Need a caffeine fix while skiing but hate taking off your gear to go into the coffee shop? The Squaw Valley has got the solution: the world's first "ski thru" Starbucks!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
A
customer eating a "triple bypass burger" at the Heart Attack
Grille in Las Vegas ... may actually need one:
A man who scarfed down a burger and fries at a Heart Attack Grill restaurant in Las Vegas over the weekend actually suffered a heart attack mid chew, authorities said.
Witnesses said the man, who was in his 40s, was grubbing on one of the grill's notorious "Triple Bypass Burgers" when his symptoms started.
Link (Photo: Matt York/AP)
A preschooler in Raeford, North Carolina, was given a school cafeteria lunch when a state inspector deemed her sack lunch inadequate by USDA nutritional standards. The 4-year-old girl ate three chicken nuggets from the cafeteria meal.
The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day.
The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.
When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.
The girl’s mother — who said she wishes to remain anonymous to protect her daughter from retaliation — said she received a note from the school stating that students who did not bring a “healthy lunch” would be offered the missing portions, which could result in a fee from the cafeteria, in her case $1.25.
Now, you may think that apple juice, potato chips, and a banana would count as at least two fruits or vegetables, but it appears to be a matter of interpretation. Jani Kozlowski of the state’s Division of Child Development said there was nothing wrong with the bagged lunch, and the parent should not have been charged for the cafeteria meal. She hinted that the school may need more “technical assistance,” meaning training. Link -via reddit
(Image credit: Flickr user Jeffrey Beall)
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!
Sweethearts: those little chalky heart candies you know so well -or do you? They’ve been in production for decades, but they weren’t always hearts. At one time, they came in the shapes of scallops, baseballs, and horseshoes. And they didn’t always have messages on top; those messages used to be printed on paper and were inside the candy!
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.
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?
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.
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!
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!
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!
If you ever opened a pouch of Big League Chew and pretended you were a baseball player chewing tobacco, then you’ll enjoy the story behind it. Yesterday was the anniversary of the date in 1979 that the first batch of the bubblegum was shredded up by two baseball players, Rob Nelson and Jim Bouton of the Portland Mavericks, who didn’t chew tobacco.
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.
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
