Chefs at Chicago’s Alinea Restaurant devised a way to shape sugar into balloons, and then inflated the balloons with helium. How do you eat a sugar balloon? It’s not that different from eating a regular balloon.

Link -via That’s Nerdalicious!

Antony Bowness, a butcher, knows that true love is (served) rare. That’s why he made a rose bouquet out of steak. Gentlemen, take note: this is how to be romantic.

Link -via Gizmodo | Photo: Hungeree

Don’t come to the table late or you’ll miss your chance! Kivaq is a Greelandic meat dish that you’ll never forget. Start by emptying the body cavity of a seal. Stuff inside a few hundred raw auk birds, feathers and all. Sew it up and cover the seams with fat. Let it sit under rocks for three to eighteen months. Serves eight.

At the link, you can watch a video of people opening and eating a Kivaq after this long preparation process.

Link | Photo: Inga Sørensen

Looks like some people had a great time at a party. Tons of cupcakes, sweets, and ... what are those yucky ashtrays and cigarette butts doing on the table?

Turns out, those are edible ashtrays by Miss Cakehead and Nevie Pie Cakes. They also came up with this one below, which includes blackened cancer lung cookies. Yum! Or Yuck! Or ... both? Yuckm!

Link - Thanks Miss Cakehead!

More than eight billion (some 13 million pounds) of the little hearts are sold in the six weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day. Sweethearts make up 40 percent of the Valentine candy market, just behind chocolate, according to Aimee Scott, Necco’s marketing director.

One of America’s oldest candy companies, Necco was founded in 1847 in Boston by Englishman Oliver Chase, who got the business off to a good start by inventing devices that cut candy lozenges and pulverized sugar. Necco first sold confections similar to Sweethearts, but in the shape of scallop shells.

Sweethearts are still evolving every year. Smithsonian magazine has all kinds of interesting facts about Sweethearts. Link

(Image generated at Cryptogram)

Looking for a sweet gift that won’t add to someone’s waistline? Then why not crochet some adorable truffles in a heart-shaped box using this great pattern.

Link Via CraftZine

If you didn’t have any instructions, how would you duplicate this cupcake? Suggest a method and then click on the link to see Kurryleaves’s clever approach. Did you guess correctly?

Link -via Tasteologie

Can you imagine anything more romantic, personal, and memorable than a proposal at a pizza chain? Pizza Hut is offering a deluxe Valentine’s Day proposal package that includes an engagement ring (no diamonds though -it’s ruby), photographer, videographer, limousine, fireworks, and a ten dollar pizza! The cost? Just $10,010. Better hurry and reserve your package, because they are only selling ten of them. But hey, if you miss out on the deal, you can a) make your proposal a surprise, 2) do it in a more personal place, and c) save enough money to pay for a nice wedding and/or honeymoon. Link -via Jezebel

Nothing says “waiting for the bus” like the smell of baked potatoes. Okay, clearly that sentence didn’t make sense, and people usually don’t want to think about food while they’re waiting for the bus. And the sad truth is this bus stop is probably going to smell like the worst scents a human beings can muster in a few weeks anyway, so why bother with a gimmicky ad?

Well, the folks at McCain Foods are betting that these bus stop ads, with the scent of a baked potato available at the push of a button, will help them sell their Ready Made Jacket Potatoes.And there are coupons available, in case you decide to grab a box on the way home.

Maybe they’re on to something, but I’ve personally never wanted to think about food while waiting for the bus, and bus stops in my town tend to be akin to outhouses, without that crucial front door. But what do you think-are scented advertisements a good idea, or are they a real stinker?

Link

I don’t know about you guys, but I would love to try some Romulan Ale, although the maple bacon porter also sounds pretty tasty.

Link

Donuts — is there anything they can’t do? Say goodbye to worry lines, wrinkles and stretchmarks. Artist Josh Atlas has the right idea. Pile the donuts on. And, of course, you can always eat them afterward.

Link -via That’s Nerdalicious! | Photo: Jeff Barnett-Winsby

I’m a certified cake-o-holic, so when I feel like a cake is too pretty to eat it either means I’m running a fever, or the cake is truly a work of art. Enter the newest batter and fondant sculptural masterpiece, an Amazing Spider Man cake that definitely lives up to the hype.

It’s shaped like my Web Headed hero, and look at the linework, oh the LINES! If this was an illustration people would be wowed, but when the lines are drawn with delicious, sugary frosting my stomach starts doing flips, begging for a slice.

But who has the nerve to cut into Spidey’s head and take out a chunk? Better call Venom if you really want a slice of this super cake!

