Hasta La Ideas

Mangosteen and other exotic Thai fruits and veggies star in a line of deliciously healthy snacks and spices

Nitti Sachdeva imports fruits and spices from her native Thailand for her line of delicious chutneys, freeze-dried mangosteen and Thai Tom Yum herbs under the name Deva Naturals. The impassioned Vermont-based chef, dedicated to fusion cuisine, combines her zesty Eastern products with Western concepts for dishes like Spaghetti Phat Khee Maao, Philly Stuffed Haddock and Mangosteen Margaritas.

Also known as “The Mangosteen Lady,” Sachdeva offers the anti-oxidant-rich tropical fruit freeze dried for healthy snacking or as a chutney (along with Berry Medley and Peach) for a variety of culinary options.

The Indian and Thai spices make an ideal rub for backyard barbecues, but added to cream cheese for a quick dip or to pizza, as Sachdeva suggests, are tasty options too.

Deva Naturals products sell online, prices vary but begin at $5 for a tin of authentic Indian masala spices.

pOver the years, the form factor of external hard drives has been whittled down into increasingly smaller, simple bricks; now, for better or worse, comes a more complicated form from Hitachi in their A HREF=”http://www.lifestudio.com/” LifeStudio drive/A. /p

pimg alt=”0LIFESTUDIO_1_S.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/0LIFESTUDIO_1_S.jpg” width=”468″ height=”500″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pThe brick is still there, but now it’s got a dock to slide into, and a little “friend” in the form of a removeable USB key if you just want to carry around (and in my case, potentially lose) a smaller percentage of the files./p

pThe drive’s designers have also gone beyond the physical form to incorporate a software package that displays your media in an on-screen 3D interface (on your computer monitor, not the drive itself). This is difficult to describe in text but easy to understand in video:/p

pobject style=”background-image:url(http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/r0zGg8v99QQ/hqdefault.jpg)” width=”425″ height=”344″param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/r0zGg8v99QQamp;hl=en_USamp;fs=1″param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/r0zGg8v99QQamp;hl=en_USamp;fs=1″ width=”425″ height=”344″ allowScriptAccess=”never” allowFullScreen=”true” wmode=”transparent” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”/embed/object/p

p(At 2:11 the video’s overly long, but you needn’t sit through the whole thing to get the idea.)/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/hitachis_dockable_lifestudio_drive_and_lil_usb_buddy_16912.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/1q91ugLmlDjFHiBof1T_neIBr6Q/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/1q91ugLmlDjFHiBof1T_neIBr6Q/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/1q91ugLmlDjFHiBof1T_neIBr6Q/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/1q91ugLmlDjFHiBof1T_neIBr6Q/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p

pAt the dentist’s office I never pay much attention to my dental charts or even the cute dental assistant; my eye is always drawn to that kick-ass swing-arm Dr. Goodteeth has got the lamp on, which despite being huge seems capable of incredibly precise adjustments./p

pI’m reminded of that by Humanscale’s A HREF=”http://www.humanscale.com/products/product_detail.cfm?group=M2″ M2 Monitor Arm/A, which has a similar aesthetic and won Bronze in the 2010 IDEA Awards. /p

div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/07/0m2001.jpg” width=”468″ height=”1053″ alt=”0m2001.jpg”//div

pThe bulky gas cylinder used by some other swing arms, which has a tendency to fail, has been swapped out for a more reliable and long-lived mechanical spring. And although the M2 is only made from 52% recycled material, the sum of its parts is 99% recyclIable/I, and on top of that it’s built to last–Humanscale’s offering a 15-year warranty. Best of all, I can look at it and appreciate its looks without being interrupted by that drilling noise./p

pimg alt=”0m2003.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/0m2003.jpg” width=”468″ height=”944″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” /br /
/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/humanscales_sexy_m2_monitor_arm_16911.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/WdHvrO7L5F5fQStxU_GT1LLTY40/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/WdHvrO7L5F5fQStxU_GT1LLTY40/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/WdHvrO7L5F5fQStxU_GT1LLTY40/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/WdHvrO7L5F5fQStxU_GT1LLTY40/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p

pimg alt=”0kenmoreet.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/0kenmoreet.jpg” width=”468″ height=”292″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pAfter hearing some buzz (empty, as it turns out) I hunted down info on Kenmore’s new A HREF=”http://www.kenmore.com/shc/s/nb_10154_12604_NB_New+Elite+TRIO+Experience” Elite Trio refrigerator/A, hoping to see some snazzy product design that might knock SubZero off its perch. While the ‘fridge itself looks kind of neat, the marketing copy can only be described as weird and disappointing, as evidenced by this boast:/p

blockquoteThe Kenmore Elite Trio refrigerator can store an impressive 465 cans of soda – 51 more cans than the competition./blockquote

pWho the hell is storing 465 cans of soda? Is this aimed at the lucrative bomb shelter market, or are we as consumers meant to measure volume in units of soda cans? This is kind of like a car company saying “Our new minivan holds 1,648 badminton shuttlecocks!”/p

pThen the attendant product video starts off with this inane line:/p

pimg alt=”0kenmoreet2.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/0kenmoreet2.jpg” width=”468″ height=”146″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pUm…I’m no math expert, but I believe the answer is “Always.”br /
/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/to_kenmore_re_your_new_elite_trio_refrigerator_please_fire_your_marketing_people_16910.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/aWJLJOq5fE79iZONRT-PZUo0pGM/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/aWJLJOq5fE79iZONRT-PZUo0pGM/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/aWJLJOq5fE79iZONRT-PZUo0pGM/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/aWJLJOq5fE79iZONRT-PZUo0pGM/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p