The Art of The Waffle

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in an Art Show that my Studio (FableVision) was hosting. Given the fact that most of the folks in the Studio are amazingly talented, I decided to stick with the medium that I know best -- food. After a little brainstorming, I decided to create art with waffles. The concept of my piece was:

To create software that when given a photo and number of servings would generate instructions for creating waffles with that approximate that image and serve that many people. (Play with it)

My first task was to generate an edible color palette that could be used to color the waffles. Initially, I was hoping to keep it to standard toppings like peanut butter, jams and Nutella, but I quickly learned that I would need additional colors. I then started recording colors for whipped cream mixed with different amounts of food coloring. With a little work, I was able to create a color palette of about 50 colors:



Once the palette was established, I got to work writing the software to generate the instructions. The basic concept was to break up the image into the appropriate number of waffle squares based on the number of servings the user entered in the software.




For each square, I then computed the average color and matched it to the closest color from the 50-color palette I had created. Below are two examples of the output of the software. Note that each square has a designated 'recipe' for creating the appropriate color (e.g. strawberry jam or Nutella).





In my experimentation, I realized that it required a lot of waffles to create a complex image. Therefore for the Art Show, my friend Ryan found a relatively simple picture of Mario from the Mario Brothers video games. It was made using approximately 25 waffles.







If you'd like to play with the software, click here. Click the Load button to create waffle art from a preselected set of images. Roll over each square of the waffle to see what it's made of. You can control the number of servings using the slider.

Special thanks to Gary Goldberger, Kate Cotter, Ryan McNulty, Sarah Reynolds, Tami Wicinas and Taryn Johnson for helping assemble the final piece. And thanks to Matt Bargar for some of the photos in this posting.

His and Hers Salmon

There are times in a relationship, when no matter how well you communicate, you just can't come to an agreement. There are times when, even though it will win you martyr points, you don't feel like you can compromise. Here is a story of such an occasion, but this time it has a happy ending.

You see, last Tuesday my wife and I decided to make salmon for dinner. When discussing how it should be prepared, we couldn't reach an agreement. Fortunately for us, the recipes were simple enough that we could split the fillet in half and make both.

Here are two simple recipes for enjoying salmon:

His : Maple Soy Salmon
with Maple Soy soaked rice... yum!

Combine ingredients, bring to a boil until it just starts to thicken. Brush onto salmon to coat, pour the remainder of the glaze over medium grain white rice. Bake the fish at 425. Break up fish into pieces and serve 'His Style' in bowl over sauced rice with chopsticks.

• 1/2 cup maple syrup


• 1/4 cup soy sauce


• 2 cloves crushed garlic

Hers: Sweet and Spicy Rubbed Salmon

First referenced April 2008

Brush salmon with olive oil. Combine equal parts chili powder and brown sugar. Rub over salmon. Bake at 425. Serve over medium grain white rice.

• olive oil


• chili powder


• brown sugar

Hopefully this tip will serve you well the next time you have a disagreement about how to prepare the salmon...

Sweet and Sour... and SPICY

Wikipedia will tell you that scientists describe five basic tastes:

• bitter
• salty
• savory
  
• sour
  
• sweet

and you may even recall learning about the anatomy of the tongue and where the specific taste buds are for each of these tastes.

Some people attempt to create dishes that deliver combinations of these tastes. These days, you'll hear folks talk about how they really enjoy the combination of sweet and salty. Examples can be found in chocolate-covered pretzels, many trail mixes and the addition of sea salt to items in bakeries like chocolate cookies.

Sweet and sour is popular as well -- and always has been. This is evidenced by the classic sweet and sour chicken that so many of our parents order in Chinese restaurants. Additionally, many fruits could be considered both sweet and sour. For example, oranges and mangoes.

