All artwork by "Red" Hong Yi.

Cucumber Landscape

Last month, artist-architect Hong Yi, who also goes by the name Red, embarked on a project in which she would create an image a day using food on a white plate backdrop and post the results on Instagram. She even made a video about the project.

It was a beautiful month for culinary art.

See also:
Top 10 Knitted Foods
10 Best/Worst Pizza Tattoos

Ranging from the simple to the elaborate to the just plain fun, Yi's masterpieces of food art utilize an array of ingredients (think an owl made of onions, an Arctic scene created from an ice cream stick, and a pufferfish made of tropical fruit) that will leave you hungry for more.

Here are 10 of our favorites.

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Photo credit: Lip Chaser, Source: Instagram

Pucker up, Phoenix -- a frisky new follow-up to the body shot is here, and it's making its way to a liquor store near you. Lip Chaser, a patent-pending "kiss chaser," is a product from a Tempe-based business aimed at targeting the promiscuous party scene with a line of candy lip-gloss chasers.

We can't help thinking this is the hottest new way to catch cold sores, but for those party-goers who find that going out often turns into making out, this is certainly a product worth checking out.

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Kickstarter Campaign Asks for Money to Start "Freegan" Cafe -- Serving Food from Dumpsters
Watch This New York City Barista Draw Tiny, Intricate Foam Portraits in Lattes

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(Credit: Carnival Films)

There's something uniquely English about enjoying a dainty scone and a piping hot cup of tea. So while we may not be able to actually get to the Yorkshire country house of the Earl and Countess of Grantham -- mainly because it's a fictional place -- we can channel our inner Crawley family-ness with relative ease thanks to Queen City Cookies' Downton Abbey gift set, which can be conveniently delivered to your front door.

See also:
- So This Exists: The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook
- GIRLS: A Quick Recap, The Five Rules of Watching, and How to Catch The Next Episode if You Don't Have HBO

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At this point halfway into January, we check in with intrepid contributor Zach Fowle, who's made a commitment to go without alcohol for the first 31 days of the new year. Here's his Drynuary update, by the numbers:

See also:
- Drynuary: Zach Fowle Vows to Give Up Beer for the Entire Month of January

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"How could something that's delicious make me sick?"

It should be no secret to regular readers of this blog that I love beer. So much so, in fact, that in the past five years, hardly a day has gone by during which I haven't popped one open. The problem is that so many experiences can immediately be improved with a drink in hand. Cheering in the stands at the game? Better with beer. A round of early Sunday golf? Better with beer. Racing to finish an article you've only just remembered was due and you need to submit in half an hour lest you actually succeed this time in making your editor's head explode? With beer, everything is cookies and lollipops.

See also:
- Summer Guide: Beer
- Craft Beer of the Week Archives

But, as Troy realized after eating a cookie the size of a manhole cover, too much of a good thing can be -- GASP -- a bad thing. My memory, in particular, has become pretty shitty since i started drinking in earnest. Keeping in shape is also more difficult. And after the holiday party season, it feels like I've used my liver as a speed bag.

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Lauren Saria

Instagram art at Matt's Big Breakfast

When we're not blogging you can usually find our face buried in our iPhone screen posting photos and checking out the daily scene on Instagram. Try to get our attention while we 'gramming. We dare you. The filters, the snapshots.... It's an intoxicating combination that's got more than a few Phoenix food-lovers snapping and altering away.

If you're new to the Insta-scene or just looking for a few new friends to follow, check out our list of the nine most interesting people for the Phoenix food lover to follow.

See also:
- Five Tips for Effective Food Photography
- Laurie Notaro's Army of Foodies, the Amuse Douchers of the Culinary World
- Meet the Winners of Chow Bella's First-Ever Instagram Contest

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Lauren Gilger

Flairtending, the art of tending bar . . . with flair.

The holidays mean hosting parties, and parties mean booze (at least the fun ones), and booze means playing bartender, at least for the night. Knowing you're so far beyond premixed store bought drinks, we're guessing you'll be trying to impress the guests with your flashy bartending skills. Hey, maybe you'll even thinking about busting out the big guns and trying a trick or two.

Around here, we call that flairtending and in case you haven't found out, it can be a lot harder that it looks. Amateur hour at the bar never turns out well and when it comes to the big show and brazen tricks, we've found evidence even the pros can mess up from time to time.

Presenting five flairtending fails -- inspiration for the holiday party season.

See also:
- Chow Bella's Gift Guide for the Aspiring Bartender
- Kahlúa Gingerbread: How to Make It Tolerable

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Liz Hickok

San Francisco in Jell-O, "Palace of Fine Arts"

Whether happily putting wiggly spoonfuls of it in our mouths at mee-maw's house or hastily downing several alcoholic shots of it years later after accidentally catching mee-maw and her next-door neighbor doing a bit of jiggling themselves on the same kitchen floor you used to play Barbies on, Jell-O is part of the fabric of our lives.

San Francisco-based artist Liz Hickok certainly thinks so. Working in photography, video, sculpture, installation, and now, Jell-O, Hickok has created glowing scale models of cities that look as fragile as they do delicious. Hickok's even created one of Scottsdale, which you can see on her website.

Now let's take a ride into Jell-O town.

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Like most of us Yanks who love the British television series Downton Abbey, (OMG, the Dowager Countess of Grantham did NOT just say that!) we have to wait until January for Season Three to get our Crawley-on.

Bloody hell.

Thankfully, while we're waiting, we can at least eat like those in the estate (upstairs and downstairs) courtesy of The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook. Featuring over 150 recipes in twelve chapters from elegant dinner courses, to tea time snacks, to sustenance for the staff, this cookbook by Emily Ansara Baines (also the author of The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook) should have us cooking like Mrs. Patmore in no time.

Here's a peek at some of the dishes (note: some of them sound a bit naughty) plus the trailer for Season Three.

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@FutureExBanker

Lousy tippers take note: there is a consequence.

Listen up, lousy tippers. Yeah, you. You know who you are: stiffing your restaurant server, leaving him or her less than what they're owed after you've filled your face, and especially the guy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who, after having dinner with his family of five, left me the "tip" of a religious pamphlet.

Your day of reckoning has arrived.

Thanks to our sister blog Squid Ink, we've been alerted to the fact that there exists something called the Lousy Tipper Database. Found at LousyTippers.com, it's a virtual wall of shame where servers, bartenders, and delivery folks can enter the names, addresses, and other information like the total bill and tip (if any) received from those who've done them wrong.

Created by a frustrated food delivery driver who has chosen to remain anonymous, the site is dedicated to those who make a living off of gratuity, giving them an opportunity to "complain to the world and expose those who take advantage of your hard work."

But there are a few ground rules.

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