Hasta La Ideas

Food-focused highlights from our holiday gift guide and an event in NYC

Among the food-focused items in out 2010 Holiday Gift Guide we’ve selected ten stand-outs including some highlights from the Cool Hunting for Gap Pop Up shop—where we’re having an event dedicated to this favorite topic. For those in NYC, stop by the store from 12-2pm Saturday, 4 December 2011 to snap up products launching that day—including a chocolate bar collaboration we facilitated between Brooklyn’s Mast Brothers and Berkley’s June Taylor as well the deliciously addictive Happy Goat caramel sauce infused with Macallan whisky—and meet your favorite cookbook author while sampling goods from local artisans like Brooklyn Salsa Company.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook

The The Essential New York Times Cookbook contains over 1,000 recipes compiled by former NYT columnist Amanda Hesser. Dishes span Caesar to Fava Bean Salad to a 19th-century Raspberry Granita—all fully explained in a simple format.

State-by-Food Tote Bag

Shop your local green market with the State-by-Food Tote Bag, featuring illustrations of popular foods from each of the 50 states. No matter where you go, you will always have some inspiration to draw from.

Nudo’s Quattro Stagione

Olive oil for every season, Nudo spices up any salad, sandwich or pasta with four delicious flavors, all made from 100% hand-picked olives that go straight from the grove to pressing.

Tartine Bread

Nothing beats perfectly baked bread, especially when it’s baked using a recipe from Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread, a James Beard award-winner and arguably the best bread maker in the United States.

Sing Sing Dinner Tray

The Sing Sing Dinner Tray is a refined replica of the trays used in New York’s infamous prison. Perfect for portion control, dinner in front of the TV or as a distinct tray for serving guests at your holiday party.

OXO Four-Piece Grill Set

For the BBQ ace with discerning tastes in and out of the kitchen, the OXO 4-Piece Grill Set comes with an attractive set of essential grilling utensils, each with retractable hooks and a patented design for the silicone basting brush, which keeps marinades from sliding off its bristles.

DeLonghi Gran Dama

Used daily by CH founder Josh Rubin, with the touch of a button the DeLonghi Gran Dama creates espressos, lattes, cappuccinos and macchiatos—each with programmable amounts of coffee and milk, as will as adjustable cup sizes. The convenience is well worth the price.

Damn Good Cookies

While most of us are dreaming of dessert before our meal even starts, these cookies are worth the wait. Chocolate Gourmet’s “Damn Good Cookies” definitely live up to their name. Our mouths are watering just thinking about the delicious treats.

Avocado Salt and Pepper Shaker

The uniquely designed Avocado Salt and Pepper Shaker by Brooklyn-based ceramicist Daina Platais is cast from an actual avocado, her personal food favorite.

Brooklyn Salsa

Brooklyn Salsa engages us with its quirky names that represent the different boroughs of NYC. With flavors such as The Hot, The Pure, The Green, The Tropical and The Burnt, there are no shortage of options on how to spice up your next snack attack.

Last year’s Salone was all abuzz with Ventura Lambrate, a new experimental design district in an industrial area in the northeast side of Milan. Due to its success, Zona Ventura Lambrate has announced that it will be back again this year!

For the Milan virgins out there, the Milan Furniture Fair is not only about the main fairgrounds at Rho, (the focal event of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile), but it also encompasses the countless ‘satellite’ concurrent events all over the city. The Zona Tortona area had been previously known as the nucleus of independent events from emerging designers, but even this perception is changing (and to some, becoming much more ‘commercial’ and way too expensive) with the entrance of larger, established names.

Ventura Lambrate aimed to be area for younger and fresher design minds, from Royal College of Art and Design Academy Eindhoven to Tord Boontje and Maarten Baas. Sparked by Utrecht-based Organisation in Design, Ventura Lambrate is located slightly further from the center of Milan and requires a hike to a suburb-like industrial area — so they must curate very carefully for the content to be worth it.

Even though it’s a few months away, Ventura Lambrate’s exhibitor list is growing and our April excitement is a-rustling. For a review of last year’s Salone, be sure to peruse our favorite picks here.

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To commemorate the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Milan Furniture Fair, I Saloni Milano NY kicks off a 6 week cultural series of events in NYC celebrating the best of Italian Design and Culture.

Tonight, 20 showrooms open their doors for festive gatherings with one-night only exclusive promotions starting at 6pm EST. Enjoy Italian delicacies from Eataly, Mario Batali’s recently opened Italian food mega mart, and cocktails while enjoying the latest from Artemide, B&B Italia, Boffi, Cesana, Flos, Flou, Kartell and so many more.

For a complete map and details visit I Saloni Milano NY

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Next Tuesday night, Pecha Kucha comes to New York with an intriguing theme: Sound. Here’s the pitch:

“The Sound Dimension”

In the early Oughts, the ubiquitous access to three-dimensional visualization technologies liberated designers form the limitations and legacy of two-dimensional representation. Architects feverishly took to these advancements applying them towards spatial applications, and with these tools, critiquing data and reinterpreting form and surface quickly became old-hat exercises in the initial, more free-wheeling schematic design process. These technologies nurtured a significant advancement in building a more multi-layered, responsive, and dynamic approach to visualization.

Not content to stop at 3 dimensions designers are exploring how to integrate in their creative vocabulary and toolset new elements for representation. What elements of inspiration are now begin explored, adopted, integrated? Specifically how is visualization inspired by other dimensions and senses such as sound and in particular music? In what ways can the immateriality of sound influence and translate into the world of physical design?

Pecha Kucha #10 will serve as an exploration of how sound, a seemingly visual abstraction (or distraction), can serve as the foundation to informing, visualizing, or connecting to architectural and graphic space.

Sponsors Red Hook Winery and Sixpoint Craft Ales

Presenters are Matt Mason, Bureau V Architecture, David Rife, Ben Rubin, Mike Skinner and Raj Patel, J.G. Thirlwell, Mike Reddy, Jonas Damon, Roland LeBreton, Julie Bancroft, and Core77’s Allan Chochinov.

All info is here: http://www.pecha-kucha.org/night/new-york/10

New York #10
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Shangri La Studio
100 Sutton St. Greenpoint, Brooklyn
$10

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Looking for a fresh take on how to cut back on the amount of energy you use? Then step into the interactive information station that is touring Maryland colleges through next April. This 10′ x 10′ mobile exhibition was designed by design students at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) to educate and inspire Maryland college students to live more sustainably. The initiative grew from a larger, statewide campaign called EmPOWER MARYLAND, which the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) launched to reduce Maryland’s energy consumption 15% by 2015.

The MEA recruited MICA’s Center for Design Practice to help with branding in early 2009 and, after a successful collaboration, the MEA asked MICA to keep working on the project. The Center for Design Practice, housed within MICA’s Office of Research and lead by Director Mike Weikert (also a partner at PIECE Studio) uses “multi-disciplinary, project-based learning to engage in socially conscious projects using design to translate ideas into tangible outcomes with the goal of changing behaviors and making a positive impact on society.”

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