To create the Hidden Valley Home Collection, the brand teamed up with Dani Dazey, an interior designer known for her over-the-top, graphic, and incredibly bright style. The results are the opposite of minimalist, including wallpaper, tablecloths, a fleece throw, placemats, notebooks, and more in two of Dazey’s custom prints. One print features bottles of Hidden Valley ranch dressing and slices of ranch-covered pepperoni pizza, all in shades of blue, green, and orange, while the other is just a tad more subtle with a repeating ranch bottle motif in green and blue tones.

You could ranch up your dining room with the placemats ($30 for a set of two), the coaster set ($20 for four), the 100-percent cotton tablecloth ($90), and the wallpaper ($75 for a two-by-eight-foot panel). Extend the theme to the bathroom with the ranch-themed shower curtain and bath mat set ($60). Set yourself up for sweet dreams of cool ranch flavor with the 100-percent cotton bed in a bag set (starting at $190 for a comforter, shams, and a throw pillow).

The sherpa blanket ($65), acrylic trays ($40), ranch art print ($30), notebook ($18), and pouch ($20) round out the collection. And lest you wonder whether anyone is a big enough fan of the pizza-and-ranch combo to buy the couch that serves as the centerpiece of the Hidden Valley Home Collection, we’ll let this tidbit of information speak for itself: it’s sold out. Bright yellow with a cute rounded back, it comes with matching ranch-bottle-shaped throw pillows.

Dani Dazey’s eye-popping interior decor has been a big hit on TikTok for a while now, but she got an even bigger boost after serving as the primary designer of Trixie Motel. Her process of custom-creating all of the decor for drag queen Trixie Mattel’s renovated Palm Springs resort was documented on the 2022 Discovery+ reality series Trixie Motel. Dazey certainly isn’t new to attention-grabbing designs, so it’s no surprise that Hidden Valley chose her to bring their concept to life.

Dazey told Today that she thought her style was perfect for the collaboration. “I could not believe it when Hidden Valley Ranch asked me to design a home collection for their brand because I’m such a huge fan,” she said, adding that the “bold flavor” of the dressing matches her design aesthetic. In this case, “maximal design meets maximum flavor.” Dazey drew from influences like Andy Warhol and his famous Campbell’s soup can when coming up with her graphic prints.

“We enlisted Dani Dazey for her colorful and bold designs,” says Deb Crandall, Hidden Valley Ranch’s Marketing Director. “In addition to the pieces Dani Dazey designed, Hidden Valley Ranch extended the home collection with even more items designed with even more ranch because when it comes to ranch, more is always better.”

The post Hidden Valley Drops Surprise Ranch-Themed Decor Collection first appeared on Dornob.

The property’s history as a former fish market and proximity to the Peconic Bay inspired the “boatel” concept. Juul-Hansen wanted the hotel to be deeply rooted in its waterfront setting, offering just as many boat slips as guest suites (20 of each). Its exterior is clad in cedar shingles (much like the vernacular architecture of the North Fork area) and is surrounded by decks offering views of the bay and marina. Guests can borrow pale blue beach cruisers for a pleasant ten-minute ride down to Southold, the nearest village, or book trips on The Shoals’ 28-foot vintage Chris Craft charter boat.

Picnic tables dot the grassy front lawn, and lounge chairs line the edge of the property along the water. A fire pit with a ring of deck chairs sparks to life after dark, and the hotel even has its very own food truck offering lobster rolls and soft serve. The outdoor lounge slings cocktails beside a grand piano with incredible water views. Swim in the bay, take a cruise on a boat, or spend the day fishing and then rinse off at the outdoor shower before heading inside, where yet another grand piano and leather sofas invite you to sink down and chat with fellow guests.

Juul-Hansen has distilled the area’s nautical heritage into a distinct flavor that’s all The Shoals’ own, rendered in soft shades of blue and sandy beige. Textural jute, rattan, linen, and wood lathe set off the smoothness of leather and polished stone, which particularly shines in the lobby’s sculptural front desk. Crisp white bedding, wood floors, and expressive framed art make the bedrooms feel serene. Some rooms have balconies or decks facing the water. The suites feature kitchenettes almost as spacious and comfortable as your own at home, with pale backsplash tiles glimmering like the insides of oyster shells.

Speaking of oysters, one of the coolest aspects of The Shoals is its commitment to bringing back the working waterfront that once thrived at this location. The owners have partnered with Little Ram Oyster Company, a local woman-owned business, to turn its former Scallop Shack into a fully operational oyster business. They plan to host private shucking workshops, host off-site oyster farm tours, and sell kits of unshucked oysters along with supplies to open them. On Wednesdays, their food truck will turn into the Shuck Shack, offering an oyster happy hour.

