New Ravenna Mosaics defines the word mosaic

A week ago, I was reading an article written by Adrienne Palmer on Susan Palmer's Design Blog and I came across this image. It's a mosaic back splash from New Ravenna Mosaics and Stone.

Beautiful kitchen yes, but what caught my eye was the mosaic on the wall behind the sink. Here's the detail shot Adrienne ran as part of her story.

My God, that mosaic's made with natural stone. I was hooked immediately. I left a comment to that effect after Adrienne's article and within an hour I had an e-mail in my in-bin from Sara Baldwin. Sara Baldwin is the artistic and entrepreneurial driving force behind New Ravenna Mosaic and Stone. She's also one very cool woman.

New Ravenna bills itself as the country's premier designer and manufacturer of stone and glass mosaic tile and I don't doubt that claim for a second. These mosaics are easily the most beautiful I've ever seen. There's a quality and thoughtfulness here that's something I'd expect to see in commissioned art. At first, that's what I thought New Ravanna was --the work of a single artist. 

I spoke with Sara Baldwin in a wide-ranging conversation last week and it turns out that New Ravenna is a 100-person strong organization in rural Virginia. So instead of a single artist working on a custom piece, New Ravenna employs a hundred of them.

Most of New Ravenna's work is done as fully custom design projects. However, they have an extensive collection of production patterns that can be ordered from any of their 200 distributors nationwide.

In looking over these patterns, it's pretty clear that these designs are the product of someone who knows how to work with the materials at hand. But they go a couple steps beyond that. If you look through New Ravenna's collections, you can see that for every design that's brand new and modern, there's also a design that's a modern take on on a classic pattern.

The classically-inspired designs are what appeal to me most about New Ravenna's offerings. I love classical designs and motifs but it doesn't take any real artistic ability to copy a Roman or Moorish pattern. On the other hand, to take inspiration from a classical form and to re-interpret it with modern eye takes something akin to genius. New Ravenna's revisitations of these classics are what make a believer out of me.

Spend some time combing though the New Ravenna Mosaic and Stone website and you'll see what I mean. I have a long-lived admiration for the art of mosaic and I've seen a lot of them. I can honestly say though, that it gets no better than this. I have never seen natural stone, and now glass look as good as this. Bravo!

Induction cooking just got easier

Fagor, the Spanish appliance manufacturer, has just rolled out a new, portable induction cook top and it is slick. Fagor has been around since the early '50s and they are the largest manufacturer of induction cook tops in Europe. They have been a growing presence in the US market since the early '90s, and this is a company that's earned its chops.

The Fagor portable is lightweight and powerful. It weighs seven pounds and has a temperature range of 160 to 430 degrees. As with all induction cook tops, the appliance itself doesn't get that hot, it's the pot that does. I wrote an explanation of induction cookery here.

This portable has a lot of the features I'd expect to find in a much more expensive built in model. Features such as a built in countdown timer, a digital touch control panel, six power levels, and auto pan detector, a child lock, auto shut down and and a self-diagnosis and error reporting system.

This single, portable burner has all of those features; the legendary speed and hyper efficiency of all induction cookers at the easy to take price of $200. These cook tops make a fantastic supplement to an existing cooking arrangement and they are also a great way to give induction cooking a trial run. Bravo Fagor!

Beware sketchy, industry-sponsored "research"

I read a blog every day called Barf Blog. Barf Blog is a project of University of Kansas associate professor of Food Safety Doug Powell. Powell has an extensive background in microbiology as well as a biting, entertaining wit. Barf Blog may be an academic exercise, but it sure doesn't read like one. Several times a day, Powell and a bunch of his food safety pals publish posts about how food safety and microbiology effect every day life. They do this with a tremendous sense of humor and a complete disavowal of scare tactics. Barf Blog is living proof that reason and rational thought will save the day every time.

OK with that said, last week, Ben Chapman wrote a great post debunking the results of a bogus study commissioned by the Canadian Plastic Industry Association that purported to prove that reusable grocery bags are a health hazard. They proved no such thing, but the story made it into the pages of my local paper anyhow.

Swab-testing of a scientifically-meaningful sample of both single-use and reusable grocery bags found unacceptably high levels of bacterial, yeast, mold and coliform counts in the reusable bags. The swab testing was conducted March 7-April 10th by two independent laboratories. The study found that 64% of the reusable bags were contaminated with some level of bacteria and close to 30% had elevated bacterial counts higher than the 500 CFU/mL considered safe for drinking water.

