This Is Just Cool!

Mixology and the food sciences, collectively known as molecular gastronomy, are quickly taking the world by storm. Pair them with exhibition cooking and the popularization of gourmet cooking, and it’s no surprise that the food sciences are one of the fastest growing fine cuisine interests in the world. Members of this avant-garde style of contemporary cooking serve dishes that uniquely blend flavor, texture and appearance in ways that come off as nothing less than works of art.

These bars and restaurants serve elegant 30+ course tasting menus that aim to redefine the way you think about food. Many meals include dishes complete with vapor infused ingredients, flaming spices, and even frozen olive oil. Here’s a list of restaurants and mixology bars that do great things with their cuisine:

1)     El Bulli – Ferran Adria – Spain – Michelin Three Star Restaurant

El Bulli’s reservations for an entire season sell out in a matter of days. El Bulli is known to present an enchanting and surprising experience with modern cuisine. Order the tasting menu and you’ll see grilled strawberries, spherical orbs of rosemary infused olive oil, and elbulliare, a dish made of frozen air.  Culinary vaporizers also used in a variety of dishes both to flavor, as well as garnish dishes and drinks. This restaurant is closing its doors in July, 2011 to renovate before reopening as a culinary creative arts center, where chefs can explore new avenues of creation without the restrictions of restaurant cooking.

2)     Alinea – Grant Achatz – Chicago

Grant Achatz is one of the brightest stars in modern food science. He serves a diverse range of meals complete with intricate plating design and unbelievable flavors. Alinea has some very interesting tools at their disposal, including the anti-griddle, which freezes liquids that are typically hard to freeze, as in Achatz’s olive oil lollipop. He also experiments with vapors that are not typically found in edible food. He told NPR that they have “…done firewood ashes, we’ve done leather, we’ve done grass.” The point is to allow you to enjoy a flavor which might be enjoyable, but is not necessarily edible.

3)     WD-50 – Wylie Dufresne – New York City

Wylie Dufresne is in the center of the lime light when it comes to the food science movement. He has been featured on Top Chef: Masters, and Iron Chef: America. Chef Dufresne uses vacuum sealers for his sous-vide, and thermal circulators to make flavored noodles. Needless to say, the cuisine you will find at WD-50 is nothing short of fine art.

4)     Aviary – Grant Achatz – Chicago

Grant Achatz tweeted the opening of his long anticipated project known as The Aviary. It opened Saturday, April 23^rd, 2011 and had people queing up almost 6 hours before opening. By the time the doors opened, the line went down the block and around a corner. Early reviews indicated that the experience was unlike anything that could be done at home.

5)     Death & Co. – David Kaplan and Ravi DeRossi – New York City

Death & Company is a cozy restaurant and mixology bar that serves creative cocktails like the Prima China, which incorporates earl grey infused vermouth, top shelf tequila, Cynar, and white cream de cacao. Try the Oaxaca old-fashioneds for a flamed orange twist, or stick to your guns with a classic martini. Any way you mix it, Death & Co. is a strikingly good time, and a few new takes on some classic cocktails.

Have you eaten at any of the above restaurants? Tell us about your experience in the comments below!

It’s no secret that funerals can be extremely expensive. Even if you go with a no-frills occasion, between the burial plot and casket, the final tab can be deceptively steep, which is why funeral insurance is always recommended. On the other hand, if you’re a celebrity and money is not an issue, it’s easier than you might think to rack up a historically high tab.

1.  Alexander the Great
Without argument, the most expensive funeral in history goes to the one and only Alexander the Great. Upon his passing, a new road was built from Babylon to Alexandria that was intended for the transfer his body in a building-sized jewel studded hearse, pulled by 64 horses and a solid gold sarcophagus which was enveloped in a second gold casket and covered with a lush purple robe. In all, his funeral took two years to plan and cost about $670 million AUD by today’s standards.

2.  Princess Diana
Following the fatal car accident of 1997, Princess Diana of Wales is credited with one of the most elaborate funerals in history – a fitting memorial for the People’s Princess. The funeral began with a procession from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey and was graced with a performance by world super star Elton John. Reportedly viewed by half of the world’s population, this lavish memorial cost roughly $10 million AUD.

