Sinks that look like turntables

Check out these groovy turntable sinks. The collection is called "Vinyl" and it's the creation of Italian designer Gianluca Paludi for Olympia Ceramica. It appears, appropriately, that speakers are an available attachment.

(Design Milk)

Thanks, Doug!

Larry King on "To Tell the Truth" game show (1981): Watch

In 1981, the four To Tell the Truth panelists -- Soupy Sales, Pat Collins, Henry Morgan, and Peggy Cass-- weren't yet familiar with Larry King. Watch as they try to figure out who is the man behind the growing D.C.-based talk radio show. King was 47 years old when he appeared on the game show and he didn't start TV career on CNN until 1985.

Funeral potatoes are not as grim as they sound

Walmart has been advertising to my friend Terry in his Facebook feed. He showed me screenshots of the ads. They were all strange (octopus, anyone?) but the first one was particularly odd, one neither one of us had ever heard of before: funeral potatoes.

The name made me curious, of course. I needed to learn more.

The first thing I discovered is that they're are a Utah thing, usually served after Mormon funerals (hence the name).

But what are they exactly? Well, Food & Wine describes them as "one of the greatest American triumphs" and offers this description of their ingredients:

...the cheesy potato casserole is made with hash browns, cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soup, lots of cheese, lots of butter, lots of sour cream and ... cornflakes

(Or crushed potato chips instead of cornflakes, I also learned.)

That's some serious comfort food. Good job, Utahns.

If you think you'd like to make some, there are no shortages of recipes on the internet for them. Of course, you could just buy a bag of them from Augason Farms. But, as one commenter points out, "No Amazon. Just no, no, no. These need to be homemade by church ladies and served in the church basement with a sliced ham, garden canned green beans, rolls, 7 layer pea salad, and an assortment of pies, cakes, and Jello salad with shredded carrots."

Good point, though the bagged version has a shelf-life of 18 months.

As far as this regional foods' history, Deseret News reports:

The true origin of funeral potatoes has been lost to time, but one can speculate about how the dish became such a Utah staple. Most recipes for potato casserole require only a few easily purchased ingredients, and they feed a large group of people fairly cheaply. Given the casserole’s frequent presence at both family and church events, one could easily imagine that it gained popularity for being easy to prepare. The recipe likely spread throughout the culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the help of Relief Society cookbooks, which made many traditional “Mormon foods” ubiquitous.

Fun fact: Funeral potatoes so popular in Utah that an official trading pin featuring funeral potatoes was made for the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 (which you can now find for $20 on ebay).

Thanks, Terry!

TIL: You can buy bottles of fake bubbly for boat christenings that are designed to break

For more than 15 years I've lived in Alameda, a lovely island city in San Francisco's Bay Area. Because we're surrounded by water, there's a boating community. Thus, we have marine stores. I am not part of the boating community, so I had never gone into any of these stores. That is, until today. Our local West Marine store is moving to another part of town, so they're having a big sale. I decided it was time to check it out.

It was nicer than I expected. They're set to close at the end of March, so a lot of the shelves were barren. But there were still some neat nautical products left like international code flags, personal locator beacons, and boat beanbag chairs.

Though, what really caught my eye were these bottles of fake champagne. They're for when you christen a boat. You just take the bottle and smash it against the vessel. They don't contain alcohol (one reviewer says it contains a "soapy liquid") and are scored to break easily.

Read for yourself. Here's the product's description:

Save the real champagne for guests and break this special christening bottle on your vessel’s prow. The bottle is scored around the middle and housed in a net to ensure that your first swing is a smashing hit. The result: cheers from the crowd when an impressive-yet safe-spray of imitation bubbly celebrates your boat’s dent-free debut.

Watch and learn: https://youtu.be/fBSAwPqVIDE

photo by Rusty Blazenhoff