Link

Mario fans, make your own 1UP Mushroom Burger with tips from momo! at Instructables. This particular burger has a veggie mushroom patty, but you can get the same effect with meat. The spots on the bun are mozzarella cheese! Link -via Laughing Squid

Is the key to losing weight as simple as replacing "om nom nom" with just "om"? That's the principle behind Mindful Eating, a movement which invites you to meditate with your food:

The concept has roots in Buddhist teachings. Just as there are forms of meditation that involve sitting, breathing, standing and walking, many Buddhist teachers encourage their students to meditate with food, expanding consciousness by paying close attention to the sensation and purpose of each morsel. In one common exercise, a student is given three raisins, or a tangerine, to spend 10 or 20 minutes gazing at, musing on, holding and patiently masticating.

Lately, though, such experiments of the mouth and mind have begun to seep into a secular arena, from the Harvard School of Public Health to the California campus of Google. In the eyes of some experts, what seems like the simplest of acts — eating slowly and genuinely relishing each bite — could be the remedy for a fast-paced Paula Deen Nation in which an endless parade of new diets never seems to slow a stampede toward obesity.

Jeff Gordinier of The New York Times has the juicy morsels: Link

Hooters, the chain restaurant that is built around showing off women’s *ahem* assets, is getting an extremely unlikely crossover in their Japanese restaurants as they introduce Hello Kitty elements just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Apparently, the Japanese don’t feel like characters intended for children should be kept separate from adult and sexually suggestive merchandising, which makes me wonder-where do they actually draw the line?

And were those Hello Kitty “personal massagers” I saw online actually licensed by Sanrio? Ewwwww!

Link

(Video Link)

The Superbowl might be over, but it’s never too late to enjoy a party with some sweet Slurm and Bachelor Chow. To be fair, it’s not quite Slurm being as how it is not made from the butt of a giant slug, but it certainly looks more delicious than the original.

Via io9

If you limit yourself to one pot of coffee today, then you won’t like Pietro Marmo’s coffee pot. It works, but it’ll make only ten drops of coffee at a time. The Italian goldsmith also made a cup that is conveniently sized to match it.

Link -via Gizmodo | Photo: Pietro Marmo

And on the Seventh Day, God rest after a nice cup of coffee. We've featured Karen Eland's coffee art on Neatorama a while ago, but it's always neat to revisit and see her newest creations: Link | More neat coffee pics and art over at Dark Roasted Blend - Thanks Avi!

As Rob recalled, in January of 1979 he found a homemade bubble gum kit from an article in People magazine, and he “ordered a bunch, from a company out of Arlington, Texas.”   He baked those first batches of bubble gum in the kitchen of the Maverick’s bat boy, Todd Field.  [Trivia:  Todd is now a renowned Hollywood film director.]  From there, he cut up the gum with a pizza knife, and then mocked up a package to see how a rough prototype might look, so they would have something to show.   For those early samples, they emptied out foil tobacco pouches, and the gum went in – creating what was probably the very first pouches of shredded bubble gum.

And that’s just the beginning of the story. Yesterday was also the launch of the blog CollectingCandy, on which this is the very first post. Included are lots of retro package designs. Link -via Metafilter

M2A: Fantastic Voyage is a project that tries to demonstrate the differences between processed foods and whole foods inside the human body. Stefani Bardin, a professor of design, and Braden Kuo, a gastroenterologist, sent a M2A* pill camera through two human subjects. One (left) ate ramen noodles, blue Gatorade, and gummi bears. The other (right) ate whole foods, including fresh made noodles. I choose to interpret Bardin’s assessment as praise for industrially-manufactured ramen:

Notice how the shape of the ramen noodles is still apparent on the left and the handmade ramen noodles on the right are no longer recognizable as noodles? Even after two and a half hours? That’s because top ramen is made to survive Armageddon. Our homemade ramen noodles are made to be eaten.

Link -via Geekosystem

*’M’ refers to the camera’s point of entry into the human body and ‘A’ to the point of exit. The designers clearly didn’t want there to be any confusion about how to use it.

Beth Jackson Klosterboer made little cheesecakes shaped and decorated like the classic Sweetheart candies. Each one is about two inches across. Klosterboer has demanding standards for cheesecake filling and used what she considers to be finest recipe. You can find it at the link.

Link -via Craft

For Super Bowl Sunday, Jaymee Sire made these jello shots by mixing vodka and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. She then poured the mixture into emptied grapefruit rinds and quartered them after they congealed.

Link -via Tasteologie

Truly Custom Cakery based its cake on the Batmobile from the 1989 movie. Would the Tumbler Batmobile taste better? Or the 60s-era Batmobile? This calls for a comprehensive study.