“The owners of Little Ram Oyster Company, Elizabeth Peeples and Stefanie Bassett, are stewards in the oyster development and advancement in Southold, and we thought they’d be great partners,” co-owner Jonathan Tibet told Travel + Leisure. “They are excited to serve the most craveable oyster experience on the North Fork while also sharing their knowledge with our guests through on-site educational opportunities.”

The post This “Boatel” on Long Island’s North Fork Has Its Own Oyster Food Truck first appeared on Dornob.

The DQ pillows are inspired by the new Fall Blizzard Treat Menu. First up is a swirled cinnamon roll-shaped round pillow evoking the Cinnamon Roll Centers Blizzard Treat, accompanied by two square accent pillows in shades of cocoa and creme for the Oreo Hot Cocoa Blizzard Treat and a red and pink pillow referencing the Very Cherry Chip Blizzard Treat.

The second trio features a pillow shaped like a tempting slice of pumpkin pie, representing the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard Treat. This one is accented with a square pillow in caramel, cream and chocolate sprinkles like the Snickers Brownie Blizzard Treat and another square pillow in bright orange that looks and smells like the Reese’s Take 5 Blizzard Treat.

Plush and cozy, the pumpkin pie and cinnamon roll pillows are undoubtedly the standouts, and they really do make for some cute seasonal decor. To get some of your own, you’ll want to head over to Dairy Queen’s Instagram for info about how to enter their Fall Blizzard Treat Menu Pillow Flight Sweepstakes. If you aren’t able to snag them, you can at least console yourself by heading to your local Dairy Queen and picking something off the new menu.

“Each year, our Fall Blizzard Treat Menu offers the popular flavors of fall, and the new pillow flights bring our fan-favorite treats to life in a fresh way with scents and style,” says Maria Hokanson, Executive Vice President of Marketing at ADQ. “Our fans will be inspired to grab a Blizzard Treat, snuggle up, and take in the scents of the season with friends and family.”

It’s not often that a fast food brand releases its own line of self-referential home decor. It would probably be a little weird if the items were scented like burgers and fries, but the sweet scents definitely work. After all, we already fill our homes with fall-scented candles, so why not pillows too? Maybe that’ll be the next big thing in seasonal decor.

If you don’t win the sweepstakes and you’re still craving some fresh fall decor ideas, check out our guide to cozy autumn vibes. Get that hygge feeling at home with front porch twinkle lights, jars filled with decorations like tiny gourds, handmade ceramics, seasonal flower displays, mercury glass pumpkins and mantels trimmed with fall leaves, acorns, and more. Switching out textiles like pillow covers, throw blankets, bedding, and table linens can also be a great way to welcome the change in seasons.

The post Dairy Queen Reveals Sweet-Scented Decor Pillows for New Sweepstakes first appeared on Dornob.

The restaurant design is impressive from the moment visitors walk in the door. The cocoon-like vaulted lobby is surrounded by a wooden space divider that takes its shape from the Ling Ling logo, which is rendered in neon. A low ceiling consisting of bunched illuminated textiles helps foster an atmosphere of suspense before guests are ushered into the surprisingly grand interiors, where trailing greenery frames a full-sized tree strung with outdoor lighting.

“The restaurant’s interior design concept started out with the idea of generating a space recalling the grand courtyards and terraces so characteristic of Mexican architecture,” the architects explain. “This was one of the greatest challenges in the design of the project, with the formal approach and the design process using structural elements and construction methods that helped to blur the boundary between architecture and interior design. As a result, the idea emerged of a triple-height space with a porticoed structure and lush vegetation of the terrace.”

Ceilings consisting of neutral-toned wooden louvers give the restaurant the appearance of a natural landscape, “carved” out to envelop the dining areas and give them an intimate feeling despite the expansiveness of the space. Though abstracted, the result mimics the feel of adjacent buildings, mountains, and trees surrounding a courtyard and generates a natural traffic pattern through the restaurant’s many rooms. With natural light and views providing the space’s dominating features, the architects focused on a palette of vegetative hues.

“The space benefits from the triple height and corner location to surprise guests with a glazed atrium structure offering 270-degree views across the whole city,” the firm adds. “Meanwhile, the inner salon and dining room are enclosed within a vaulted structure constructed using wood stereotomy techniques, highlighted by gentle illumination, and fitted out with custom-made furniture. Under this wood structure, the Sushi Bar recreates an Asian atmosphere that will bring the guests face-to-face with the preparation of the cuisine, giving a more personal touch to their experience. On the other hand, the main bar encloses a perfect frame of the skyline of the city through an item of dynamic furniture.”

Ling Ling Restaurant and Chapultepec Uno are located in the historic Reforma neighborhood, steps away from popular Mexico City landmarks like the Diana the Huntress Fountain and the Angel of Independence. If you want the best views in the house, reserve the Tres 60 table, a banquette sitting at the point of the dining room so you feel like you’re floating above the city.

