#1013 Food-ovations

The times they are a changin’ when it comes to food. There’s lots of food innovations, or food-ovations as I like to call them. Because I like to applaud them as well.
For instance, I spent most of last weekend eating table paraphernalia. I had volunteered to emcee at a volunteer center dinner and the focus of the evening was sugar art creations.
They had this one team that was actually blowing sugar like you blow glass and creating Chihouly-like pieces of art. Amazing. The closest I’ve ever come to inflating recognizable sugar shapes was the spheres of Bazooka bubble gum I blew up as a youth.
In any event, they also had centerpieces made of styled sugar and hardened frosting. They insisted I take one home for my evening’s efforts and so I’ve been nibbling away on a beautiful centerpiece ever since.
Eating art seems so wrong somehow.
Then I was at the grand opening of a new apartment complex and they had Dominos Pizza with their new stuffed bowl thingie. Basically, they take a pasta dish like sausage marinara with penne pasta, and load it into a bread bowl, which is actually made with pizza dough, and cook up the whole thing.
Mighty filling I must say. And there’s something to be said for being able to eat the container your food is served in. Devouring the bowl was pretty cool. And I felt a little eco-smug at the same time because I saved all that dishwasher energy. Now if they could only work out a way to make the pizza box itself edible we’ll go a long way towards solving one of our worst urban trash problems.
The apartment place had another food-ovation. It was a machine that automatically makes lattes and cappuccinos. I kid you not. Press a button and it whips up a cappuccino, froth and all.
The only thing missing is the barista foam art.
It probably won’t catch on unless they get a better marketing firm behind it. Because, strangely, the cappuccino machine didn’t have a catchy name.
I suggest cappu-machino.
America, ya gotta love it.