Action, Adventure, + Mountain Dew
The Lineup of Dew as seen @ Biggs Hyde Park in Cincinnati, Ohio
Check out the extreme imagery on these boxes. Note the conical mountains that seem to be flying around and the exaggeration of the reddish-orange W on DeW. This box seems to shout, “If you drink this, you can go fast, too!!!”
It has always puzzled me how a liquid that appears to be radioactive fuel could be considered as a beverage. With this in mind, the packaging of Mountain Dew, or rather Mtn Dew today, is extremely important in marketing such a strangely desirable product, one that seems to forget the times that required such a jolt of ecto-green caffeine, such as when working late nights or early mornings and to accompany the delicacies eaten out of vending machines.
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Zippy + Spicy Ricepod Snacks
Ricepod snacks found at Merci Market, 20th St. and 7th Ave. NYC
Say it with me: Ricepod. Ricepod. Yes, it does have a funny and catchy sound to it. It might even sound like a new mantra. The packaging, appearing simultaneously sleek and homemade, is incredibly simple. It’s a clear bag that fits easily in one hand and when it’s filled, it asserts itself and stands up on its own on a shelf or a table. Two narrow white stickers, one front, one back, announce the product’s name, flavor, spice level, ingredients, and nutrient information. In red, italicized letters above the plastic zipper seal, Ricepod reassures that it is fat free and gluten-free, and in smaller text along the zipper, that the package is resealable.
Name That Produce!
? Found at Berkeley Bowl, Berkeley, CA
The answer is...rambutan! This fruit is related to the lychee, mamoncillo, the pulasan, and the longan, so anyone guessing these fruits was very close. For those who guessed durian, there is some similarity, but luckily this fruit is far tastier than those!
Write comments below to weigh in on what these prickly fruits might be. They are about 2 inches long and about an inch and a half in diameter.
Basic Brands = Poor Grammar + Spelling?
The Magical (Basic) Fruit
According to Stuart Elliott’s advertising column*, consumers are buying more basic brands; Elliott cites cost savings as a major part of this shift. Although there is something comforting in the return to basic brands, like the Heinz Beans with tomato sauce (note the established date of 1886 above) and the old-fashioned appeal of Quaker Oats, the logos and labels seem to be having an historic reverie, with some problematic twists. Notice how Quaker Oats has been modernized lately with the phrase “Go humans go.” See “the Quaker Man” smiling on billboards and riding around on top of taxis, along with a lack of attention to grammar. As for the beans, Heinz has co-opted their “beautifully designed label” to include a miss-spelling of beans: Beanz along with their “Beanz Meanz Heinz” campaign. Read the rest of this entry »
Enamored with Berkeley Bowl + Cultivated by the Bay
Berkeley Bowl Pasta!
Like many I feel it is important to practice sustainability as much as possible. I know I’m not perfect. I sometimes make mistakes like forgetting to bring my reusable coffee cup with me to the coffee shop so I don’t need a disposable one. Or throwing away a plastic bottle when I’m in a place where recycling bins aren’t present. And, yes, I feel guilty about such acts and I try not to repeat them.
This past weekend I visited San Francisco and the Bay area for the first time and I am definitely a convert to acting even more sustainably responsible. Instead of staying in a downtown hotel, I stayed with a good friend who lives in a communal household in Oakland, very near the border of Berkeley. Although there was only one shower for the nine (!) housemates plus their various guests, I found the reliance on the garden for edible pleasure (they have a pomegranate tree!), the grey water system, the constant categorizing of compost, recyclables, and other trash, and the shared food systems awakened an even greater awareness in me.
Designer Foodie
Cathedral of Groceries: Food Emporium @ the Queensboro Bridge, Manhattan side
Why are designers often foodies? Louise Fili’s firm designs jam labels and the Goodhousekeeping seal of approval. Milton Glaser designed the Brooklyn Brewery logo and co-wrote the 1975 edition of The Cook’s Catalog. Paola Antonelli, curator of Design and Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, wrote about the many shapes of pasta. Antiquarian cookbook storeowner, Bonnie Slotnick, has a Fashion Illustration degree from Parsons. It seems food and design live happily together. If you ask your designer friends about what they eat or where they buy their cheese or bread, I bet there’s a story behind their choices.
There are obvious explanations for this phenomenon. First, designers love objects and grocery stores have lots of objects—rows and rows of them, some lining shelves and others piled artfully in bins. Second, designers often care about the composition of things, and this applies to dining as well. They care about how their food tastes, what it looks like, and they probably want to know where it was made, what tools were used, and what ingredients were included. Third, designers recognize the cultural significance of food and may see food production as a captivating system and a model of how consumers are drawn to certain objects and products. Food and consumables have limited life spans, therefore the design of food and its production is a sped-up process of what happens to other products affected by obsolescence.
Silver Hills Bread Packaging
Hooray for great blends of design and food!
There’s already quite a buzz about this bread packaging, but I just had to add it to the bestgroceries list. The re-design, by Karacters, won a Bronze Lion award in the design category at the 2009 Cannes International Advertising Festival in France. It’s a great combination of playful illustration, bright colors, matte texture, and catchy titles.
Now I just want to know where to buy Silver Hills Bread in NYC. Does anyone know where it is sold? (FYI – bestgroceries is boycotting Whole Foods right now….)
P.S. There’s a Kamut product here: it’s called “The King’s Kamut.”
P.P.S. Enjoying Karacter’s Klog (that’s their blog).
Sushi Avenue
If you shop for sushi at CUB Foods, The Wedge, Lakewinds Natural Foods, Central Market, Festival, or ACME grocery stores, you might be seeing the products of Sushi Avenue in the chilled sushi section. I recently discovered their potstickers at the Garden of Eden store on 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan. Cute logo. Looked local–but I was about to learn it wasn’t.
Searching for this product online, I discovered that Sushi Avenue of Eagan, Minnesota, prepares and packages sushi plates, party trays, sides, salads, and spring rolls for many stores. At the time, I knew that the sides, like these potstickers, were prepared remotely, but I didn’t know the Spicy Rolls and Sushicado were as well. Good to know.
I must admit: the potstickers were a bit dry–but perhaps this is why they are no longer an option on Sushi Avenue. Maybe this was a result of the travel time between Eagan and New York. Perhaps if I had purchased my Sushi Avenue at the Minnesota and Wisconsin stores it would have been far fresher.
Happy Herbert’s Kamut
Happy Herbert’s Ancient Grains Kamut Pretzels have a great name. They even taste quite good. But don’t be fooled, Kamut is not necessarily an ancient grain. I was greatly disappointed to learn that Kamut is a brand and a registered trademark. This was just not as exciting of a history as I thought it might be when I purchased the bag of pretzels at the natural foods store near my office.
After consulting the Kamut website, I couldn’t help but feel that the Kamut or Khorasan industry was trying to convince me that this product is ancient, even though it is officially traced back to 1949. Not sure I feel this qualifies as ancient. Maybe ancient-inspired?
However, I am pleased to know the Kamut Khorasan industry is working to cultivate organic agriculture and support organic farmers. But, personally I would like to know more about how much of this grain is imported, because organic or not, transportation of even ancient-inspired grain ought to be minimized.
Danielle’s Spiced Up Carrots
On an adventure at the Chelsea Organic Market (a corner grocery gone organic on the Northwest corner of 7th Ave. and 20th St. in New York) I stumbled upon Danielle’s Spicy Carrot Chips. I had a cold, so I was also stocking up on some Yogi echinacea tea, but I thought the spice factor would be a bonus sinus-clearer.
Sarah Froelich