The post A Tree-Filled Courtyard at the Top of a Skyscraper: Ling Ling Restaurant in Mexico City first appeared on Dornob.

The answer was something unique. “A place where the cuisine is based on the Italian virtues and combines them with the Japanese. It does not exist in Denmark. Both kitchens focus on simple, good ingredients and don’t combine a whole lot of different flavors — they keep it simple,” explained Andrea Calducci, Head Chef of the new Restaurant Levi, in an interview with European media.

Calducci, a renowned chef who has run prestigious restaurants in Shanghai, London, and Dubai, was persuaded to come to Denmark by Restaurant Levi founders Jesper Boelskifte and Peter Trauboth. They named their new place, built out of a former parking garage, after their muse, famed Italian grappa master Romano Levi.

“Romano Levi managed to create his very own universe, where both the product and the packaging were completely unique,” the owners say on their website. “That’s what we strive for with Levi. We want to make something completely clean and personal — a restaurant and a kitchen that doesn’t hide behind anything.”

The fusion of Japanese and Italian food is meant to be a seductive surprise with every visit. “Every time we (re)visit the honest and simple Italian cuisine, we are overwhelmed by how little it takes to create an irresistible taste. At the same time, we are captivated by the elegance and constant balancing on a knife edge that we find in Japanese cuisine. We are thrilled by the exotic ingredients and the many unexpected flavors,” the website explains. “When our chefs pull on the apron, they are forced to experiment in the meeting between the two approaches. Thus, the weekly menu at Restaurant Levi is the result of a constant search and curiosity that characterizes our kitchen.”

The company’s Instagram feed highlights pictures of dishes like pasta covered in crispy octopus, lamb, and artichoke in a salty Japanese broth, and fine cuts of wagyu beef over risotto.

The bistro’s interior design was crafted by restaurant partner Johannes Torpe with an eye towards the warmth and comfort of old Italy and the sophistication of Japan. The color scheme of jade green and natural wood is soothing and sumptuous. The custom banquettes curve around the restaurant, flanked by window views of the bicycle-lined avenue of inner-city Copenhagen. The green-swirled marble countertops and the terrazzo floors bring in extra Italian flair. Public reception has also been overwhelmingly positive. Since its opening in March, Restaurant Levi has boasted fully booked weekends.

“The future of the Danish gastronomic scene is bright. Copenhagen is — rightly so — among the most hyped food cities in the world, and so it will continue,” adds Jesper Boelskift. “In the run-up to the coronavirus pandemic, we [were] once again seeing a resurgence of new places and new concepts. The lockdown was tough, but it also gave room for new thoughts and ideas. We also felt that it gave time and space for the development of our restaurant, which is why today we stand here with Levi.”

The post Copenhagen’s Restaurant Levi is Fusion Food at Its Finest first appeared on Dornob.

Developed by Florida-based company Harvest CROO (Computer Robotic Optimized Obtainer) Robotics, this rolling piece of heavy machinery is reportedly able to do anything a human picker can do, including judging whether berries are ripe enough to be picked. Measuring 32 feet long and 18 feet wide, the autonomous machine scans the plants to find harvestable berries using artificial intelligence and a machine learning vision system.

Each harvester is equipped with 16 individually functioning robots, which agitate the leaves, identify the best berries, snip them, and pick them up. A key part of the machine is its patented “Pitzer Wheel,” which features a series of soft silicone claws that allow it to gather the berries very rapidly. It’s named for former Intel engineer Bob Pitzer, who leads the Harvest CROO design team.

The robotic harvester is also equipped with a LiDAR system, a remote sensing method using lasers that map surroundings and identify nearby objects. This grants the machine a 360-degree, three-dimensional view of the fields for more precise navigation down rows of strawberries. It also prevents collisions with people and other obstacles. The machine spans several rows at once. Able to do the job of six to 10 workers, it’s capable of picking eight acres of strawberries in a 20-hour day, even after the sun sets.

Harvest CROO just completed a round of commercial tests, and the robotic pickers should be ready for deployment in Florida by December after a seven-year development process. About 70 percent of the U.S. strawberry industry is invested in the company, with most farms located in California. The company plans to scale up production next year to provide 1,500 machines to growers around the country. Harvest CROO will own and operate the machines at a price that matches what farms pay for human labor.

“Over last 15 years we’ve heard from growers who are dealing with labor issues and government and saying it just isn’t fun anymore. Our goal is to put the fun back in farming,” said Gary Wishnatzki, co-founder and managing partner of Harvest Croo Robotics. “My experience at picking strawberries is it is a young person’s game. Harvesting strawberries hasn’t changed in the past 100 years. We’re still doing it the same way. If we don’t have young people coming to the field, we’re going to have to have to rely on robotics.”