3.  Michael Jackson
When the King of Pop passed away, a world of fans mourned his loss and the funeral arrangements spared no expense. Resting in a marble crypt (near other deceased celebrities) that cost approximately $662,000 AUD and dressed in resting clothes that topped $39,000 AUD, according to the LA Times, Michael Jackson’s funeral exceeded $1,100,000 AUD.

4.  Japanese Funerals
Although it’s not the funeral of a specific person, it’s interesting to note that Japanese funerals, on average, are more expensive occasions than in any other nation. While a very standard funeral in Australia can easily total $5,000 to $10,000 AUD, the number jumps substantially in the Japanese culture. Because of the various higher costs and the fact that there is a limited number of burial plots to be had, an average Japanese funeral is approximately 1.5 million yen ($16,000 AUD).

5.  Pope John Paul II
Leave it to one of the largest religions in the world to send their leader off in lavish style. When a pope passes within the Catholic church, literally centuries of sacred rituals are enacted and the bill is known to soar. The funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005 was no exception. With St. Peter’s Basilica as the setting and sparing no expense within the procession, the memorial and burial reportedly totaled roughly $8 million AUD.

6.  John F Kennedy
In November of 1963, following his assassination just three days earlier, John F Kennedy was honored with the most expensive funeral in the history of the US. Although a couple other US presidents will also make this list, Kennedy tops them all with an estimated funeral expense of about $13 million USD.

7.  Ronald Regan
Marshall Brain, founder of How Stuff Works speculates that former US president Ronald Regan’s funeral ranks amongst the most expensive in history because of the simple fact that Air Force One costs $57,000 USD per hour to operate. Though the actual expense of his memorial was less than that of Kennedy’s, if you consider all of the expenses and the halt to the US workday for observation, Brain estimates that Regan’s comprehensive funeral bill was upwards of $1 billion USD.

8.  Richard Nixon
Rounding out the list of US presidents with expensive funerals, former US president Richard Nixon’s funeral tops the charts as it allegedly cost the US government approximately $311,039 USD – that’s not including the economic halt while the funeral was being observed by the world. Again, with the expense of operating Air Force One to transport the remains and multiple cargo planes to carry security troops, the final bill was amongst the highest in history.

9.  Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley was a world icon and widely known as the King of Rock n Roll – both in life and in death. When he died in 1977 at the age of 42, 17 white limousines led his funeral procession to Graceland where he was buried in a 900-pound copper casket and immortalized with a $ 34,000 AUD tombstone. Further, US President Jimmy Carter deployed 300 National Guard troops to maintain order at his memorial and therefore added substantially to the final tab. In the end, not including the expense to the US government, Elvis Presley was laid to rest for over $115,000 AUD.

10.  Yours IF…
While the most expensive funerals have been largely reserved for celebrities and various political figures from history, your funeral bill can climb the ranks if you know where to look. For example, Elvis was originally buried at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis but his body was soon moved to Graceland – his former plot is now for sale for $1 million USD. Likewise, a crypt stationed directly above the final resting place of the infamous Marilyn Monroe has been auctioned off for over $5 million AUD! Yes, if you so chose to rest like a celebrity, your funeral cost could easily exceed the average.

Debra Baxter is an artist who creates beautiful sculptures that look almost like exquisite jewelry. It is the end product that is cool, of course, as a product that adds beauty and sparkle to the world. However, it’s also the materials that Baxter uses that make her work both cool and unique.

Some of the materials that Baxter has used in recent works of art include:

• Alabaster.
• Ceramics.
• Lab Grown Bismuth.
• Mirrors.
• Cypress Knee.
• Bolivian Sulfur.
• Amethyst.
• Bronze.
• Leather Punching Bag.

As you can see from this list of items, she takes a variety of different types of materials and puts them together to create her works of art. On the one hand, she uses items that are common in sculpture work (such as ceramics). On the other hand, she uses really unique rocks and stones like amethyst to bring a new dimension of visual appeal to her work. And then she also occasionally incorporates something really random like a leather punching bag into her pieces to bring the magic of found art to the mixed media platform.

