ordinary lunch box. It is a culinary universe, contained in a lunch box. I admit to having a soft spot for Japanese food and Japanese aesthetics, so it’s no wonder bentos fascinate me. Not just because they are beautiful. Because there is a whole different approach to food behind them.

• Bentos elevate the idea of a lunch box. Not the rushed junk lunch one usually has at work, but the kind you take time to prepare for yourself or loved ones.
• Bentos celebrate the ephemeral beauty of things. The beauty you glance at for a few seconds after opening the bento box and before devouring your lunch. So zen.
• Bentos are all for portion control (bento boxes are notoriously small) and healthy food choices (traditionally rice, fish, vegetables and fruits are the prefered bento choices)

Bentos range from minimal to elegant…

…and from kawai (cute) to completely outrageous (and some times kitch)

See a gallery of the best bento boxes we found on Flickr after the jump

My Bloody Valentine

British avant-garde patissier Lilly Vanilli prepares these almost-beating, bloody-heart cakes. Originally featured on Ash’s music video for Carnal Love, they are now available for order in time for Valentine’s day (for the lucky ones who live in the UK).

Pantone cookies

There seem to be Pantone merchandise everywhere nowadays (this, for example), but handmade Pantone cookies? Brilliant!

Graphic designer Kim Neill made these from scratch as a corporate gift to her clients – in a variety of colors and in impressive quantities. On top of that, she calls the process easy.  I am truly impressed.