Among many of the fantastic products you can find on the shelves at Trader Joe's, consider the photo above of Chile Spiced Mango. This snack consists of dried mango (a favorite of mine as is) dusted with a generous amount of chili powder mix. These take sweet and sour one step further by introducing 'spicy' to the mix. While 'spicy' isn't one of the five flavors, it's definitely a great addition. After eating the first piece, the spice sticks with you and leaves you craving another.

A great, healthy snack.

Note that these are relatively spicy and may not be appropriate for everyone. But if you like them, you'll love them.

The World's Best French Toast - In Photos

Coconut M and M's, Easter Candy or not?

If I were ten years old, I would stick out my tongue at this package of Coconut M&M's. Adult Candy, blech! My co-worker Dana who manages to find interesting food often asked if I wanted to try these treats, to which I replied 'Hells Yeah' or something equally zealous.

The M's themselves have different artwork on them, palm trees, flowers, making it interesting to look at them one at a time instead of inhaling a palm full. The first one I ate was shockingly interesting - first you got the SWEET blast which resonated into "oh yeah that's the coconut part". The second one I ate almost tasted normal, kind of like your 2nd or 3rd beer becomes unnoticeable. By the third one, I could appreciate the ratio - a really good amount of coconut to chocolate for that size.

I liked them. I'm not sure I'd eat too many of them in one sitting, but they're definitely worth a shot.

On an aside, does anyone else associate coconut/chocolate candy with Easter? Where I grew up in Central NJ, we always got this big eggs that were filled with coconut (pictured here is a 1 pound egg!). I was assuming Coconut M&Ms are heralding the approach of Easter, and maybe trying to elbow their way into the Cadbury Mini-Egg market. My co-workers have no association between Easter and coconut. How about you?

An American Standard Up for Discussion

Being the parent of a toddler, this big news flash certainly caught my attention,

"Pediatricians Want Redesign of Hot Dogs, Candy to Curb Kids' Choking". Great idea, it's really hard to cut up a steaming hot dog easily, and not giving in and buying some weird As Seen On TV hot dog dicer. As my Mama Bear Protector Genes go, someone finally figured out how dangerous these meat tubes really are. As a foodie who has specific tastes and preferences on how hot dogs should be prepared and condimentized, this is almost as unsettling as having Scott Brown elected to the Senate. New territory, could be bad, could be good, it certainly ain't like the Old Standard we've had for years.

The glorious social networking site allowed one of my super-talented designer friends to find this article from Fast Company, and how they approached the challenge of hot dog design. I share this here, friends, as they put great care into the inside/outside ratio of a hot dog.

I find this debate far more interesting than politics, at least for now. I sense major backlash in the world!

New Addiction: Cranberry Raisinets

If you bump into me in a movie theatre lobby and ask me what kind of candy I was totin', my answer would be (in preferential order) Raisinets, Sno-caps, Junior Mints, or Kit Kats. Raisinets were always the best because they were sweet, sugary, chocolately, and a tiny bit moist. Oh yeah, since they are raisins, they are HEALTHY.

Last week my boss Dave introduced me to Cranberry Raisinets, and I have fallen into line behind him extolling the sweet praises of the little new millennium treat that boasts "anti-oxidants and free radicals". The love of cranberry rises and falls with the decades, and still conveniently fits into the HEALTHY candy category. How could you possibly improve Raisinets? Someone is a marketing genius, since these treats have no raisins in them.

Dave gave me my own whole bag of Cranberry Raisinets, so it took me (an amazingly long time thank you) three days to eat them (and share them). My very first taste was quite skeptical, having my memory banks programmed for that very sweet raisin when in fact I got something slightly more tart. The next few bites made me forget all about raisinets, in fact, I think these are slightly more "adult" and dare I say savory, not as sugary as the mothership raisin flavor but still sweet from the chocolate.

If you're as old as me, you're probably singing the 70's commercial jingle song for the candy (Goobers, Raisinets, chocolate covered treats, Raisinets and Goobers, mighty good to eat). I can't find it online, yell if you can spot the link.

This is one treat worth picking up, give it a go and please share your thoughts here.