Thout Design has come up with a very unique way of storing your flatware - in the wall. You can purchase a tile that comes with spots to hold 4 sets of 5 pieces of low grade stainless steel flatware (2 forks, 2 spoons, 1 knife). The flatware is held into place with magnets.

I love the look of magnetic spice holders. This storage system, however, looks too cluttered. The description on Design Public, where you can purchase the tiles for $300, states that the tiles are ideal for small space living. Wouldn't the flatware jutting out of the wall make the place look even smaller?

What do you think?

[via Better Living Through Design]

As Valentine's Day approaches, there certainly won't be any shortage heart-shaped things, whether it's a gift to give your sweetheart, or something for you to use in the kitchen.

The Big Love Ice Cream Spoon by Alessi comes from Italy and is made of shiny stainless steel. It's perfect to start your Valentine's Day with breakfast in bed (a bowl of Special K can be very romantic, you know), and to end your evening with a bowl of ice cream. The spoons come in a set of four, but let's hope that you only use one...to share!

The spoons are $39.90, available from Amazon.com.

As the holidays approach, we'll certainly be doing our fair share of entertaining, whether it's a casual get together of friends on a Saturday afternoon watching football, a simple cocktail party, or a full-blown sit down dinner. In any case, you're going to need the right stuff to set your table (and I don't mean a tablescape) -- linens, plates, cups, and flatware.

We'll cover your indoor tailgating another day, but if you are throwing a luxurious sit-down dinner party, Neiman Marcus has some fabulous ideas for setting your table. They've gotten together with four top designers who have picked things to set tables in their particular style. There's master of knits and resort-wear St. John, Valentino, Jay Strongwater, and my personal favorite, Nanette Lepore, who sets the table with rich crumpled linens and Baroque-inspired dinnerware.

In most Japanese restaurants and sushi bars, the chopsticks are those ridiculous splinters of disposable wood that don't deserve a proper chopstick rest. However, I always end up folding the wrapper into a nice little "bench" to rest the tips of my chopsticks do that they don't touch the table.

In nice restaurants, you might get a ceramic chopstick rest shaped like a fish or perhaps a leaf, or sometimes it's just a flat, polished stone. I can't remember what they are officially called in Japanese, but these simple shapes in light, pastel colors from Muji in the UK are beautiful for home. 

They're £0.50 per piece.

With the opening of an exhibition about the tools used for eating at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Julia Moskin asks are we really afraid of flatware? (Of course not. We’re just saving it for a special occasion!)

The message to eat local, organic and avoid processed foods is at the core of a Berkeley nutrition professor's book What to Eat, which tells you how to shop for groceries and select the most nutritious foods.

An oyster zealot shares his passion along with the history and flavors of the oyster in the Northwest.

Foraging for wild plants in the woods is what really gets some chefs heated up in spring, though the seasonal ramps, ferns and bitter greens are not always the easiest sell to diners.

The minimalist, Mark Bittman, does a video preparation of grilled lamb with miso-chili sauce at the NY Times website.

Frank Bruni dines at August and gives it two stars.

[Image NYT]