The University of Michigan's library recently acquired a copy of American Cheese, 20 Slices, by Ben Denzer, a book made from shelf-stable, plastic-wrapped slices of American cheese. Read the rest

Kenny Shopsin was the proprietor of Shopsin's, an incredible, storied, secretive, boisterous, tiny restaurant and general store in Greenwich Village, whose cookbook/memoir is a masterclass in sloppy diner chef-craft in the mode of Daniel Pinkwater's Fat Guys From Outer Space. He died this week. Read the rest

Since 1946, the Clown Egg Register has collected blown eggshells that clowns hand-paint with their distinctive makeup, in order to claim that particular makeup as belonging to them; by custom, clowns do not copy each others' faces. Read the rest

Whether or not you've ever chosen to eat insects, you've eaten insects, or parts of them, in the grains, legumes, fruits and nuts you've consumed (not to mention the occasional inhaled kamikaze mosquito). Read the rest

"Aloha Poke [Co.] would prefer to settle this matter amicably and without court intervention," reads a letter from Olson and Cepuritis Ltd, lawyers representing Chicago's Aloha Poke Company, addressed to the owner of Honolulu's "Aloha Poke Shop." Read the rest

Yoko Eda, a recent grad from Musashino Art University's Science of Design department, has produced a series of gorgeous, hyperealistic acrylic paintings showing everyday objects (glue bottles, toothpaste tubes, packages of plastic tubs, cleaning brushes, boxes of matches, lip balm tubes) sliced and arrayed like sashimi. Spoon and Tamago has lots more of Eda's outstanding work. Read the rest

Janelle Shane (previously) is a delightful AI researcher who likes to use machine learning systems to produce absurd, inhuman outputs, such as a list of AI-created notional ice-cream flavors generated by merging a list of real ice-cream flavors with a list of metal band names and pressing "go." Read the rest

According to the official sheet music, the familiar Mr Softee jingle was written in 1960 and is titled "Mr Softee Jingles and Chimes." Read the rest

Pepsico is the low-key -- some might say deliberately hidden -- backer of the Drinkfinity system. As Jaiksmith says, "it's a proprietary bottle that uses proprietary "pods" that are a mix of dry and liquid ingredients, no artificial sweeteners. For $35 you can get a bottle and 16 pods...about twice the cost (per oz) of their other product, Tropicana Orange Juice." Read the rest

Ototo's Flying Spaghetti Monster pasta strainer is a houseware, a religious artefact and a novelty item, all rolled into one $17 package! (via Geeks Are Sexy) Read the rest

On August 2, 2017, security researcher Dylan Houlihan contacted Panera Bread to warn them that their customer loyalty website had a serious defect that allowed attackers to retrieve the names, email and physical addresses, birthdays and last-four of the credit cards for up to seven million customers. Read the rest

40+ years ago a pair of Danish scientists acquired the mistaken belief that Greenlanders had a very low incidence of heart disease (turned out that people who live in extremely rural conditions without access to modern medicine just have a low incidence of reported heart disease); they concluded that the Omega-3s in their diet was responsible and a thousand nutritional supplement fortunes were born. Read the rest

Alternative protein advocates in Europe have been stymied by the hodgepodge of national rules regarding insect consumption, but now the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will approve applications for edible bugs that will then be legal to serve to Europeans throughout the EU. Read the rest

It's $18 from Gamiss, perfect for your next BBQ. (via Crazy Abalone) Read the rest

Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks (previously documents his latest creation: a poltter that squeezes precise patters of icing onto cookies, built out of Lego Mindstorms, and includes full, downloadable instructions. Read the rest

I fondly remember the unalloyed joy of eating lionfish tacos in the Caribbean, consuming an invasive species that was wrecking a reef preserve; if you've never experienced a similar pleasure, be on the lookout for "jellyfish crisps" made from the huge blooms of jellyfish that are the result of climate change, whose presence is a nuisance and worse. Read the rest

Oobah Butler once had a job writing fake Tripadvisor restaurant reviews for £10/each, paid by restauranteurs; having learned how powerful these reviews were, he decided to turn his south London shed into the best-regarded restaurant in all of London. Read the rest