"plate" news and stories

Our friends over at Engadget tipped us off to a really unusual diet-helper called the Smart Plate. The 15-cm plate was invented by a Ukrainian scientist, Dr. Hryhory Chausovsky, and is weight sensitive. When the plate is overloaded with food, a palm sized computer attached to the plate is activated and audio alerts are triggered. At that point, acting like your own personal "weight-watcher," the plate will reprimand the user, saying things like, "Stop right there! And what about excess weight?" and "Where's your willpower?" If you really have a problem with overloaded your plate, especially in a buffet-type of situation, it would be worth getting a few odd looks as you pulled out your own dish if it helped you keep your diet under control. And having your plate reprimand you in public is significantly more embarrassing than just bringing out the plate itself, so there is a good chance that the plate really would keep you on track.

Dr. Chausovsky has a number of other weight-loss aids to his name, too. He has a second version of the plate that has a different type of sensor. This one will play music faster and faster, depending on the speed at which food is eaten and the rate at which utensils touch the surface of the dish. Slower eating would keep the music at a normal tempo. He also has a belt that monitors a stomach's expansion during a meal, an armband that monitors calorie intake per bite, a refrigerator magnet that demands"Are you here because you are really hungry, or is it just your emotions?" when the door is opened and "food spectacles" that are tinted to make good food look unappealing.

Chausovsky says that he doesn't take any money for any of his inventions, since he got into the business to benefit people, not to profit from them.

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These unusual ceramic plates have a couple of different uses and are so visually interesting that it's almost a surprise that they're not in any high-end restaurants, especially one where they deal with less traditional foods and presentations. The Dish It Up dishes come in three sizes that can be fit together along their "cut" edge. They could be used for portion control, if you're looking for a practical purpose to justify buying them and more artistic platings are not your goal. One other interesting feature of the dishes is that they can be stored vertically, resting on their straight edge, which minimizes the amount of cabinet space they take up. They are sold in sets that include one each of the small, medium and large sizes.

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Those of us on the west coast know that if there are good diners out here, they are few and far between, so you probably have to get your diner fix if and when you take a trip back east. This brilliant set of Diner Plates lets you bring the diner straight into your home, albeit minus the charming waitresses who call you "Hun" and endless steaming mugs of watery coffee. The plates have sharp photographs of a retro-looking diner on them, giving you the impression that you are looking through a tiny window. There is a semi-matching set of plates that feature roadside signs available, too, so by combining them, you can have an entire road trip without leaving your driveway. It won't quite be road food, but you could come pretty close.

A bowl of soup and a sandwich make a classic, comforting lunch pairing - especially if it is some kind of tomato soup and a cheese sandwich. In summer, this could mean gazpacho and cream cheese on toast for dipping, or a spicy tomato soup and hot, melting grilled cheese sandwich in winter. Either way, it is a satisfying meal. The soup and sandwich plate ($15) is the perfect setup for serving the pair, with a bowl set into one side of the plate and a rectangular, sandwich-shaped indentation on the other. The ceramic is oven, dishwasher and microwave safe, too.

Granted, you can't really say that you need a set like this one unless you have no other tableware, but there is nothing wrong with wanting it. And you know you'd use it if you had it.

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Pop Ink is a design company that has created this adorable set of "Fashion Plate" dinnerware. Each set has four different saturated color designs and are molded into heavy-duty 10" Melamine plastic plates. The plates are dishwasher safe, though not microwavable. In addition to the fashion plates, Pop Ink has sets called Lovesick and Wallpaper.

The set of four is $40 and is available from Elsewares.