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.

I came across cricket today in my morning internet wanderings, and was immediately drawn to because of its simply/happy/friendly feeling packaging.

Cricket is a Green Tea and Kola Nut Brew. None of those chemically ingredients such as the phosphorics or high-fructoses are included in the Cricket formula.

My most common reaction to the sea of products was : Really?

It is always apparent when a good company runs into pressure to design without inspiration… baguette ‘bag’ anyone?

Sometimes I think we should spend more time drinking and eating rather than carrying around all this design baggage. Thanks Lunchbreath and Fueledbycoffee.

What more can I say? A picture is worth a thousand bites…

I imagine they have to keep some wipes near the scanner at this office.

this website is so refined they don’t even tell you who, where or why… but who cares, other than an intense desire to know where to get some of these choice beauties (I think its NYC). Keep them coming and don’t even hold the mayo.

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…

I like how it folds up though.

Abby Ryan has been creating a painting a day since ‘07. Beautiful, simple and delicious. Seems like a great approach to creating and selling work but from the looks of all the food subjects she may still be a starving artist (w/ an occasional smoke. see variety of matches). She also makes it look easy on several videos of her at work. I find the the half a dozen PBJ’s and candies so satisfying I can skip lunch…

Confections #18, 2006

Earlier this week I came across these photos by artist Amy Stevens. And in case you aren’t exactly sure what they are of… well they’re CAKE! YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY! Well I guess really the cake part is secondary to the fabulous decorating and backgrounds!

Check out More of Amy’s Confection photos.

Confections #26, 2007

Confections #42, 2007

Confections #54, 2007

Ok what is more chocolatey than chocolate? Chocolate covered Cacao beans!

Through a very unique process, Nahualli Trading Company has been able to coat pure Cacao beans with a few microns of barely sweetened chocolate covering. The resulting flavor is the best dark chocolate I’ve had – and the seed can even give a fruity flavor. Wonderful!

Nahualli Trading Company was started last year by Paul Mosca in Raleigh and his Chocolate Seeds were launched at Designbox’s Brand Fandango. I ate one thinking it was nifty. But a few pounds later, I wanted a whole Chocolate Tree!

This year we see Nahualli is taking their product to a whole new level. You can buy them here – but don’t open the bag until you’re ready!

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?