"It's something in the watah."

That pseudo-scientific claim in a thick Brooklyn accent is my grandmother's answer for every conundrum.

• "You know, Emily, there are places around the woyeld wheh the average life expectancy is 100!"
• "Yowah cousin Mahsha tried to make my apple cake. I gave heh the whole recipe, but she said it didn't come out right."
• "When yowah uncle Bobby went to Israel and swam in the Dead Sea, his sciatica didn't bothah him fah six months!"

-- Say it with me now: It must be something in the watah.

Well, grandma Sylvia may have been right, or at least there's another old person from Brooklyn and one ex-pat in Florida who agree with her.

Ray agrees with Grandma.

A bagel shop called Brooklyn Water Bagels recently opened in Del Ray Beach, FL. Convinced that I.M.B.S.I.T.W., they tested bagels with every borough's water supply, decided Brooklyn water produced the best, and recreated Brooklyn tap water in their store. They bake with it, they sell it bottled for a buck, and even flush their toilets with it.

I get Brooklyn tap water for free, bitches!

From their website:
"Through extensive research, the Company has successfully acquired technology that can convert any local-source water to water of the same quality and characteristics of New York's. With this key ingredient, the Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Company is now ready to launch its concept for the nation's newest and most exciting bagel restaurant concept ever."

I dunno about you, but there's a lot of Brooklyn water I wouldn't want in my bagel. Yes, grandma, there is definitely something in the water of the Gowanus Canal. Yum, gonhorrea-coal tar bagels!



via Serious Eats

Romain Laurent

Okay, so I'm probably the last person (well, photography-obsessed person with a blog) on Earth to blog about this body of work by Romain Laurent. But you should see it, so why not?

Where You From, You Sexy Thing?

Fluid Forms allows you to make everything from bowls to lamps based on the topographical landscape of your choosing. Enter the name of a location or a zip code, and (for a whopping $335) you can have a silver brooch of your fav place.

Bialys 101, or Why I Live in New York

I found myself explaining the difference between a bagel and a bialy to two acquaintances recently -- one imported from Indiana, the other from Massachusetts -- and realized that unless you grew up in the New York metro area with a significant population of large noses, you likely have been deprived of this rare and delicate baked good. Allow me to school you goyim fools.

First, let's get the pronunciation down. It's bee-YAWL-ee, not bile-y. Gross.

<---- Yum!

There are three primary differences between the bagel and the bialy:

1. A bagel (by which I do not mean a Lender's "bagel") is boiled then baked, whereas a bialy is only baked. This results in a softer, less chewy product, without a crispy exterior. It also affects the shelf-life, which is why they haven't had much national success; us white-and-blue-bloods can't ship 'em out across the country.
2. A bialy is typically smaller and flatter than a bagel.
3. Rather than a hole through the center, bialys have a depression filled with onions (always) and poppy seeds (sometimes). Once in awhile they throw in a negligble amount of garlic, too.

If you have access to New York, a good place to start is Kossar's on the Lower East Side. But even my neighborhood bodega, owned by Pakistanis and run by Mexicans, offers a decent one. Just don't eat the crap at Brooklyn Bread. I swear to God it's just a slice of Italian bread with a dent in the middle.

I recommend eating them as you would a proper bagel -- toasted with a schmear of whipped cream cheese (give me that Philadelphia crap and I'll give you a smack across the face), a little nova (that's smoked salmon with a milder brine than lox), a slice of red onion, perhaps a slice of tomato and a few capers. Half-sour pickles, another New York Jewish deli delicacy, are a requisite side dish.

If you're as geeky as I am, you can also add The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World to your Hannukah list. And, if you're as cheap as I am, you can resort to reading about it on Wikipedia until latke season.

Yogurt Blueberry Tartlet

Impromptu brunch!