So what does this mean for you, the average reader who isn’t a strawberry grower? More plentiful strawberries year-round. Not so long ago, few retailers carried strawberries in winter because they were too expensive. As labor costs go up, they’ll become even less affordable and less available. That could mean in the not-so-distant future, only wealthy families have access to them (unless, of course, you grow your own). Robotic solutions like this harvester will likely become a crucial element of food production in the decades to come.

The post Robotic Strawberry Picker Plucks More Berries Than 6 Human Workers first appeared on Dornob.

“I was getting cooped up during quarantine and decided to create a habit that makes me want to look forward to getting up early in the morning,” said Tokyo-based toast mastermind Manami Sasaki in an interview with Elle Singapore.

“Toast is a very easy medium to use because you can put both fruits and vegetables on it. I wanted to explore the many possibilities within the framework of toast,” she adds.

What started as a lockdown time killer has morphed into an Instagram following of almost 50k, as well as magazine interviews, appearances on German news, and spots on Japanese reality TV shows.

Sasaki’s themes range from intricate abstract patterns to classical art. Her portrait of Frida Kahlo was hand-drawn using squid ink, while the elaborate floral headdress was crafted from radish, fried, pumpkin, yellow bell peppers, and sprigs of dill.

Her colorful American comic in the All True Romance style was fashioned from carrots, curry power, squid ink, cod rose, beads, and cabbage.

The face of American actress Marie Doro covers another piece. “She was… active in the early silent film era in the first half of the 19th century; her films were restricted, and the only photographs that can be seen are black-and-white,” Sasaki commented in an Instagram post. Her edible medium even allowed the painting to be more authentic, as she noted that “the funny thing about squid ink is that when grilled, it starts to look like an old photograph!”

In much of her work, however, Sasaki sticks to her roots, showcasing traditional Japanese artists and designers. Dozens of her bread slices are adorned with images from the ukiyo-e style, popular in the country from the 17th to 19th centuries, that featured female beauties in their kimonos, Japanese landscapes, and Kabuki actors. Sasaki’s edible paintings of these Edo-era images often utilize squid ink for the body outlines, whitebait for the pale faces, and red cabbage, sprouts, radishes, baby corn, cherry tomatoes, and bright-hued spices for the hair and clothing.

“I have always loved Japanese culture, and I travel to see the karesansui in Japanese gardens and frequently visit ukiyo-e exhibitions,” Sasaki says. “I want to express my own interpretation of the things I really like and the culture I love, and I want my overseas followers to know the appeal of Japan as well. I guess that’s why I make a lot of works with Japan as the theme.”

One piece of toast is a play on a zen garden, with a thick layer of sour cream scraped over with a fork to look like sand ripples flowing around macadamia nut “stones” and pinches of matcha powder “moss.”

Another slice is an homage to Kintsugi — the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with lacquer dust of gold, silver, or platinum. In another piece, Sasaki reveals one shard of delicately decorated red pottery, melded with larger white fragments using edible gold leaf as the glue.

These carb creations take her a few hours to make each morning, but no time at all to consume. “It takes less than a minute. I’m hungry and I finish eating quickly,” she laughs.

The post Manami Sasaki’s Toast Art Makes for Beautiful Breakfasts first appeared on Dornob.

One potential option is a new biomass material made from an unexpected source: rice. Grown in more than a hundred countries, rice is the world’s most popular cereal crop, and its starch can be modified into a bio-based resin that behaves a lot like synthetic polyethylene plastic.

A Japanese furniture company called Meuble Co. Ltd. is developing a material they call RICEWAVE to replace the polyethylene they typically use to produce the cushions for their furniture, like the Dorothy Sofa Bed pictured below. Working with partner companies Biomass Resin Holdings and Mitsui & Co. Plastics Ltd., Meuble has spent the last five years prototyping products made with biomass materials.

Rice stood out as a strong contender because it’s grown locally to the company, within Japan. Not only does rice resin make use of inedible waste rice that normally gets thrown away, it can also be purpose-grown in abandoned agricultural areas of the country as an economic stimulant.

“Abandoned cultivated land in Japan is vast, exceeding the size of two Tokyo metropolitan areas,” the company explains, adding: “We have started making rice for rice resin in this abandoned land, which will lead to agricultural support and aim to revitalize the region.”

Using bio-based rice resin instead of petroleum-based plastic comes with another benefit: lower CO2 emissions. Mitsui & Co., which specializes in raw materials, says replacing just 30 percent of the petroleum-based plastic in a shopping bag with rice biomass can cut emissions by 30 percent.

Meuble Co. hopes RICEWAVE will ultimately replace polyethylene altogether in its core material, the petroleum-based “LITEWAVE,” which it produces using in-house patented technology. As is usually the case when attempting to switch to bio-based materials, that will require big changes to the manufacturing process. It won’t be cheap or easy, but Meuble Co. thinks it will be worth it, especially if they’re successful at proving rice-based furniture materials perform just as well as their synthetic alternatives.

