Friday, May 11, 2012

Best of the Week #58

On the one hand, TGIF. On the other, Operation M.O.V.E. commences in a verrryyyy short 19 hours…eek!

My most popular post this week was Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. Coincidentally I made them last night for a co-workers bachelorette party tonight. Alas, it was a bit of a baking fail – be warned: “soft chew” caramels do not melt the same as the normal kind. :(


Do you remember The Newbie? Well since her guest blogging days, she moved from NYC back to CA. And now she’s going to Pakistan to establish a peer to peer youth leadership program that empowers youth to make change in their communities. This program sounds really cool, and I know that The Newbie is passionate, dedicated, and smart – consider supporting her? I did!

And now for your super-enjoyable Friday Best of the Week links:

How to apply a color wheel to your food photography:



Nobody likes a language snob. 
  • But here’s the thing about language snobs: They are oddly egalitarian. While language snobs might giggle at people who choose the wrong words or who make grammatical mistakes, their underlying premise is that there are universal rules for language. Learning to use those rules is the ultimate ladder to success, integration, and acceptance.

This video is hilarious, mostly for the tagline: Ain't no party like a Pyongyang party, 'cause a Pyongyang party is ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY.




I feel strongly about this: "3 Questions You Should Never Answer with I Don’t Know."
  • “What Do You Want To Eat?” This one is my personal favorite because it’s asked by several different types of people several times a week and frequently followed by little more than a “meh.” You realize that when we ask you this question, we don’t want a specific restaurant and food item on that menu right? We just want general guidelines like “sushi” or “let’s sit on a patio” or “Venice.”  We can take it from there and offer several suggestions, but we need a funnel for our thoughts. It also doesn’t help if you say something like “I don’t know somewhere casual but not formal, somewhere not too pricey but not too cheap.” Die in a fire.
It could be the end of the road for Parks and Rec…but the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness will live on. (See it bigger.)



I'm pretty sure most readers of this blog enjoy looking at beautiful pictures of food. ("Food porn" if you will...) Why it is awesome.
  • I have no regrets. I know that as much as people are allowed to spend their spare time watching strangers have sex on video, playing fantasy football with their dudebros, or watching their life slip away to a computer game — I am allowed to stare at food.
I am getting suuuuuper-psyched for the Olympics and all the inspirational advertising that comes with it. And I am a HUGE Lopez Lomong fan. This is a great video.




Exercise makes you smarter! (source)

  • “Only one thing had mattered,” Rhodes says, “and that’s whether they had a running wheel.” Animals that exercised, whether or not they had any other enrichments in their cages, had healthier brains and performed significantly better on cognitive tests than the other mice. Animals that didn’t run, no matter how enriched their world was otherwise, did not improve their brainpower in the complex, lasting ways that Rhodes’s team was studying. “They loved the toys,” Rhodes says, and the mice rarely ventured into the empty, quieter portions of their cages. But unless they also exercised, they did not become smarter.

When anxiety strikes (moving related or otherwise), just hit up the Calming Manatee. And if one isn't enough, you can always summon another


African Men. Hollywood Steereotypes. (source)
  • They said, “If people believed only what they saw in movies, they would think we are all warlords who love violence.” They, like Mama Hope, are tired of the over-sensationalized, one-dimensional depictions of African men and the white savior messaging that permeates our media. They wanted to tell their own stories instead, so we handed them the mic and they made this video.



Are bananas as bad for you as cookies? An infographic that maps what foods you should eat to keep you full (the graphic is a lot longer...go here for the full thing.)


Speaking of bananas...Bite-sized brunch. Yes please! This could be a fun brunch party theme!



I want one of these. A lot.

Where your consumer goods come from. Another infographic!


Love this! "On mincirait mieux si c'etait plus fun." = We would lose more weight if it were more fun.




And I will leave you with that. Have a great weekend!