Cooking – shape+colour

Cookthink is a lot like Musicovery for your food. Instead of the music-radios site’s colour and emotion based searches, Cookthink asks the simple question “what are you craving?”. Then you can enter in specific ingredients, dishes, cuisine styles, or “mood” and the search engine will bring up recipes to satisfy you. The moods are pretty entertaining unto themselves, ranging from experiential ideas like “festive” and “hangover-friendly” to more enigmatic choices like “resinous”, “minimalist”, and “oceany”.

The more motorized and technical our metro-lives become, the more special it is when we get to connect (well, re-connect really…) with little pieces of nature. Beyond just going to the park or planting trees on top of a condo, I’m fascinated by forward thinkers who are finding new ways to connect the organic and the modern in ways that are not only good design but are also functional and thrillingly green.

I would like to say that I’m a great cook. A foodie? Yes. An epicurean? True ‘dat. A cook?… maybe not so much. But if I was I’m sure I would grow my own herbs and this is how I would look totally stylish while I did it:

Step One : Grow

Scandinavians are better than us at absolutely everything. That includes their creation of a self-watering plant pot. Whether absent-minded or just plain neglectful, the pot has a series of wicks that draw water from the bottom up into the plant – much like a real root system. Design inspired by nature… to grow more nature. Brilliant. Big ups to designers Henrik Holbæk & Claus Jensen at scandinavian details.

Step Two : Store

After all that hard work not watering your plants, you’ll want to keep them fresh. Or, in my case, whomever cooks for me will be happy that I kept them fresh. Either way, say hello to the Herb Savor from New York City’s kitchen gadget geniuses Prepara. Besides keeping the greens inside it fresh for longer, you’ll look extraordinarily culinary every time you pull it out of the fridge and casually say “oh, I just happen to have fresh grown Tarragon right here…”. Or, again in my case, while you sit there drinking Shiraz while someone else pulls it out of the fridge and gasps “Oh my! You’ve got freshly grown Tarragon right here!”