I'm cooking on sunshine! (Wooah!)

The concept of green energy becoming a perceivable substitute for coal and gas was validated again - this time in the kitchen. World-acclaimed Catalan designer Martí Guixé, Finnish food visionary Antto Melasniemi and Lapin Kulta beer have joined forces to present the Lapin Kulta Solar Kitchen Restaurant, where all the cooking is done and powered only by pure solar energy.

According to the official website, the Lapin Kulta Solar Kitchen Restaurant "highlights key contemporary themes: a nature-driven process, flexibility and immediacy. Depending on the sunshine of a given day, the kitchen is able to do a solar barbecue, meals prepared at lower temperatures or salads. The restaurant will therefore also test people’s flexibility: if it rains, we have to adapt, reschedule and deal with the nature-dependent delays. Immediacy will be evident in the urgency of movements and decisions, and real-time information: a cloud could change the course of a business lunch!"

Unlike the traditional way of cooking, solar heat affects the taste and texture of the dish in a surprising and positive way, producing a completely different taste experience

- Antto Melasniemi and Martí Guixé

Last month, their solar cooking project showcased at Milan Design Week 2011. This summer the restaurant will be setting up all over Europe, with the project making a trail towards the never-setting summer sun of the Arctic Circle. Customers can marvel at this creative and innovative use of the sun while enjoying gourmet cooking, beer, life and art.

Check out their website to see if they are coming to a city near you. Once you have found this out and you want to know when they are opening, look up to the sky...

Source: Lapin Kulta Solar Kitchen Restaurant

New bag!

Alas, commuting has taken it's toll on my wheelie bag. For a week or two I had started noticing that my laptop case was looking a bit dusty. I just thought it was my DIY lining on the inside of my wheelie bag coming off. Turns out there was a huge hole at the bottom of the bag near one of the wheels. I had been dragging my laptop along the floor all this time!!!!!!!!

I have since gotten a new one and it is no way as good as what I had - the compartments are too small, I have to put my lunchbox in sidewards, and I can't haul shopping in it either. The upside is that it is designed to hold a laptop so it is all protected, and the wheels are a bit bigger.

Maybe I should ditch it and go more high-tech - there are now bags you can get with solar panels that can generate energy to charge up your laptop (check out Voltaic):

Pretty cool no? Now if only it had wheels and I could haul shopping with it that would be great!