Coliform bacteria, yeast and mold are everywhere and trying to eliminate them is the ultimate fool's errand. Their presence on the surface of a grocery bag, an apple or your hands means nothing. Coliform bacteria in your drinking water is an all together different situation, but a grocery bag isn't a glass of tap water. There is coliform bacteria anywhere where there are life forms that poop nearby. Finding generic coliform bacteria in water is a test to see if a water source has been exposed to poop or not. Poop, human and otherwise, can carry all manner of dangerous pathogens and coliform counts in water samples are an an important and easily detectable warning sign. On its own, most coliform bateria is harmless. However, a very specific form of it is bad news and that form has a name, E. coli 0157:H7. The study found zero traces of 0157:H7 and states that finding clearly:

No E. coli or Salmonella was detected in any of the bags.

However, it follows up immediately with the conjecture that they might find some if they look harder. Spare me. That finding is buried in the Specific Results section of this paper:

The unacceptable presence of coliforms, that is, intestinal bacteria, in some of the bags tested, suggests that forms of E. coli associated with severe disease could be present in small but a significant portion of the bags if sufficient numbers were tested.

The finding of 500 CFU/mL makes me wonder too, because that's a measure for liquids. It means Colony Forming Unit per milliliter. The authors of this "study" found 500 colony forming units of coliform bacteria in a milliliter of grocery bag. Huh?

Clearly, this study was the handiwork of an industry feeling the pinch of people switching to reusable grocery bags and that's it. Releasing unscientific findings in the form of press release preys on most peoples' scientific illiteracy and fears. It's ridiculous, but what's really ridiculous is the outright fear mongering and the illogical leap to the idea that reusable grocery bags are responsible for food-born illness. 

But I suppose it's no more illogical and ridiculous than the claim that I need to use reusable grocery bags so that I can save the earth, what ever that means.

So why not this? The simple and rational reason to switch to reusable grocery bags is that they are a more efficient use of resources and they cost less money over time. You're not going to get impetigo from them any more than you're going to save the rain forest. What you will do though is reduce the amount of solid waste you generate, help to reduce the US's dependence on imported oil and you'll help to cut down on the amount of garbage that ends up being washed into waterways.

Their use is a smart way to lead a more efficient life, so go be more efficient and ignore industry-sponsored findings.

More scenes from a love affair

So while I'm gushing about the wonders and joys of iPhone ownership, I came across this little gem this morning.

I have been a loyal reader of The New Yorker for more than 25 years. Probably more than any other single influence, The New Yorker has helped to shape my sensibilities, my sense of humor and standards. Since 1925, the New Yorker has been at the forefront of contemporary thought, criticism, art and literature. Besides, I think the magazine's hilarious. Sort of a Mad Magazine for the English majors of the world.

Well, every week, The New Yorker features new, original art on its cover. This week's cover is a finger painting by Jorge Colombo. Yes, a finger painting. However, it's a finger painting done on an iPhone using a $4.99 application called Brushes. Brushes has a free, companion application called Brushes Viewer and Brushes Viewer will allow anyone to capture a video of the process of drawing in Brushes. Here's the video of Jorge Colombo's creation of this week's New Yorker cover.

Colombo has made the iPhone his new medium and prints of his work are available for sale on his website. Again I ask you, what's a Blackberry?

An amazing new design tool for the iPhone

I love my iPhone. I am more satisfied with it than any other electronic device I've ever owned. I have been an iPhone fan for more than a year, so this is no honeymoon. Every electronic breakthrough since the wireless radio has promised to make life easier. So far as I'm concerned, the iPhone is the first such device to deliver on that promise.

I use it for everything and I've equipped mine with everything from a plumb bob to a line level to a carpenter's calculator to a metric converter to an Italian phrasebook. The iPhone has changed how I navigate and changed my whole relationship with the information age. If it's not already obvious, I am a big fan.

Well, I'm about to become an even bigger fan. On June first, the iTunes App store is rolling out a new, free application called ColorCapture Ben. This app was developed by Benjamin Moore Paints and ColorCapture Ben will allow me to take a photograph with my phone, then zoom in on any part of that photo and color match the photographed object to any one of Benjamin Moore's 3,300 paint colors. Unbelievable.

As if that weren't enough, the app will then use the iPhone's on board GPS to locate the user and then find the closest Benjamin Moore retailer.

All I have to say is "What's a Blackberry?"