Rice resin can also be used to replace at least some of the petroleum-based materials in trash bags, cutlery, toys, food packaging, and other consumer products. Currently, many so-called biodegradable packaging materials don’t fully break down in the environment because they contain small quantities of synthetic polymers like polyolefin. Replacing those polymers with rice resin or similar bio-based materials could actually make biodegradable products more durable and give them the ability to replace synthetic fiber-reinforced plastics in all kinds of products, even within the automotive industry.

Other parts of rice plants can be diverted to similarly eco-friendly uses. Though currently the standard practice is to simply let it rot, rice waste like husks, straw, and bran could be used for building materials, fertilizer, biomass fuels and more.

The post RICEWAVE: A New Eco-Friendly Furniture Material Made of Inedible Rice first appeared on Dornob.

Bois originally posted the image, sans Cash, as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Mario Bellini’s Camaleonda sofa, which was designed in 1970 and is now one of the world’s most influential pieces of modular furniture. But Cash went a few steps further by adding a faux IKEA label for the “Loafa,” and depicting himself wearing a pair of bread-roll slippers that are actually the product of his collaboration with Maison Martin Margiela. A blanket and rug made of tortillas complete the set.

Soon after posting his Photoshopped image, Cash changed the caption to “LOAFA is coming to your nearest IKEA söön!” Given that IKEA has been known to make some weird stuff, we wouldn’t be too surprised if that was true. For the moment, however, IKEA’s global press officer Diana Lavrenova says “No one from IKEA was in touch with Tommy Cash. We don’t see the project as feasible.” Speaking to Dezeen, she even compared it to an experimental blow-up sofa the company released in the 1980s. “We tried air sofas once, which turned out to be a great mistake. Bun sofas seem to fit in that same airy category.”

Disappointed? That’s understandable. One can imagine the actual sofa version of the image being so realistic that if you’re craving the sweet flavor of a Hawaiian roll, you’d be hard-pressed to stop yourself from diving into it head-first and going to town. Carb avoiders would have to avert their gaze while pushing their carts through the aisles of their local IKEA marketplace.

Of the original bread roll sofa design, Gab Bois explains: “I always like to play little tricks and illusions in my images, so I’m happy this one translated this well. I used brioche hamburger buns for the main cushions and brioche hot dog buns for the edges. Toothpicks that were hidden between each bun kept everything in place. It ended up being a literal representation of comfort food.”

For his part, Tommy Cash knows how to grab the headlines with absurdist creations. His trompe l’oeil loafers really do look just like baguettes, and the Margiela collaboration also includes a pack of $14 instant noodles to “deliver the haute couture savor to quick meals with no need to leave the house.” Cash also designed “the longest shoe in the world,” a three-foot-long version of Adidas’ classic Superstar trainers. The bread theme came up with this creation, too, as social media users compared the shoes to Subway foot-long sandwiches.

The post Loafa: A Bread Roll Sofa Proposed to IKEA by Estonian Rapper Tommy Cash first appeared on Dornob.

But what if the artist’s message is literally a part of the art itself?

A new series of vases from Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Bruno Baietto may help answer this question. Meant to “highlight the role of bread as a symbol of class, politics, and religion,” according to Dezeen, Baietto’s series of beautiful colored vases were actually blown inside bread loaves, in addition to other important objects commonly associated with the bread-making process.

Baietto has since spoken out about his project, entitled “Follow the Crumbs That Fall From Your Own,” making it no secret that his methodology in creating these stunning and shapely pieces is also an integral part of his statement exploring bread’s symbolism around the world. He explains that “Under socialism bread is a synonym of labor and national progress, while under capitalism it is a staple food and the result of a large economy.” Bread is also highly symbolic within Christianity, and most importantly, an intrinsic part of Baietto’s own personal background. Growing up in Uruguay in a family of bakers, the artist felt it was “a natural decision” to explore bread’s ubiquitous presence in our everyday lives.

While the messaging behind this project is multi-faceted, the process behind Baietto’s work is relatively straightforward. He inserts molten glass into a hollowed out loaf of bread, which is then blown in the normal way. After the bread burns away, what’s left is a delicate and uniquely-shaped vessel that reflects the texture of the loaf itself.

Of course, there are also challenges to the process – namely the fact that the burning bread creates a large amount of smoke that isn’t usually allowed in glassblowing facilities. It was only with the assistance of master glassblowers Geir Nurstad and Josja Caecilia Schepman that Baietto was able to see his symbolic glass beauties come to fruition. He also created other objects for the project, including a porcelain vase made from the casting of a baguette baked by his own family.

Ultimately, Baietto wants to show that art and design are not immune to manmade systems and ideologies, as they are often influenced by a larger agenda that is sometimes changed by the viewers’ interpretations. He feels that “When something is designed, it is actively materializing a belief system and worldview…in everyday life no object or practice is neutral, but rather a result of its context and ideological influences.” This even applies to bread. Seemingly an innocuous part of our everyday lives, it begins to take on much bigger meanings when applied to broader concepts.

