Jenny's Noodle

Image credit: alphadesigner/Flickr

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Europe According to US Poster ($9.99) | Buy it here

[via kottke]

Schwarzwaldtårta (black forest cake)

Hembakat är Bäst, or Homemade is Best (for those who don't speak Swedish), is the new cookbook from IKEA that showcases 30 classic Swedish baking recipes. From small biscuits to large cakes, the photos taken by Carl Kleiner are really lovely and unique.

We wanted to ensure a connection between IKEA's kitchen appliances and one of the best things you can do in a kitchen, some great baking. So the main attraction in the campaign became a 140 page coffee-table baking book presented in a very visually unique and spectacular way.

The recipes may be in a foreign language, but the photos alone make purchasing this cookbook worthwhile. After all, recipes can be found all over the internet; I buy cookbooks to enjoy food visually.


Pepparkakor (gingerbread)

Fina Kanelbullar (cinnamon buns)

The book is not yet available for purchase in the U.S., so for now, you can see more of the amazingly stylish ingredient photographs here.

The September 30, 2010 Google Doodle was a colorful tribute to the Flintstones.

The Flintstones—everyone's favorite modern Stone Age family—celebrates their 50th anniversary today! The American television sitcom originally ran from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966. Fred and Wilma Flintstone, their daughter Pebbles and pet dinosaur Dino, along with next door neighbors Betty and Barney Rubble, and their son Bamm-Bamm, were even featured as today's Google Doodle. Watch and sing along to the show's theme as you reminisce about the town of Bedrock. Can't you almost taste the sweet, chalkiness of Flinstones chewable vitamins?!

Traveler extraordinaire Rick Steves recommends packing just two pairs of pants for a trip of any length. Does that seem totally unreasonable to anyone else? When I travel, I make it a point to cram as much as I can into the suitcase. I need my "just in case" apparel, my back-up outfits, shoes and toiletries -- and lots of them.

Here's a guy that has the right idea. Watch him methodically fit a Macy's into his small luggage bag.

[via BOYT]

Image credit: Wayne Thiebaud via Google

Today's colorful Google doodle cake was created by Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud (pronounced "Tee-bo") to celebrate the search engine's 12th birthday.

Or was it?

Like the age of a Hollywood actress, the debate over Google's real birthday has eluded the public for years. According to techie insiders, September 12 doesn't correspond to any major event in Google history. More on that here.

Either way, it's always interesting to see the creative doodles. Wonder if we'll all be invited to Google's Bar/Bat Mitzvah next year?

Photo via she-fit.com

Call your Aunt Jemima—September 26 is National Pancake Day! The food holiday falls on a Sunday this year, so unless you're on Atkins, there's no excuse not to whip up some fluffy, buttery pancakes for breakfast. Watch the video below for some inspiration on how to make sure this day "stacks up" deliciously. And for even more creative pancakes check out the photo gallery at Jim's Pancakes -- you won't be disappointed!

Here's the solution to last week's NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sept. 19):

Answer: Multiple solutions are possible --
  - ITALY (Chile, Qatar, Ghana, Malta, Egypt)
  - INDIA (Haiti, Congo, Sudan, China, Ghana)
  - LIBYA (Malta, China, Gabon, Egypt, Spain)

This week's challenge will test your ability to solve anagrams.

Note: The hint was provided along with the puzzle.

NPR Sunday Puzzle for September 26: Take the phrase "patron saint," remove a letter, then rearrange the letters to create a new, familiar two-word phrase that names something important in life.

Hint: The first word has three letters, the second word has seven.

Submit your answer to NPR for a chance to be on next week's broadcast and be sure to visit Jenny's Noodle next Sunday to see the correct answer!

Photo credit: WWL.com

Louisiana Chef John Folse has set a Guinness World Record by cooking the largest ever bowl of macaroni and cheese. The enormous pasta dish weighed in at 2,100 pounds—five times the current record.

The mac and cheese was sold for $5 and served in colorfully painted ceramic bowls made by The Magnolia School, a nonprofit that serves adults with intellectual or other developmental disabilities. The funds were donated to the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity and any leftovers were given to Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans.

