Open Source Systems for Everyday Objects, Food + Living

(Video link HERE.) Bio 50 has applied open-source thinking to electronic appliances we use in our homes everyday. They’ve prototyped of a system built upon standard components that offers the user the ability to assemble, customize, repair, and repurpose existing products. Check out their clever fan, hand mixer, and a balloon-encased lamp all configured from the same elements. 

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A Chocolate Valentine’s Cake as Easy as Making a Brownie

With the difficult weather, you may find your self on-the-hook for a Valentine’s gift for tomorrow. If you’ve got the basic makings in your pantry for brownies, we recommend our tried-and-true Essential Chocolate Cake for Improvising recipe. It’s as easy to make as a brownie, with a good deal more bang for the buck, AND there are endless ways to improvise on its essential formula, adding in all sorts of unexpected flavorings to delight your beloved.

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DIY Gifts: Dried Fruit in Fragrant Syrup (Boozy or Not)

Every year, I make big batches of Prunes in Armagnac, Cherries in Red Wine Syrup and Apricot in Cardamom Syrup to give as gifts, packed into pretty jars, with handwritten tags listing their possibilities. I also rely on them for my own entertaining, to serve as fab instant desserts. They are all made by the same basic approach. Here it is, with some recipes to illustrate.

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‘a new way to cook’ (gift idea + a trove of recipes)

Some time ago, Michael Druzinsky, an acquaintance of mine who is a composer, emailed his friend Mark Bernstein, who created the idea-mapping softwear Tinderbox, to ask if he’d mind talking to me about his very interesting software. Michael forwarded Mark’s reply:  “Sally Schneider’s book, A New Way to Cook, changed my life. I’ve given it to lots…

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2 great end-of-the-season cherry recipes

We were thrilled to see the play that the video of Sally making herb salt on Splendid Table got, including a big fat mention on Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn. From that post we discovered that a year ago during cherry season, they’d riffed on Sally’s improvised cherry vinegar from The Improvisational Cookand did a lovely photo of…

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mystery tree structure contest winner!!!! (+ 25 great notions)

Our minds are boggled by the twenty-five wondrously imaginative entrees we got for our Mystery Tree Contest…“prototyping to the sky”…”a fitting room for very chic lumberjacks” …”infrastructure articulated”…YIKES! We were so hard-pressed to pick a winner, we ran it through random.org. The winning entry contains some interesting philosophical underpinnings (totally in line with ‘the improvised…

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last chance: ‘the improvisational cook’ giveaway

The Improvisational Cook free giveaway ends Thursday at midnight so you’ve got a couple of days left if you haven’t entered. Click here for the super-easy entry requirements and to find out about Sally’s award-winning cookbook. Scroll down to the Comments to read some truly inspired improvisations. We’ll announce the winner on Friday afternoon. Related…

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making it up as we go along (an interview)

Liz Massey of Creative Liberty blog featured an interview called  with Sally in her April e-newsletter. Check it out here to learn how ‘the improvised life’ came about, and Sally’s rant-ette on the creative process, how cooking relates to improvising, and the benefits of adopting an improvisational frame of mind… Here’s an excerpt: What advice…

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reminder: ‘the improvisational cook’ book giveaway

We been KNOCKED OUT by the responses we’ve gotten to our teeny, easy contest to win a free, inscribed copy of Sally’s The Improvisational Cook. Check out the Comments following last week’s bookgivaway announcement to read some of the great, imaginative improvs reader’s have done in the kitchen. The deadline for entry is Thursday, April…

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book giveaway: ‘the improvisational cook’

We’re giving away a free copy of Sally Schneider’s award-winning cookbook The Improvisational Cook (inscribed by the author if you like), widely viewed as THE book about improvising in the kitchen. “Schneider gives cooks the know-how to embellish, adapt, change, alter, modify and experiment in their cooking with plenty of encouragement and helpful information. Here…

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‘juicy details of a culinary private life?’

William Morrow, the publisher, has been busy blogging, tweeting and facebooking about Sally Schneider’s The Improvisational Cook, newly launched in paperback. They recently blogged a “Conversation” with Sally, with questions like “What’s your Mantra”, and “If you could have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would they be?” They are tweeting it as the…

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