The post Bruno Baietto Weaves Rich Meaning into His Bread-Baked Vases first appeared on Dornob.

Today’s gingerbread houses go way beyond the simple creations many of us attempted in school. We’ve scoured the internet to find some of this year’s best, and there’s festive holiday inspo to draw from every single one. Who knows? You may even feel moved to create a modern gingerbread marvel of your own.

Classic Christmas Cottage

Who needs a gingerbread house when you can have a full-blown gingerbread cottage? This one from @ellagracebakes is both festive and fanciful, creating a lovely holiday scene. Bonus points for the brickwork detail and edible patchwork entryway.

The Devil’s in the Details

Is it still a classic gingerbread house if it’s not entirely edible? If it looks as good as this stunning house from @mygingertable, the answer is a resounding yes. While the house itself is all gingerbread, the other details are painstakingly recreated using a variety of other materials. No matter how you look at it, the result is a gorgeous and impressive edible delight.

Simple Yet Elegant

Many of today’s best gingerbread houses are eschewing the kitschy (and sometimes gaudy), colorful candies of yore and instead focusing on the elaborate construction of the structure itself, and this is certainly true of this creation from @bakerloocakes. Intricate icing deliciously highlights the details, while the height and design of the gingerbread is imposing without being overwhelming. A perfect pairing!

It Takes a Village

What’s better than one gingerbread house? An entire gingerbread village, of course! This one from @sanna_hederstedt is the real deal, complete with adorable detailed interiors. Look closely and you’ll see tables in the café, miniature baked goods, and even a tiny gum ball machine. This super-impressive offering definitely proves that it’s what inside that counts, even in the world of gingerbread.

Life Imitates Art

Sometimes gingerbread houses are inspired by real-life architectural marvels, and these are some of the best.

The Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco is lovingly recreated in edible splendor in this model by @grownasswomenwithdinosaurs.

Check out this uber-impressive St. Louis Arch made out of gingerbread by @justinwirick88.

This gingerbread version of the Omni William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh is epic, and we’re glad @tajulian25ca decided to share it with the rest of us!

These famous D.C. sights rendered in gingerbread give all new meaning to the phrase “White Christmas.” Photos courtesy of @princessintraining_colleen.

Whether you’re a gingerbread house traditionalist or have an affinity for more avant garde creations, these tasty treats are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Grab some graham crackers and get building to create your own edible holiday masterpiece.

The post ‘Tis the Season for Instagram’s Epic Gingerbread Houses first appeared on Dornob.

While several restaurants around the world use autonomous machines to prepare food, most prefer to keep them behind the scenes and out of sight. Pazzi takes a different approach, letting customers watch as mechanical arms handle every step of the pizza-making process. The company website encourages patrons to “come for the show, stay for the pizza.”

Even passers-by can observe the orange-and-silver arms whirling around behind a glass wall, stamping dough, pouring sauce, sliding pizzas into the ovens, slicing them, and placing the final product in boxes for pickup.

Customers can place their orders via the touchscreen kiosks inside or through the online app. The specialized robots can prepare a pizza in 45 seconds, producing up to 80 an hour. No humans are required, and in fact, they would probably just slow down the workflow.

“We are in a very fast process, with a perfect control of time, a control of quality since we have a constancy offered by robotics, and then an environment that is quite cool and relaxed,” Pazzi co-inventor Sébastien Roverso told Euronews. “The idea is also to spend a few pleasant minutes watching the robot while you wait for your pizza to be made.”

The unique experience was created by Roverso and his childhood friend Cyrill Hamon, both engineers, in response to their college-day desires to find tasty pies at any hour of the night. “We dedicate Pazzi to all the curious and inventive minds who think that there is always a way to get what you want!” they proclaim on the website.

The two enlisted the help of renowned chef and triple world pizza champion Thierry Graffagnino, utilizing him as a chief consultant to perfect their automated pizza.

“What is difficult is the dough,” explains Graffagnino. “Because the dough is alive, you don’t work with frozen dough. The machine must constantly adapt to the evolution of the dough. So, we had to give the robot the means to make these corrections on its own, and some pizza makers can’t even manage that themselves.”

Each Pazzi culinary creation also boasts a quality set of ingredients. Organic tomatoes, Auvergne PDO blue cheese, Limousin beef, Bleu-Blanc-Coeur ham, and Lael Rouge chicken are among the elements available for each order.

With the opening of a second store, the next step looks to be international expansion. “Pazzi means ‘crazy’ in Italian,” said company CEO Philippe Goldman at the 2019 opening of the first restaurant. “It’s in the image of our team and the crazy bet invested in research for six years, concretized in particular by five patents. The objective is now to conquer not only the global fast-food market…by creating a European champion but also to fight junk food while meeting the structural challenges of the sector. Pazzi’s mission is to put technology and robotics at the service of taste and healthier food.”