World Record-Setting Macaroni and Cheese (yields 2,100 pounds)

Ingredients
575 pounds cooked macaroni
286 pounds mixed Cabot cheese
56 pounds butter
26 pounds flour
1,100 pounds of milk
61 pounds dry seasoning blend

Directions
In the kettle, melt butter over medium-high heat. Mix in flour and cook for 5 minutes. Slowly stir in milk until all is incorporated. Add seasoning blend and stir to mix well. Cook until milk mixture reaches 165°F, stirring occasionally. Add Cabot cheese and stir constantly until it is completely melted while maintaining heat. Add cooked macaroni and mix well while thoroughly heating throughout. Top with additional Cabot cheese and garlic-butter bread crumbs.
 
To try a family-size version of the recipe, click here

[via Slashfood]

The annual Forbes 400 list of The Richest People in America was released this week. Here are the Top 10 (Tip: If you didn't make this year's list, aspire to marry a Walton in 2011)...

Image credit: Forbes.com

See the full Forbes 400 list here

Photo credit: John Riepenhoff

Hawaiian, veggie, meat lovers, macaroni and cheese, pepperoni, pesto pine nut—what's your favorite pizza topping? How about pizza, as in pizza topped with pizza? This extraordinary culinary creation was conceived by artist John Riepenhoff, and it's more than meets the eye...and the tummy...

Physical Pizza Networking Theory is meant to address the ontology of the social as material in art. Using mise en abyme to illuminate a relationship between the layers of material and our experience, and meta symbolic experience of pizza as a hearth, as meeting point, as cultural convergence, as party, as sculpture, as gift, as collage, as pie, and individuals as ingredients within pieces of a social pie adding up to something greater than their whole in a deliciously simple way. This work of art celebrates the event and temporal moments of art-as-happening, document, and experience.

A masterpiece after my own belly.

[via Serious Eats]

Image credit: Royston Robertson

September 24 is National Punctuation Day! Today we celebrate you—apostrophe, brackets, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, exclamation mark, period, hyphen, question mark, quotation mark and semicolon!!! And we can't forget the esoteric interrobang and expostrophe!!!

National Punctuation Day was created in 2004 by Californian Jeff Rubin, as "a celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotation marks, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis."

Here are a few ways to "mark" this occasion:
• Join the Facebook group the "Society Against the Overuse of Exclamation Marks (!)"
• Read The Great Typo Hunt
• Buy these or wear these

punc·tu·a·tion
Part of Speech: n
Definition: the practice or system of using certain conventional marks or characters in writing or printing in order to separate elements and make the meaning clear, as in ending a sentence or separating clauses.
Pronunciation: [puhngk-choo-ey-shuhn]
Etymology: 1539, "pointing of the psalms," from Latin punctuationem (nom. punctuatio) "a marking with points," from punctuatus, pp. of punctuare "to mark with points or dots," from L. punctus "a prick" (see point).
(source)

Image credit: Mashable

There was a small window of time this afternoon, when I suspected that I had single-handedly caused the implosion of society as we know it.

The scenario: I was at work, doing my social media gig. I had just hit send on an email flyer distributed to literally thousands of subscribers, for—of all things—a Facebook promotion. Seconds later, the little yellow "You've got mail" envelope icon alert popped up in the corner of my task bar.

I proceeded to check my email.

Sender: "Your link is broken. I wanted to enter your sweepstakes but I can't open the page."
Recipient (me, screaming): "DOUBLEYOU-TEE-EFF!"

What's a gal to do at that point? Call the I.T. department? Crouch under my desk in a fetal position? I decided to consult the almighty guru, to go where everyone else goes during a Facebook catastrophe—I went to Twitter! And that's where I discovered what really happened.

In case you missed them, here are 5 Humorous Tweets from the Great Facebook Outage of 2010 (I'm still only partially convinced that this wasn't my doing):

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
By the way, Jenny's Noodle has a Facebook page. You should "Like" it. And if that link takes you to a page that won't open—well, you know what to do.