The recipe, from my iffy memory:

1 pkg puff pastry shells (6 shells)
2 large eggs
3/8 cup sugar
zest of 1 lemon
vanilla extract
1 cup fat-free Greek yogurt
1/8 cup flour
1/2 pint blueberries

Makes 6, plus extra filling.
(I bet if you used two packages of puff pastry, you could make a full dozen.)
Approximately 250 calories per tartlet.

Roll out thawed puff pastry shells to 1/8 inch thickness. Pat into muffin tins, ensuring that there is no air trapped between the pastry dough and the tins. Cover the puff pastry in a layer of foil, and fill with uncooked rice, uncooked beans or pie weights. Bake at 350 for just under 20 min.

Meanwhile, beat 2 eggs with about 3/8 cup sugar for a few minutes, until light in color. Add the zest of one lemon and a few drops of vanilla extract. Fold in 1 cup of fat-free Greek yogurt. Gradually add flour, as needed, to thicken (I think I used about 1/8 cup).

Remove the puff pastry from the oven. Remove the weights and tinfoil. You should allow it to cool, but I sure didn't and it turned out just fine. Fill the puff pastry cups about halfway with the yogurt mixture. Push the blueberries (about half a pint) into the yogurt goo until the cups are completely full. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature. Bon apetit!

You will have yogurt mixture leftover. I put my leftovers into a small pyrex baking dish, filled with blueberries, and baked for about 35 min. I chilled it for a crustless, cold dessert.

Bands I Think Are About to Blow Up

...or at least who should, because they are awesome.

1) Girls
All-male band of San Fran junkies who have been playing for years but just signed to Matador.
Sounds like: Cass McCombs, the soundtrack to Ryan McGinley photos, Nirvana doing an Elliott Smith impression with Elvis Costello on vocals (is that even possible?)
Watch their new video here.
Album drops September 21 on Turnstile.

2) Phantogram
I don't know much about them, but they were recently featured as a KEXP song of the day. They have two shows coming up in BK over the next month, hoorah!
Sounds like: Portishead, Sneaker Pimps.
Listen to "When I'm Small" on their MySpace page.

3) Fanfarlo (kinda already did)
Sounds like: Beirut minus the brass, plus the singer from Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah.
Watch the video for "Harold T. Wilkins" here.

4) Foreign Born
Sounds like: a perkier Here We Go Magic
Listen to "Vacationing People" on their MySpace page.

5) Circulatory System
...which is really just an Olivia Tremor Control reunion, shhhhhhh! These Elephant 6ers release their album on September 8.
Sounds like: Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, Fleet Foxes plus Yeasayer.
Check 'em out on MySpace.

6) Holiday Shores
Okay, so maybe a friend of a friend of a friend owns their record label. But seriously, bright future ahead of 'em! They made it onto an Urban Outfitters compilation, and if that doesn't forebode success, I don't know what does.
Sounds like: a beachier Dodos with a higher voice
Listen to "Phones Don't Feud" here.

Oh Em Geranosaurus

New research at Yale may help us to determine what dinosaurs looked like. I'm so stoked, though I honestly think I'd prefer not to know.

"'Even now many of the fossil feathers of dinosaurs from the Liaoning of China have very well preserved feathers that indicate that they may have had … feather patterns like black and white spots or brightly pigmented patterns within the plumage,' says Prum."


via Neatorama / ScienCentral

Eyedropper Pen

"korean designer jinsu park designed a concept pen that adopts the eyedropper tool of photoshop for real life. the color picker pen enables colors in the environment to be scanned and instantly used for drawing. the sensor detects the color and matches it to the color display. then the RGB cartridge located within the pen mixes the inks together to create the color that has been scanned. "

via designboom

The Hummus Among Us

Hummus is the new FroYo. Discuss.


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Palpable Holographs!

Billy&Hells

As my grandmother would say (if she weren't blind and knew anything about photography in the first place), this work is a little "ongepatcheket." But I kinda like it, anyway.

by Billy&Hells