Pâtisserie of Lite

If you have not been to Paris in the past 100 years or so you have been missing out. Macaron’s (not to be confused w/ coconut macaroons) are the signature confection in The City of Light. Composed of a delicate pillow of meringue, almond and silky sweet fillings in a myriad of colors. You may even wonder if the city’s nickname was inspired just by this delight.

Pistacia Vera assortment

Never fear! In Columbus Ohio, Anne Fletcher has made a crossroads between US(a) and Les Parisiennes at her lovely  Pistacia Vera.

Door to door dessert.

Only recently have I known of this wonderful shop. Interested in my product, The Teastick, Anne contacted me for pricing and I casually mentioned the macaron desert I am marooned in… and just today, I received this elegant box of assorted macarons in the mail. Totally unexpected! I have now become the hero of the office (sorry Beth). My advice to you, if you are not travelling soon to Columbus (or Paris), is to get online and ship yourself an assortment from Pistacia Vera and become the hero of your friends and family. Thank you Anne and happy steeping.

Thanks to all the staff at Gamil, Gamila, The Visual Art Exchange, Artspace and many many more, SPARKcon had a huge weekend to promote local creativity of the Triangle.

Lots of people ask why we do it and what we’re trying to create. We consistently work from the values established in the original SPARKcon Comment -which resulted from facilitating hundreds of citizen at the first ideaSPARK.

However we found the real mission statement was truly eminated from those who participated, in a unified voice. After 4  years of thinking and planning, we see that our open-source approach to creating a talent showcase structure is a unique construction that works and empowers the community to show their stuff and connect.

Spark on!

It’s not only pricey to rent booth space, but staying in New York isn’t too cheap either. Thankfully, we met a lot of new customers and got great feedback on how existing ones are using our products. I was able to see Ty and Chad’s great skills on working a show. It is tough mentally and physically!

It was exciting to see other North Carolina companies well represented, including our friends at Vietri and Blue Barnhouse. Overall it was a great experience, and we were happy to see the market look like it was finally rebounding a bit.

The past few years, Gamil Design and Gamila Company have taken a joint trip to the NC State Fair. We are so fortunate to live in the State Capital, and have the Fair pop up 4.2 miles from our downtown office every year.

Video Still from NC State Fair "Announcing the 2009 State Fair Theme" Video

I’m not sure what the themes were for past fairs, but I’m loving the “A Whole Lotta Happy” theme for 2009! The talking bubbles in the video kinda make me think of this post we wrote back in April.

Check out the announcement video… It is has that cute homemade feel that makes you smile (Note: People in video definitely reflect the State Fair… Caribbean Music does not really reflect the State Fair… Lastly, If you get motion sickness from shakey camera action beware).

as seen on the Deep Fried Blog

After 5000 years of tea brewing, I have to wonder if modern design materials speak to the timeless pursuit of tea.

Admittedly, we have taken our shot but at least fascination follows function in our attempts. Keep on steeping…

Our sister company, Gamila has unvelied a new product for Christmas ‘08: the Teastick Gems! Made with BPA-free, Tritan polymer and 304 Stainless Steel Mesh, the Gems features a high performance product with top notch materials. 

The Original Teastick was so successful that we completely redesigned the Gems with a principal customer suggestion in mind: make a Teastick that excels for the more powdery herbal teas. Next we had to make sure we used the best materials available and were able to work with Eastman to feature their high temperature and supple Tritan material to uniquely mold the Teastick. Special thanks to Ty, Robert, Taylor, Eric, Kelly and Joey for bringing the whole project together. 

Hats off to Beth and Britt for a stunning package design that really gift wraps the final product… We’re pretty excited, can you tell?

Aly Khalifa received his 11th patent today. This was for one of our favorite designs: the Teastick!

“Casey Porn is among the artists who have designed Mila Jackets for tarting up your iPod.”

Cruising the Blueridge Parkway during Thanksgiving holiday with my Mila iPod swinging on each curve made me regret not upgrading sooner. So now my iPod…. wait for it…..has a new twist on swing music. Beth made me say this.