science – Beyond The Kitchen Sink

The New AeroGarden’s Are Here, The New AeroGarden is here!

I wonder what a tomato has to say?

Okay, maybe an Alexa enabled garden isn’t really about giving a voice to fruits and vegetables. (Who knows what plants have to say?) But what Alexa does do for you is help you control your new countertop garden. The AeroGarden Bounty Elite – Stainless Steel (Alexa-Enabled) is a new 2019 version of the popular indoor garden.

Featuring a sleek look and automated controls, year round veggies and herbs are only a countertop away — if your veggies have anything to say about it that is.

Yum, Jupiter!

Behold the Jupiter Structural Layer Cake from Cakecrumbs! The spherical cake was constructed using two hemispheres complete with delicious representations of rock, ice and liquid metallic hydrogen that are thought to inhabit the planet’s core.

In cake speak, this translates to a core made of mudcake, surrounded by almond butter cake, surrounded by a tinted vanilla Madeira sponge. Thereâ€™s a crumb coat of vanilla buttercream underneath the fondant.

Mmm, The Great Red Spot never tasted so goo.

(Via Boing Boing)

Ceramic Egg Rack

Kikkerland Ceramic Egg Rack

How do you tell the difference between a hard-boiled egg and one that is raw? By what they are served in, of course!*

Some may want to live on the edge and crack a dozen open to find out if they are cooked or not, but others may wish to consider the Kikkerland Ceramic Egg Rack. It holds a dozen eggs, looks good on the table and won’t turn into a runny mess when it comes in contact with a hard-boiled egg.

* Okay, okay. The secret is to give them a spin. The cooked egg will stop spinning while the raw one will start again when released–without being egged on to.

Mr. RootBeer Root Beer Kit

As far as soda and the like go, one usually doesn’t know what is on the inside. And after picking up this Mr. RootBeer Root Beer Kit you still might not know what is on the inside, thanks to the inclusion of the mysterious “Root Beer Mix.” But, you’ll still have two gallons of the stuff. Product details (and oh, very well, the ingredient list) continue on below…

Ten Food Additives And What They Add (Or Subtract)

Grocery store aisle — Image source: Diana Banana (clickable)

Time for some good weekend reading. Checking out my RSS feed, I find a nice little list of 10 food additives and what they are used for. Yum!

8. Caramel Coloring

When you don’t have real cocoa to put in food, but you want to make it look like you did, you add caramel coloring. This is sometimes added to mixes and cake batters to make them look chocolatey. Mostly, though, caramel coloring is added to cooked meats, sodas and gravies to give them the golden-brown look that people find appetizing. It’s made by cooking up various sugars with agents like ammonium or alkali. Although it’s possibly carcinogenic, it hasn’t been yanked from shelves, because people love brown food. Love it.

If you want to find out what gives popcorn that (not exactly) buttery taste, or what alkali does to chocolate, check out the source link below.

(Via io9)

***Update: Link originally pointed to io9 (10-food-additives-that-youre-eating—-right—-now) which Gizmodo apparently ate. They do have a somewhat similar list up here.

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

“The most important book in the culinary arts since Escoffier.” –Tim Zagat

Still hot of the press, and already Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking is creating a stir. Eliciting comparisons to the Auguste Escoffier tome, Le Guide Culinaire is no small feat. (Ironically, that 100-year old text has an upcoming release date for a new revised English translation.) Consisting of six volumes and almost 2,500 pages, Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young and Maxime Bilet combines stunning photography with detailed explanations, giving the modern cook a true guide to the culinary arts.