Hold onto your big bowed-headbands and fro-yo loving pants upper-Cambridge-siders, there’s a new chain coming to town. Noice would like to alert you that the infamous frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry of Los Angeles and New York City fame is on its way to Boston. Looks like Berryline will have to step up the competition—not to mention Red Mango is now in the mix too. This is like the East Coast/West Coast rap battle but way more delicious.

What do you think of this froyo battle? Who’s gonna win?

Photo credit: here.

Noice was about to sit down to a dinner of french onion soup and crusty wholewheat bread when suddenly something equally french, but infinitely more tasty-looking caught our attention.

Introducing LE WHIF, the product of the tireless of work of Harvard Professor David Edwards and his team of students. Edwards writes: “Over the centuries we’ve been eating smaller and smaller quantities at shorter and shorter intervals. It seemed to us that eating was tending toward breathing, so, with a mix of culinary art and aerosol science, we’ve helped move eating habits to their logical conclusion. We call it whiffing.” All sounds very odd to us, but here goes!

The small lipstick sized plastic container fits comfortably in the hand and is very light. Pull it out, raise it to the lips and inhale! Suddenly a rush of the most delicious chocolate flavor as thousands of aerosol chocolate particles burst onto the tongue. LE WHIF comes in three awesome flavors (Noice loves them all very, very much): Dark (rich, creamy tasting) Chocolate, Mint Chocolate, and Raspberry Chocolate. Each LE WHIF is worth three or four shots (or whiffs?!) of chocolate heavenly-ness and, whilst you’re not enjoying the instant chocolate satisfaction, you can simply click it shut and pop it back into your manbag, purse, or pocket.

LE WHIF is doing the rounds in many of the upperclassmen houses so keep a look out and tell your friends. However, more importantly, come along to the Grand Opening of The Laboratory this Sunday 8th in the late afternoon and witness an incredible (and sometimes chocolaty) collision of art and science. Buy those tickets!

(If you’re interested in learning more about LE WHIF and the other amazing products by this group just go to www.lewhif.com and www.thelaboratory.harvard.edu)

Photos courtesy of www.lewhif.com

For all you foodies and other starved students out there, I lovingly bestow upon you my midterm pick-me-upper, my “fml General Gao’s chicken again” curative, my black book of food fetishes – a collection of my food porn pics.

These are pictures of dishes that were just so good that I needed a visual testimony to their toe-curling deliciousness, and can only be fully appreciated one at a time.

So my first treat comes from Susan Feniger’s Street in Los Angeles. These savory little packages of pleasure are Spinach Varenykys, Ukranian pan-fried dumplings filled with spinach and a light layer of salted cheese. Fried onions and lemon marmalade offset the luxuriously creamy filling.

Now if this isn’t masochism for the palate, I couldn’t tell you what is.

I’m always ecstatic (really, I get that excited) when I see the board menu bar in our dining halls. That one special little section of the dining hall where I am finally given the opportunity to cook, actually more like assemble, my dinner. Luckily for me, my favorite of the board menus is the most recurrent – the panzanella bar.

Panzanella is a Tuscan bread salad that traditionally contains tomatoes, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and, yes, stale bread. The dining halls put their own spin on it by also providing us with arugula, olives, and pickled onions. When the panzanella has been prepared appropriately, the slightly dense, crusty bread is mollified by the absorption of some of the oil, vinegar, and juices from the vegetables; however, it still gives the salad some texture by retaining a bit of its chewiness.

I find it to be a lovely, well-balanced salad, but am always slightly put off by the bags of pre-cubed, mass-market bread, and also miss an integral part of my meat-loving, quotidian diet: protein. Read how I improve upon the panzanella after the jump.

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The Mojito

Banana Daiquiris, Brandy Alexanders, and Caramel Apple-Tinis, each of which I savored at 5 p.m. on a Monday evening. No, I did not spend my night in a drunken stupor, but in a sweet sugar high from the cocktail cupcake happy hour at Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square.

As unfortunate as this may sound, I consider myself to be quite the cupcake snob. Being from LA, I am a wholehearted follower of the cupcake craze that swept the country and now the world. Cupcake shops have sprung up in Rome, Istanbul, Berlin, Seoul, and Sydney, and I’ve made a point to find the best. I’ve waited forty-five minutes for a Sprinkles cupcake in Beverly Hills, tried more artisanal varieties from local bakeries across the country, flocked to Sweet upon its grand opening and, of course, flew to New York for the mecca of cupcakes: Magnolia Bakery.

See the verdict on Kickass Cupcakes after the jump!

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Delicious, and you made it yourself!

Today the dining halls were serving chicken wings (more like chicken skin) and our ever-recurring golden nuggets. Not being in the mood for these dining hall delicacies (out of fear for immediate heart attack), I opted for one of my favorite salad bar creations.

Barbeque chicken salad is just a good thing. It breaks up the monotony of simple green salad, is heartier and less frilly than other varieties, and most importantly, is incredibly easy to prepare when you’re in a dining hall rush. Read the quick and easy recipe, after the jump!

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