In terms of the end product, what is really cool about Baxter’s sculptures is the way that they blend both a hardness and a softness. The hardness comes from the materials themselves. They are stony and they are solid. Some of them are actually rocks! The softness comes from the magical beauty that emanates from the final product. This combination of hard and soft works perfectly to create a finished product that is eye-catching, attractive and makes you want to look twice.

What do you think is the coolest aspect of Debra Baxter’s artwork?

Many people have been wondering what the future fate of the public library system is. After all, more and more people are interested in reading high-tech ebooks instead of lugging around heavy actual books. Some have said that this will ultimately lead to the death of the library system. However, many libraries are actually keeping up with the times by offering eBook downloads through their system.

One great example of how this is being done is in collaboration with a business called OverDrive. The business distributes ebooks as well as audio books and other digital content to libraries and schools in 13 countries around the globe. A library can use OverDrive to provide their customers with free apps that connect to the library’s digital catalog of titles. Users can then use the app to browse through books, check out their content and then download the content onto their smartphone, tablet or computer.

This isn’t actually something that is brand new. However, it is something that is seriously starting to grow in popularity as smartphones become more and more widely used. The North Carolina Digital Library has been offering downloads of ebooks for more than five years but the director of the library there notes that the past year has seen a huge increase in the number of checkouts on the system.

There are currently more than 13,000 libraries and schools that are offering ebook downloads through OverDrive alone. Public libraries definitely have to adapt to changes in technology in order to continue to be an important part of society. This suggests that they aren’t at death’s door after all!

A law student who loves movies used his free time to create a video mashup of more than five hundred different scenes from Pixar movies. The artist, named Leandro Braga, spent eleven days re-watching eleven different Pixar films and selecting the scenes that would end up in the seven minute video. The result is a really cool mashup creation that shows off the beauty, style, fun and even intensity that can be enjoyed by watching these colorful films.

Braga says that he has always loved Pixar’s films. He notes that the first one that he watched was Toy Story, which he saw when he was only six years old. He goes so far as to say that his childhood was happier because of Pixar movies than it would have been without them. That’s a huge statement but judging from the overwhelmingly positive response that the video received Braga is not the only person who feels this way about the value of Pixar’s films.

As you can see from the video, Toy Story was included in the mashup collection. There were ten other Pixar movies featured in the video as well:

1. A Bug’s Life
2. Toy Story 2
3. Monsters, Inc.
4. Finding Nemo
5. The Incredibles
6. Cars
7. Ratatouille
8. WALL-E
9. Up
10. Toy Story 3

Some of the music that is used in the video mashup also comes from the films. The music includes “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” which is part of the original Toy Story soundtrack and “Down to Earth” which comes from WALL-E.

Do you agree that this terrific amateur video is really cool?

Everybody has a talent. However, the talents of many people are hidden or undiscovered. This is especially true for people who are living in dire situations such as being homeless. Once in awhile, though, one of those people gets lucky. That’s exactly what has happened for homeless man Ted Williams.

Williams was discovered because he created an unusual sign letting passersby know that he has the “God Given Gift of a Great Voice”. There’s always a little bit of skepticism about whether or not the information on a homeless person’s sign is really true. However, as you can see from the video in this post, Williams really does have an impressive voice.

Williams became a radio announcer. He had fallen on hard times, though, because of drugs and alcohol and wasn’t able to use that gift productively anymore. But he was more than willing to share his voice for a dollar. Asked to tell his story, Williams says that he met a radio announcer when he was fourteen and was really impressed by the fact that the man looked nothing like what he sounded like on the radio. It’s a really good lesson in not judging a book by its cover!

Williams has been clean from drugs and alcohol for two years and sincerely seems to want to get back into working in radio. The video made its way around the web and people were touched by his story. People on Reddit posted a call to action and spread the word about his talent and his desire to work. Donations began to pour in to provide Williams with the things that he needs (a cell phone, a business suit) to get a job. He has already been asked to appear on a morning radio show.

Do you think this kind of help would ever have come without the power of social media?