Friday Faves No. 94

Happy Chinese New Year! A look at some amazing sugar artistry with dragons on a stick in the video above.

Here's why some Peruvians are giving up jobs as lawyers and accountants to become chefs: "Julio Hevia, a psychologist, says Peruvians embracing their cuisine is about more than just the food, or even cultural diversity. 'It's a way of compensating, of escaping, of disconnecting,” Hevia says, “of inhabiting something like the Matrix — a parallel reality. I've always felt that in our culture we have a sense of a parallel reality.'"(PRI / The World)

Startup Brings Fresh Food to Chicago, One Vending Machine at a Time (Modern Farmer)

Seaweed is such a hip ingredient that it's now hitting the mainstream food press destined for middle America. (Bon Appetit)

RIP Pete Seeger. He was always an inspiration and will be missed. In keeping with his support of folk ways, here he is singing about making maple syrup.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 80

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• London-based photographer Carl Warner uses bits of food to construct intricate landscapes like the one above, and many more. (Design Boom)

• Seattle is setting the example for community gardens: "Parks and rec departments are starting to realize that community gardens can be a vital part of a program, just like a skate park or a dog park. A community garden is a new asset the residents are asking for, nationally." (NPR, KPLU Seattle)

• Japan may be the spiritual homeland of the vending machine, but Belgium is winning points for the sheer awesomeness that is the Frites Machine, which fries up a cone for you in just 95 seconds. Sigh. (Laughing Squid)

• A special whisky for the customers who will pay the earth, Johnnie Walker debuts new “super-premium” whiskies costing more than £100 a bottle in response to demand from China and other emerging markets. (Scotsman)

• The latest lifestyle marketing lesson comes from real estate, where mini-movies, complete with actors and staged parties, are increasingly the way to sell high-end properties. They "add a little emotion" and give people a view into the life they aspire to. (Wall Street Journal)

• The trend of merging retail and restaurant marches on in New York as popular seafood market Lobster Place expands into the Cull & Pistol. "They way people shop for food — particularly at the high-end — is changing. The idea that is should be sort of a visceral experience has really caught on. People very much look at it as a lifestyle hobby." (Seafood Business)
  
  “The way people shop for food — particularly at the high end — is changing. The idea that it should be sort of a visceral experience has really caught on. People very much look at it as a lifestyle hobby,” MacGregor says. - See more at: http://seafoodbusiness.com/articledetail.aspx?id=21605#sthash.5xVLjBBg.dpuf
  “The way people shop for food — particularly at the high end — is changing. The idea that it should be sort of a visceral experience has really caught on. People very much look at it as a lifestyle hobby,” - See more at: http://seafoodbusiness.com/articledetail.aspx?id=21605#sthash.5xVLjBBg.dpuf
  “The way people shop for food — particularly at the high end — is changing. The idea that it should be sort of a visceral experience has really caught on. People very much look at it as a lifestyle hobby,” - See more at: http://seafoodbusiness.com/articledetail.aspx?id=21605#sthash.5xVLjBBg.dpuf(Seafood Business)

• It's back to school time. In promoting healthy choices, especially for kids, Revolution Foods is taking on Lunchables (a little box of poor quality, industrial food) in the pre-made lunch market. “There’s good potential for new brands to come in and establish themselves in this category...Portable foods are still very relevant to dual-income households with kids on the go, and products like these suit their needs.” (New York Times)

• NPR went dumpling-wild this week with stories on the origins of dumplings (there's archaeological evidence of dumplings in China more than a thousand years ago) and an essay on the emotions and remembrances that get stuffed inside — wontons, tortellini, pierogi or whatever you want to cal them — for many of us. (NPR)

• Take a peak into the "miracle" kitchen of the future, tomorrowland-style, with a 1957 promotional video from Whirlpool, complete with a Star Trek-worthy control panel that does everything from calling the butcher to setting the mood lighting. They only thing they didn't invision was changing gender roles.