Something to talk about
What goes around comes around. Yesterday’s retro-designed living room conversation pits, that were shunned as impractical by the television watching 70 and 80’s generations, have started to make an adventurous comeback for 2026.
They’re the latest spaces and places to ‘have and be’ with guests and family members alike invited to step in, take a seat and stay a while. L shaped or corner conversation vignettes spaces can be accessed by a few small steps with low to the ground, integrated deeply cushioned seating that’s built into the wall. They can also utilize the perimeter of a U-shaped space can even be created in outdoor spaces.
As experts see it, the resurgence comes from people wanting and needing to reconnect and get out of the open concept styling rut. Bringing back clever plans for comfy sunken layouts that are close to the floor are the ideal way to achieve the perfect look, style and feel for family time and home entertaining.
Described by interior designers as intimate, sunken areas, c-pits revival is controversial for some. It eliminates or at least reduces the need for freestanding living or family room furniture. It also creates a dedicated, functional focal point that provides the option for cozying up, face to face interactions and easy socializing.
Personalization using creative upholstery and unique seating arrangements let each homeowner make bold and adventurous or more subtle and muted choices according to their taste and preferred set up.
Source: Airmail.news
Burying bread in Iceland
Alongside sulphur filled air and bubbling hot springs of the region, Laugarvatn Fontana bakery has become quite a landmark. Its legendary sweet, cakey golden-brown rye bread that’s made using a special process and an ancient recipe.
Known as Hverabrauð, this traditional bread is still made by only a few intrepid individuals who have the ‘passed down’ know-how. Ingredients that go into the fresh dough include rye and all-purpose flower, sugar, baking powder, salt and cow’s milk and a mound of black sand. Remarkably, there are no secret ingredients or spices added—it’s just time, rye and sugar that come together to creates the one-of-a kind must-taste flavour.
Each day, new batches of special dough are wrapped into layers of plastic wrap and placed in individual stainless-steel cooking pots, After being carried to a lakeside beach, the pots are lowered into one of a series of holes in the sand about a foot below the surface to connect with the boiling geothermal waters. The reusable pots slow cook the bread for approx. 24 hours. The bakers use 10 – 15 large black stones to show others that there’s a pot of bread baking beneath.
Delicious, and not so unusual according to locals, the cooked loaves are unique in taste and texture. Each is sliced and eaten smeared with locally made butter and topped off with pieces of smoked trout that came straight from the lake.
Tourists have the chance to participate in daily rye bread tours and tastings.
Source: Gastro Obscura
A history of the chef’s hat
Chef’s not only wear their symbolic tall white pleated hat’s known as toques, for hygiene to prevent cross contamination and also to clarify their role. Different types and heights of hats and even hats in various colours have been worn based on the chef’s title, rank in the kitchen and their level of expertise.
The tallest hat in the kitchen usually belonged to the most senior executive chef. The white was said to indicate cleanliness in the kitchen. And, the pleats were said to represent the number of techniques or recipes the chef had achieved. One hundred pleats would represent the one hundred ways that he or she could prepare eggs. Flat topped hats are worn in bakery settings. They’re lightweight, cotton and easy to wash.
Back in the 16th and 17th century men didn’t cut their hair so this often meant that the older the person the taller to accommodate the longer hair. The older the chef, the taller the hat, with history reporting that the head chef was the oldest, with the longest hair and the tallest hat.
Today many traditional restaurants at high end hotels invite their chefs to wear traditional hats along with their white jackets and small blue check trousers.
However, over the years, there’s been a movement towards more modern or matching hats for the kitchen team. And, if you peak into kitchens everywhere you may see more functional headwear like skill caps, baseball hats or even colourful bandanas.
Source: Escoffier.edu