Those outside the Paris area can follow the pizzeria and watch videos of its digital chefs on Pazzi’s Instagram page.

The post Pazzi Pizzeria, Staffed by Robot Chefs, Opens Second Paris Restaurant first appeared on Dornob.

Citrovia is a 30,000-square-foot interactive public art installation bursting with juicy oversized lemons made of plaster. Occupying the courtyard space between the completed 70-story One Manhattan West building and its shorter sibling, Two Manhattan West, which will be completed in 2023, Citrovia is a brilliant disguise for the work zone. Over 700 lemons dangle from 18-foot-tall steel trees alongside 3,800 leaves made of foam, all painted by hand, as white fabric billows overhead to mimic clouds. Clusters of faux lemon slices create canopies overhead and form stepping stones on the artificial turf in front of a giant citrus sculpture.

Described by its creators as “larger than life and stranger than fiction,” the surreal display transports visitors to a colorful fantasy space year-round, and this winter, it will become a vivid antidote to the dreariness that New York City often experiences. This isn’t just a selfie backdrop, though visitors love to use it for that purpose. It’s also packed with fun activities and features. “Whack-a-Lemon” invites you to play an augmented reality game on your phone with the field of lemon slices, and a “Name-Your-Own-Garden” feature asks users to submit names for their favorite displays. All the while, AR vines climb and bloom all around you.

There are two things that make Citrovia a truly unique exhibition ripe for reproduction around the country. The first is that it’s completely free to the public, so absolutely anyone can come in and enjoy its wonders. And that’s no small thing, especially considering the size of the installation. The second is the fact that it’s not sponsored. You might think “Citrovia” is actually the name of a beverage company using the exhibit as advertising, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Brookfield Properties commissioned the project from creative group The Cuttlefish and Midnight Theater creative director Warren Adcock.

“In many cultures, lemons (and yellow) are symbols of optimism, so doing this specific installation, which places so much emphasis on size, scale, and proportion, felt right,” says The Cuttlefish, Inc. founder Evan Schechtman in an interview with Architectural Digest. “We went to the far extremes of a creative idea, then pulled it back a bit. We wanted to build something that was whimsical and elegant, but never gaudy.”

Citrovia is a fun addition to the area surrounding Penn Station on the western side of Midtown Manhattan. If you’d like to visit in person, you can do so at any time without an appointment. The exhibition is expected to remain in place for another two years or so, when Two Manhattan West is finally complete.

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In partnership with drone company FlyTrex, the fast-food chain announced it would begin testing remote delivery of customer orders on June 17th in Southern California.

“El Pollo Loco continues to explore new and innovative delivery services that offer our customers added quality and convenience, and the Air Loco drone delivery pilot program is our latest effort to unlock fresh options for getting our fire-grilled chicken to hungry customers everywhere — piping hot and in perfect condition,” El Pollo Loco VP of Digital Andy Rebhun said in a statement. “We want to offer drone food deliveries that are fast, convenient, and safe. The insights gleaned during this test-and-learn pilot will play a crucial role in helping us shape this exciting new service ahead of its rollout.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, El Pollo Loco’s 2020 digital sales grew 5 percent to make up 10 percent of total sales, and delivery orders were (for obvious reasons) through the roof. “We’re highly encouraged by the evolution of our digital flywheel and continued enhancement of the strategies we put in place last year,” said President and Chief Executive Officer Bernard Acoca. “We look forward to further growth on the heels of our record-breaking 250 percent increase in delivery performance in 2020.”

Of course, the company’s operating costs were also up last year, mostly due to the labor of delivery drivers. In fact, the crazy chicken chain raised their prices by 15 to 20 percent on delivery items, pushing larger family and combo meals to compensate for the higher labor costs. With Flytrex drones, the company expects to cut delivery expenses by up to 30 percent, saving money for all parties.

“Our system is so much more affordable, and that allows you to take off the delivery payment for the customer and restaurant,” said Flytrex CEO Yariv Bash in a TV interview.

That’s the result of the drone fleet’s speed and autonomy. The mini food helicopters will cruise about 230 feet above the ground, reaching max speeds of 32 miles per hour and flying within a three-mile radius. Because they can transcend traffic and stop lights, customers could see their food being lowered onto their driveways in a tamperproof bag within just 10 minutes of ordering.

And it requires very little human labor. “The system is completely autonomous. We have an operator on the ground in Southern California and that operator only installs the package and presses a green button…Then all they have to do is oversee the flight,” Bash said, adding that in the near future a single operator would be able to supervise as many as 20 flights at the same time.

The Tel Aviv-based Flytrex has been working with the Federal Aviation Administration for the past three years to develop safe and practical drone rules. After earning FAA approval in May 2021, the company started making deliveries for Walmart and other retailers.

