I Left My Tart In San Francisco

And my Warren Pear pate de fruit.

Not to mention my raspberry white chocolate sandwich cookies...


Oh, yeah, and there was my chocolate fig jam.

The team at Tell Tale Preserve Company are previewing their to-be-amazing patisserie and delicatessan (opening in Spring of 2011 off SF's Union Square) with a monthly goodie bag filled to the brim with gorgeous house-made sweet and savory bonbons and preserves. Good news, East Coasters, the beatiful little treats can be shipped right to your doorstep.

The golden grab bag, a burlap sack of promise. And a real steal at $35 bucks.

Other vittles of the past play to our salted sweet tooth, including this smoked almond brittle:

And, yum, these volcanic salt caramels:

Santa, baby, I'd love my stockings stuffed with these bad boys.

My New Main Squeeze

Remember that amazing gold spray paint for your food? (Mom and Dad, get ready because we're bedazzling our Thanksgiving turkey this year.) It turns out that the "Food Cooperative" design and development group The Deli Garage produces a lovely collection of playfully packaged tasty vittles. We're currently obsessed with this squeezable cocoa and hazelnut praline spread. Imagine this stuff on waffles??? Deli Garage, we're keeping an eye on you.

via The Dieline

Jennifer Rubell, We'd Eat Donuts with You

Our love of donuts is well-documented here at Gastronomista: finger-licking donut poems, ultra-classy donut boutonnieres, sprinkle-spangled donut tote bags. This week, one of our favorite columns, New York Eats, introduced us to performance artist Jennifer Rubell, a woman with a healthy appetite in every sense. We are totally enamored with her catalogue of interactive food exhibits, including (but certainly not limited to) guests eating a ton of peanuts, reconciliation over breaking bread at the National Portrait Gallery, cakes in balloons, and oysters and beer. Our fave, naturally, celebrates the donut. 1521 times over.

images via Jennifer Rubell

Swinemobile

Wait, what?  Oh - it's a mobile cart to cook a pig's head!  Oh!  Yes!  Brilliant!

Studio Swine has created the Pig Truck, a mobile food cart to cook a Pig's Head in a land oven.  Yes, the ancient method of cooking where one buries one's food and applies heat via fire.  How very  urban Paleo.

Land oven is simply a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake, smoke, or steam food. It is commonly used for cooking large quantities of food where no equipment is available. Extremely hot rocks are placed in a hole lined with banana leaves, a salted pig is placed inside and covered with more banana leaves to preserve the heat and flavour. - Studio Swine

Well, we think you guys are completely insane, but we like it.  Roast on Studio Swine, Roast on.

via Dezeen

Your Humbling Moment of the Day

Those Ancient Romans...they sure were smart.  Inventing fast-curing cement, pluming, central heating, scissors, aqueducts, and now we find out they invented the utility knife?!?!  Our contemporary culture with it's computers and Blackberries... pah! We've got nothing on those Romans. 

Seriously, just LOOK at this thing. It was made between 200 - 300 A.D. ! ! !   If that doesn't humble you, we don't know what will.

An ancient version of the Leatherman Super Tool we wish we had in our purse for daily use..it's got all the cutlery you need to survive today's hectic life in style. 

Check out more at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.

Via Wired.

We Guess Summer is Over..

But we are still cravin' some popsicles...

We will gladly satisfy our fix with this wonderful screen prints by Lacey Waterman. 

Darth Vader - $50.00

Check out the rest of her site too -- those Ninja Turtle prints have us suddenly nostalgic for those bubble gum eyeballs.  Ahhh, youth.  

Homemade is Best

Maybe you've seen Carl Kleiner's amazing food styling for Ikea and the advertising agency Forsman & Bodenfors around on the internets.  We love these images: their simplicity, attention to detail, and their over the top obsessive compulsive nature.   If only our kitchens were this organized...

 Prinsesstårta

 Vaniljhorn

 Semlor

Gunnebodrömmar

 Mandelkubb

 Radiokaka

 Spröda maränger

 Napoleonbakelser

 Mandelmusslor

Pepparkakor

But now we bring you the video - the behind the scenes film collage that will be sure to make you fall in love with these images again and again..

IKEA – Homemade is Best. from Forsman & Bodenfors on Vimeo.

Check out the whole cookbook here to see the proper before and after shots.

Bling Cherries

Cherries..so sweet...and these cherries are too too good.

Lucky Blings

If there is anyone out there who ever feels so inclined to give your hostess a gift of gratitude and affection, please do not hesitate...

We're Rooting for Cheerios.

Loving the new video for Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr - Nothing but our Love.

Fabulous Eggs by Fabulous Birds

And how fabulous they are.

These gals are looking faboo in the new advertising campaign for Clarence Court premium eggs by WFCA.  The company specializes in eggs across the pond in England, selling Quail Eggs, Duck Eggs, Pheasant Eggs, Ostrich Eggs, Goose Eggs, and other rare-breed chicken eggs that are "proud to be delicious".  So for the new campaign, these Mad Men decided to show off the birds au-naturale.  

These ladies are totally hamming it up for their big photoshoot:

We also adore the behinds the scenes footage, proving that these chickens really are fabulous.

 

Also, check out the Clarence Court website - it's very nice, and there are recipes and fantastic instructional videos that teach you how to prepare eggs 8 different ways - ie learn to poach - finally.