Hasta La Gadget!

If you read websites about food, NYC or general wackiness, there’s a good chance you’ve recently run into Scanwiches—a Tumblr with nothing but flatbed scans of bisected deliciousness. Here’s the story behind the site.

I love Scanwiches. It’s a fantastic concept, aesthetically beautiful, and its creator and I both share similar tastes, like the ridiculously good Vietnamese meatball sandwich at Banh Mi So No. 1 that’s just a few blocks away from Gizmodo HQ. It’s not every day you see your favorite sandwich baring all on the web as you eat it.

The site is the brainchild of Jon Chonko, an NYC designer at thehappycorp global. Once I got in touch with him via Tumblr, I had to know more about the how, what and why of this excellent work.

Q: When did the idea for Scanwiches strike, and what was your inspiration?

A: I think the word popped into my head first and then I had to see how it would actually look. I’ve always loved scanning things. It’s a very specific way of capturing an image. Everything—exposure, depth of field—is totally pre-set on a scanner so you try and explore the stuff you do have control with.

Once the project started getting popular people began sending me things, especially foods, that people have scanned. There’s a guy who does fast food, another person who did a project scanning green market produce, and several artists who do scanned flowers. It’s a weird little genre I didn’t now existed and was pleased to find I was a part of.

Q: What kind of scanner do you use?

A: I use my girlfriend’s old scanner. It has a broken lid and she didn’t want it. It’s an HP scanjet 4570c and it was made in 2002. The thing is on its last legs. It sounds like a subway train hitting the brakes every time it starts a scan. I think it has a max optical resolution of 400 dpi but it’s been a while since I read the manual.

Q: What is your process for scanning them? Do you just clean the glass really well after each one or put down some kind of transparent film for easy cleanup? Do much cleaning up in Photoshop or anything?


A: I clean the glass at the end of each set with Windex and a paper towel but between sandwiches it just gets wiped down. We started with a plastic film when we first scanned but we found that it fogged up when we did hot sandwiches. Straight onto the glass gets the best quality. This is a full time sandwich scanning machine—we have another really nice photo scanner for office use.



I take the image into Photoshop and do some white balance and color-correction but nothing dramatic. The sandwiches have to look appealing and realistic. I want people who see a sandwich on the site to recognize it if they’ve ordered it. It’s about education first and delight second.

Q: What’s the sloppiest sandwich you’ve scanned?

A: Eggplant Parmesan from Parisi Bakery. I had to wipe the thing down with a wet cloth afterwards.

If you have yet to do so, go check out Scanwiches this instant. Then, do the right thing: get yourself a sandwich. It’s lunchtime!

Iceblox, Baby
(with apologies to Vanilla Ice)

All right, stop—mix a drink and listen
Iceblox is a brand new invention

Tetris-shaped ice cubes grab hold of me tightly
Ready in the freezer daily and nightly
To the extreme, they cool my drinks like a vandal
(Devise a Tetris drinking game for instant scandal)
Got a warm beverage? Iceblox will solve it
Geek out your drink while my DJ revolves it
Iceblox, baby

Ahem. Iceblox ice cube trays can also be used to mold chocolate and Jell-O. They come in two different colors and you can purchase them at Supermarket for $8.50 each. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Last week, a 9-year-old boy received the birthday cake of his life in the form of a giant Wiimote.

At the request of one very loving parent, pastry chef Roshel Michaeli from Schicks Gourmet Bakery got to work meticulously measuring the Wiimote before scaling it to feed a small to medium army of children. The chocolate cake with mousse filling was coated with (edible) rolled fondant, depicting the Wiimote’s buttons in perfect detail—including even a properly shaped expansion port in the bottom.

The custom cake cost $360, but we have a feeling that it’s a memory the child will not soon forget. Though without a strap, this thing will make a huge mess all over the TV. [Thanks Jack!]

I hate to keep harping on this vegetable boom going on Japan, but on the other hand, it is interesting to see a trend become, well, actually a trend. As in one that show some significant trajectory and a whole lot of new product developments. If the last year was all about drinkable veggies (a move that created some pretty unlikely combinations like the tomato flavored liquor) then the current convenient store situation is all about vegetable snacks and sweets.

Major confectionaries like Meito and Fujiya have weighed in with items such as pumpkin pudding and sweet potato flavored cookies, respectively. Snack giant Calbee now has a whole line of vegetable snacks including hits like Vegips. Meanwhile Socio has carved out an image of using “farm fresh ingredients” in snack products like the colorful sweet potato chips pictured below (right).

Really, there is just too many to mention individually. Suffice to say that the convenience store is looking a lot healthier these days.

It was upon discovering these tomato and sweet potato chocolates produced by patisserie Potager on the shelves, however, that a connection appeared between the trendy cake shop and products like sweet potato cookies being on the shelves now.

Located in fashionable Nakameguro, Potager always seems to have a crowd these days of women lined up to purchase such goodies as “tomato cheesecake” and “turnip roll cake.”

Though the shop/café has been around for a couple of years now it has continued to pick up a steady stream of media (most recently in TV Japan, Elle a la Table, and Biteki magazines and appearing on Fuji TV), casting a spotlight on 31-year-old head chef Aya Kakisawa.