"grownups" news and stories

The four nesting layers of these lunch pails were inspired by an Asian design of stackable lunchboxes. They are made of food-grad stainless steel, and are a very adult way to take your lunch to work.

The advantages to such a lunch box are mostly that the things in each container are kept separate and that the containers can be joined together and carried as one unit. While you could achieve the same type of separation with Tupperware, you won't end up with the same easy-to-carry stack. If you're not taking a lunch, the containers can be used for snacks, like M&Ms, nuts or dried fruits to get you through a long after noon. On top of that, the design is simply beautiful. The disadvantages are that you'll have to find things that fit in the boxes, so sandwiches might be out, considering each layer is 5-1/4" in diameter and 2" deep. The boxes are also not insulated, so they will have to be refrigerated if you are carrying anything that cannot be stored at room temperature. Whether the bad outweighs the good is up to you, but it's definitely a better choice if you tend to take salads and leftovers for lunch, rather than chips and sandwiches.

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Shaved ice doesn't seem to be quite as popular as it once was, perhaps due to the huge surge in popularity that ice cream enjoyed when the concept of mix-ins became popular. After all, you can't really mix smashed up candy bars into a bunch of ice and get the same effect. Shaved ice is still a great summer treat, though. A pile of ice doused with flavored syrup is tasty, cooling and (in what seems to be a huge selling point for kids) will often turn your tongue different colors. This electric ice cream shaver allows you to make shaved ice at home, quickly grating ice cubes into fluffy ice shavings waiting for flavorings.

The biggest drawback to making this treat at home is that it can be hard to find syrups. Torani syrups can be used to make great snow cones and come in over 50 flavors. Get watermelon and root beer for the kids and something more grown up, like creme de cacao or amaretto, for yourself. You can also try making shaved ice without syrups using a fresh berry topping or a vodka-spiked flavoring.

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According to an article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, scientists think that “picky eating’ may have developed as a survival trait that kept children, and perhaps adults, from snacking on poisonous and unknown foods during the hunter-gatherer stage of life. Unwillingness to eat the unfamiliar until it becomes a safe, known quantity is a good survival tactic. Modern humans (with the possible exception of the roadkill chef) do not have to worry about survival in this manner because to most of us, safe food is readily available; survival of the species is no longer a major factor. So what is it that makes some people turn up their noses at cheese or sushi?

A recent study of 50 extremely picky adults at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia seemed to indicate that texture, more than flavor, is what turns people off. They hate surprises or simply don’t want to learn how to eat them. Many parents try to overcome these fears in their children, but the problems can be more difficult to deal with in adults. Most adults can avoid the foods they don’t enjoy, but if they travel on business, for example, encounters might be inevitable. The WSJ offers a few tips from eating consultants to wary business travelers: take a lot of foods you like (rice, potatoes) and don’t even ask what unknown foods are. Either take a little and “kind of nibble a little bit” or just push it around on the plate.