Link -via That’s Nerdalicious! | Bakery Website

Resistance is futile. You KNOW you want it. Behold, the Bacon Shake from Jack in the Box.

The SFist writes:

So, Jack in the Box created a Bacon Milkshake. Why? Because you secretly want one, that's why. Shame on you. The noted fast food chain, it seems, wanted to create bacon-tinged buzz. This will probably do the trick. It's all part of a new ad campaign that asks: If you like bacon so much, why don't you marry it? SFist called our local Jack to ask more about the porky dessert. When we asked if it had real bacon in it, the store manger explained, "Real bacon? Ugh no. It's just a flavored shake, flavored with syrup, I think."

We haven't been this intrigued since the advent of the Jumbaco.

Link | Here's their not-so-glowing review of the Bacon Shake (you know you'll still want to try one anyway) - via BuzzFeed

Can't get one at your local Jack in the Box? Soothe yourself with neat bacon stuff from the NeatoShop's Bacon Store

Jen Yates has a roundup of cake wrecks celebrating the Super Bowl. Can you decipher the message on these cupcakes?

HINT: It’s starts with the word “gone.”

Both teams are represented equally in the collection at Cake Wrecks. Link

Carey of Petite Kitchenesse calls it an “egg in the basket”, but here in the South we refer to this dish as a “toad-in-a-hole”. They’re easy to make, and Carey’s variation makes them a great Valentine’s Day breakfast.

Link -via Tasteologie

And maybe a couple scoops of ice cream. But Arlene Cummings is on the right track by making breakfast using an ordinary cake mix.

I guess you should ignore the previous post.

Link -via That’s Nerdalicious! | Photo: Betty Crocker

Silly or genius? Or maybe both? Michael and Francesca Bennett saved bits of food left by celebrities that visited their cafe in Kingsand, England:

The impetus for the museum came to the Bennetts after musician Pete Doherty dined at the café and left behind panini crumbs. Around the same time, fashion photographer David Bailey failed to polish off his sandwich crust after lunch at the Boatstore, and the idea was born.

The pieces are now displayed under glass domes in shelves on a wall of the café. Among others, luminaries such as Prince Charles and the actress Mia Wasikowsa have both left behind food remnants, which are now artifacts in the museum. There are no preservatives used on the leftovers, but apparently that hasn’t caused mold — some items are simply shriveled up.

Link | The Museum of Celebrity Leftovers official website

Previously on Neatorama: 25 Strangest Collections on the Web

She says her father worked briefly as a fry cook for Olquin and paid Olquin and his unnamed business partner $100 for a customized, hand-operated potato ricer, their 19 business accounts and the recipe for fritos—the patentable Anglo re-branding of Mexican fritas, or “little fried things.” Doolin borrowed $20 from the business partner; the rest came from his mother, Daisy Dean Doolin, who hocked her wedding ring for $80.

Doolin later introduced Cheetos, and the company he founded makes Doritos and Tostitos as well. Read the rest of the story at the Food & Think blog. Link

“Overall, the product has a degree of freshness and material composition necessary to be assessed to be satisfactory after 64 years,” according to the State Office for Agricultural, Fisheries and Food Security.

The authorities did, however, find minor deficiencies in the lard’s smell and taste, discovering that it was slightly gritty and appeared old, meaning it could not compete with the quality of a fresh sample. Still, it appeared to be fit for human consumption, they said.

The office credited the air-tight US can and preservatives for maintaining the lard in such pristine condition over the years.

Feldmeier was delighted to hear of the unusually successful preservation, but when he requested his can back from the agency, they gave it back to him empty. Link

Sure he looks cute, but the toppings are far from evenly spread…and how on earth would you divide it up between your guests? Worst of all, it probably is covered in cat hair.

Link Via My Food Looks Funny

I haven’t been able to track down any information about it, but allegedly this dragon figure is actually a dumpling. It’s filled with a green substance and apparently steamed. You can see additional photos of the creation process at the link.

Link -via Bit Rebels

The Super Bowl is only four days away, so you’d best get ready! Here’s a single-serving deli platter shaped like a football stadium. You can view five similar works of food art at the link.

Link -via Paul Overton | Previously: Snack Food Stadium | Photo: unknown

Science fan and mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn sings the ingredients of a Twinkie. That is all. -via Improbable Research

Giorgio Fareira and Tim Bittar serenaded a Sonic waitress with their order. The gap you hear in the communication was most likely when she ran and made all her co-workers gather around and listen. The guys, who make up the band The Interstate Life, say that the Sonic crew got every bit of the order correct. -via reddit

The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema will present The Princess Bride Quote-Along & Feast on February 14th. In conjunction with the event, they are launching their signature wine collection called The Bottle of Wits, featuring Inconceivable Cabernet and As You Wish White. The wines will debut at the Valentines Day event, then will be offered for sale to the public only through the end of 2012. Link -Thanks, Andrea Kinnison!