If the test goes smoothly with the first 10 stores, El Pollo Loco could soon roll out drone delivery service across its entire 500-unit chain, significantly upping the ante for other fast-food restaurants to get in on the sky delivery action.

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They describe a potential Ellen salami as “black pepper and garlic with a playful kick of mustard [for] a highly approachable and well-rounded flavor,” J-Law’s as “smoothed with notes of honey, and spiced with orange zest and ginger,” and Kanye’s as “best paired with strong straight bourbon.” James Franco’s salami would be “arrogant, distinctive, and completely undeniable.”

“Today, in-vitro meat production is close to becoming a reality, offering highly controllable meat production without the animal cruelty, waste, and environmental impacts of industrial farming,” reads the BiteLabs website. “But this process can offer so much more than replicas of beef and pork. The process begins with myosatellite cells, which are obtained via biopsy. These are a particular type of stem cell found in adult muscle that function to repair and regrow damaged muscle. Isolating a sample of these cells provides a base that can grow into as much meat as required.”

These cells are fed a growth medium that functions like an artificial blood so they can multiply and develop into muscle tissue over a sugar support, which mimics the function of veins. When fully grown, the muscle pieces are mixed withs pieces, fats and oils and stuffed into casings to be dried, aged, and cured. This process is virtually identical to that used to grow cultured meat using cells taken from animals. Lab-grown meat is molecularly identical to ordinary meat but doesn’t require any animals to be killed.

If you think eating meat made from the cell tissues of humans sounds a lot like cannibalism, you’re not alone. When artist Orkan Telhan exhibited steaks grown from human cells called “Ouroboros Steak” at the Design Museum in London, he received a flood of angry emails and social media posts calling him “wicked” and “pure evil.” But Telhan wasn’t trying to encourage us to eat each other with his project. It’s a statement on the fact that we can choose to use our own cells to produce lab-grown meats, but animals can’t provide the same consent.

BiteLabs told The Los Angeles Times that its primary goal is to “provoke discussion and debate around topics of bioethics and celebrity culture,” but also plainly stated that they’re gauging market interest for an actual lab-grown celebrity salami project. “We see inefficiencies, environmental hazards, and ethical problems in the world’s food production and distribution. There are exciting opportunities to disrupt these industries while opening new ways to consume celebrity culture.”

To be clear, none of the celebrities featured in BiteLabs’ promo materials are actually affiliated with the project, but the company hopes the public will help get them and others onboard by tweeting at them.

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In a Kickstarter campaign that’s already garnered six times its original funding goal, the Milan-based Krill team is planning to mass produce small lamps made mostly from food waste, specifically the peels of two Sicilian oranges.

“We wanted to create a special piece, beautiful and useful as well as sustainable, so everyone can have something unique in their home that not only decorates the room but tells a story of revolution,” says product designer Victoria R. Schön in an official campaign video.

That revolution is the circular economy idea gaining steam with companies all around the world, with the eventual aim of recycling and reusing all product waste. Founded in 2018 by Ivan Calimani and Yack H. Di Maio, Krill Designs is a company dedicated to combining the need to recycle waste and the need to create new products through material research, design, and innovation. The Krill team hopes the Ohmie will be one step in changing paradigms so that “’sustainable’ will stop being an adjective and will become the norm.”

“We [didn’t] just want to make a change in design. We wanted to make this change beautiful and meaningful,” says Krill co-founder and CEO Calimani. “We have been developing biomaterials for almost three years, helping corporate be more sustainable and crafting eco design products for them. It’s time to use our expertise to make a product just for you.”

To make the petite and visually intriguing lamp, the designers at Krill obtained discarded peels from the food industry, dried them, and ground them into a powder. After being blended with a plant-derived biopolymer, the mixture was squeezed into a filament and fed into a 3D printer in a continuous spiral-like movement. This technique, called “vase mode,” gives the Ohmie its distinctive ribbed texture.

The final product is a 9-inch tall, 5.3-oz table lamp that has the feel, color, and even smell of an orange. It also comes with a USB-plug power cord, a dimmer switch, and an LED bulb with an output of 70 to 90 lumens.

Thanks to the many variations in natural orange color, the Krill team says that each lamp’s particular hue will be different depending on its organic origin. “Every Ohmie will be a completely unique piece,” the campaign page says. And since they’re all made of organic material, the Italian company also says the shape of each lamp could actually change slightly over time.

Closing the production waste loop, if an Ohmie ever breaks, the lamp body is compostable, allowing the majority of its mass to return to Mother Nature to be used again in another form.

With 9 days to go before its Kickstarter deadline of August 5, the Ohmie project had already attracted 347 investors who had contributed over $37,000, far surpassing the original goal of $3,500. Those purchasing the early-bird special got a 30-percent discount off the original price, paying $85 with an expected delivery date of November 2021.

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