As brought to you by "The Center for the Prevention of Trampling Procrastinative Parents During the Week Leading Up to Christmas," here are the Top 15 Toys that Toys"R"Us predicts will be holiday hits this year:

• Calico Critters Luxury Townhome by International Playthings | Buy it here


• Cuponk by Hasbro Inc. | Buy it here


• Disney Princess & Me dolls by Jakks Pacific | Buy it here


• Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story 3" Imaginext Tri-County Landfill by Fisher-Price | Buy it here


• Fast Lane Wild Fire RC by Toys"R"Us | Buy it here


• Imaginext Bigfoot the Monster by Fisher-Price | Buy it here


• Leapster Explorer by LeapFrog | Buy it here


• Loopz from Mattel | Buy it here


• Minotaurus by Lego Systems Inc. | Buy it here


• Monster High Cleo DeNile and Deuce Gorgon doll set by Mattel | Buy it here


• Nerf N-Strike Stampede ECS by Hasbro | Buy it here


• Pillow Pets by Ontel Products Corp. | Buy it here


• Sing-a-ma-jigs by Mattel | Buy it here


• Squinkies Cupcake Surprise Bake Shop by Blip Toys | Buy it here


• Tomica Hypercity Mega Station Set by Tomy | Buy it here

Note to readers: If anyone would like to buy me a Pillow Pet, I am particularly fond of Comfy Panda, Icy Polar Bear, Wiggly Pig, Perky Penguin and Ms Lady Bug. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

[via PRNewswire]

Image credit: 9GAG/David Voth

>> Friendly reminder: Follow Jenny's Noodle on Twitter @JennysNoodle

Photo credit: Lee MacMillan

Spotted this week in South Bend, Indiana. Read the full story here.

[via TheDailyWhat]

Image via Pentagram

Answer just four simple questions and Pentagram will determine your type. And by type, I mean font. And by font, I do not mean Comic Sans.

I am: Perpetua Titling Light -- 4.4% of the 310,000+ who have taken this quiz are like me.

What font type are you? Take the quiz

P.S. Make sure your speakers are on so you can be fully creeped out by the headless inquirer.

[via Lost at E Minor]

Photo credit: yeoaaron/Flickr

Flickr, the world's shoebox, recently reached a milestone when a user named yeoaaron uploaded a collage of the historic Woodward’s building in Vancouver, BC — it has been officially designated as the five billionth Flickr photo. Flickr says that more than 3,000 images are uploaded to the photo sharing site every minute. "I am Mr. 5 Billion, and there ain't nothing you can do to stop me," yeoaaron commented on his photo's page. -- Ohhhhh snap!

[via CNN]

See more "Punny Hair Salon Names" over at Buzzfeed

Photo credit: metro.co.uk

Two very colorful characters have a bizarre new duet together. To introduce Sesame Street's 41st season, Elmo and Katy Perry sing about opposites in Hot 'N Cold, a spoof of her hit song.

The YouTube video description reads, in part:

"If you're watching videos with your preschooler and would like to do so in a safe, child-friendly environment, please join us at http://www.sesamestreet.org/."

Way to look out for the best interest of the children, Sesame Street. Seriously, what preschooler isn't a Katy Perry fan? "I kissed a girl and I liked it" was practically an anthem around the sandbox this summer.

Does this collaboration make sense to anyone? Is that a nipple? Really, Sesame Street?


[via TheDailyWhat]

Image credit: Education Connection

I can't decide if the Education Connection commercial has the most annoying jingle since "Head On: Apply directly to the forehead," or if I secretly love when it airs just so I can sing along as loudly as possible. What's that you ask? Do I actually have the lyrics memorized? Why yes, yes I do.

"I'm workin' for an hourly wage. I, went to high school, didn't do great. Still I gotta make more cash. More education is what I'm lookin' at..."

The effort they put into this catchy music video almost helps legitimize their service—which is what, exactly? Because if Education Connection is actually concerned with education, maybe the graphic shouldn't improperly split words into syllables: "EDU-CA-TION conn-ec-tion." See for yourself below. [Note: You will want to use this afterwards.]

Image credit: talklikeapirate.com

Ahoy, mateys! Ye should know that today, September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Arrr . . . 

The annual celebration was started by John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers back in 1995. Yo ho!

Aye, ye landlubbers best get to studying these pirate phrases here -- Blimey!

Arrr . . .

Aye, ye scallywags better also watch this 60s footage from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction to help ye find yer inner pirate. Do as I say, or ye'll be walkin' the plank!

Here's the solution to last week's NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sept. 12):

Answer: Catcall, batball

NPR Sunday Puzzle for September 19: Name five countries whose names are five letters long. Using the middle letter of each country's name, spell the five-letter name of a sixth country.

(Hint: Here's a list of countries if you're having trouble.)

Submit your answer to NPR for a chance to be on next week's broadcast and be sure to visit Jenny's Noodle next Sunday to see the correct answer!