This clever recipe makes use of the hole left by the pit of an avocado. You’ll probably need to bore the hole a bit with a cookie cutter. Then fry the avocado in a skillet, add the egg, cook for two minutes, and serve.

Link -via Tasteologie | Photo: Babble

By Carl LaFong & the Spunk Holler Boys. From the YouTube page:

Not knowing the real lyrics to the song, Carl wrote his own and as a result debased a timeless traditional folk classic.

Warning: listening to this song may raise your cholesterol level. -Thanks, Steve Cloutier!

Find out how your food spending compares to the rest of the United States with this nifty calculator over at Mother Jones:

Most of the data comes from Bundle.com, a startup that tracks US spending trends by studying the credit card transactions of 20 million American households each year. Bundle gets credit card data from Citigroup—one of its major investors—scrubbed of names and other identifying characteristics. We looked at Bundle data from 2009 for the biggest 100 US cities and noticed some fascinating foodie trends. For instance, Austin, Texas, spends almost twice the national average for dining out; five Detroit households could eat for a year on an average Austinite's food budget.

Something tells me that this baby will grow up to love the Bacon Store over at the NeatoShop!

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Arbroath

This here’s a craft beer for the gamer in your life, the kind of beer enjoyed by those who also enjoy apocalyptic first person shooters, and products named after in-game brands. By dubbing his delicious beer Brow Sweat, craft brewer Calum has made a pale ale worthy of an eternity under the sea, in true Bioshock fashion. Here’s how I imagine the radio spot would sound:

“If you’ve had a long day lurking around Rapture in your grimy party getup, bashing people with a lead pipe and talking to yourself maniacally, you need to sit down and relax with a Brow Sweat Brew from Ryan Industries, a pale ale without all that ADAM from a name you know you have to trust…or else! Pick one up today at your nearest Circus of Values!

Link

By now, you’ve all heard about cupcakes and pies in jars, but can classic pizza pies be made in a jar? The concept is the same, just add your dough and other ingredients and bake. While I love pizza and the cupcakes and pies in a jar sound tasty, something about pizza in a jar just seems soggy.

Link Via Serious Eats

Oh, my God, it’s a double rainbow all the way! Woah. It’s so bright. What does this mean?

Link -via That’s Nerdalicious! | Photo: Megan Seling

If Garfield were real, this brilliant combination of pizza and lasagna would be enough to give him a heart attack…assuming he didn’t already have one as a result of his terrible diet and lethargic lifestyle. The idea’s pretty simple, just pile some thin crust pizzas into a casserole dish with a little extra sauce and cheese and voila…pizzagna. It would go great with your pizza beer.

Link

Love pizza and beer? Well then, why not combine them with Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer? It’s brewed with basil, oregano, tomato and garlic flavors…yummy?

Link Via Laughing Squid

If you’ve ever spent time in an extraterrestrial prison hospital, you know that this is a pretty accurate description for some species. It’s made with peach schnapps, Bailey’s Irish Cream, blue curacao and grenadine syrup.

Link -via reddit | Photo: Martin Williams

Attention cheapskates! How should you maximize the amount of food you can get from a single trip to the salad bar? By building the ultimate salad tower, of course: Link - via The Consumerist

Although these rolls look simple, the instructions that food blogger Von provides show how complex is the work of a sushi chef. These are made from tomato-flavored tuna.

Link -via Theresa Coleman

Meet Rita Lawlor, a seven-year-old girl from Sarasota, Florida, who recently became the youngest person to receive an award from her local fire department for saving her mom's life:

When seven-year-old Rita Lawlor couldn't wake her mother up, she did what many have probably never thought of doing.

She slapped her with a slice of pizza. [...]

When this didn't work Rita realised her mother may be in serious trouble and rang for help.

Link - via Arbroath

Miss Irvine, who has never eaten fruit or vegetables, had swollen veins in her tongue and was found to have anaemia.

Medics gave her a series of injections and started her on an urgent course of vitamins.

But, despite being warned that she could die if she sticks to her nugget addiction, she still can’t resist the fast food.

Miss Irvine, who prefers McDonald’s treats but also enjoys KFC’s, told The Sun: ‘I am starting to realise this is really bad for me.’

That understatement is not news to Irvine’s mother, who has been warning her for years that her diet would send her to a hospital. But Irvine had eaten other things -fries, chips, and an occasional piece of toast to go with her nuggets. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: NTI)