Where do Super Models come from?

The answer is: Brazil.

This fascinating video from the New York Times shows a unique poverty stricken area in Brazil that has produced some of the world’s top super models like Gisele Bündchen and Alessandra Ambrosio. It turns out that German, Italian and Russian migrants settled in this area many years ago and their descendants have the features that the world finds attractive. Modelling scouts study books and websites to track which areas Europeans settled in. They then visit schools (which is kind of creepy) hunting for attractive teens and pre-teens (even creepier) for their modelling agencies.

I won’t spoil the rest of the story but the article and video can be found in the following link: Finding Supermodels in Rural Brazil – Video Library – The New York Times.

Beatiful video of free diver free-falling into a blue hole

The video featuring Guillaume Nery base jumping underwater into the depths of the Blue hole, takes your breath away just watching it.The video is filmed entirely on breath hold by Guillaume’s girlfriend and french champion Julie Gautier. Guillaume Nery who currently holds the world record for constant weight free diving (without fins) to a depth of 113 meters (370 feet), showcases his artistic side in this amazing video.

Times sure have changed

The guy in the picture is Chauncy Morlan, who once made a living as a side show fat man. People paid money to look at him, because he was considered to be unusually fat. Today you can walk into any fast food outlets and see people far more fatter than him. How times have changed.

How to make a $3,000 kitchen knife

Fascinating video of Master Bladesmith, Bob Kramer, revealing the techniques and time it takes to make high-end Damascus steel chef’s knives.

Tree Branch Falls On Power Lines

Here the squeals and groans from this branch that landed on power lines before it bursts into flames. Fascinating…

Hamburger make up artist

You might wonder what’s in your local fast-food hamburger but it’s probably nowhere nearly as toxic as what is in the burgers that look oh so good in their picture board menu displays – check it out:

What if scientists could sing?

What you’re about to see is amazingly poetic and beautiful – thanks to the wonders of Autotune (the technology that most popstars use to shift their voice when they sing out of key) you’re about to see boring physics lectures turned into something amazingly poetic.

John Boswell of Symphony of Science made this song featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye.

Popstars should be banned from using autotune leaving autotune to the people who really do have something to say:

What if the earth had rings like Saturn

I know you’re thinking the same thing too – what would it look like from earth if we had Saturn-style rings? Well your curiosity has been answered with this cool video:

Don’t you just love the interweb? So many people with way too much talent and way too much time on their hands. Oh yes, make sure you hit the FULL SCREEN button and watch this thing in full screen glory.

Personally, I’m all for space junk – we should be shooting all our trash into a ring like orbit in space around the earth and then our great great great grand kids would have these amazing rings to marvel at and they would thank the wasteful ways of the past.

Scales Vs Other measuring tools

Having just finished our latest cookbook I was struck by the words of wisdom from Gizmodo arguing that we should be using scales for ALL our measurements in our recipes. The argument goes something like this:

Recipes work better when you weigh ingredients. A cup of flour can weigh between 4 and 6 ounces. That means if you’ve got a bread or cake recipe that calls for 4 cups of flour, you might measure out 16 ounces or 24 ounces—a 50% difference in the main ingredient! . . . Measuring is easier and cleaner and results in fewer dirty measuring cups when you use a scale. You can measure everything right into your mixing bowl.

Makes sense to me – you can read more here:

The Kitchen Scale, Unsung Hero of Great Cooking – Kitchen scales – Gizmodo.

Masterchef judge Matt Preston at Spirit House

Masterchef judge and super-nice-guy Matt Preston dropped in at the Spirit House on his way to the Noosa Food Festival. Officially he was here to gather some information for Delicious Magazine but unofficially we chatted about the show and the future of food and cooking talent in Australia.

Totally different to his television persona, Matt was charming, witty and more than happy to joke around with the staff:

He surprised the cooking school by walking in unannounced and telling everyone he was here to judge their food. You’d think he’d be bothered with everyone recognising him and bothering him for autographs but he was more than happy to spend time posing with my niece and her two friends (now his greatest fans):

What came out of our chat was shows like Masterchef are helping change people’s view of cooking. Being a chef is no longer a ‘trade’ or a career choice for when high school leavers’ grades are not so good. The show – and our experience – have shown there are people out there who love food and have a talent to blend flavours in to an expression of themselves.