Sometimes I miss advances in medicine.

Doctor’s in Duluth performed and wrote up their finding on the topic of “stool transplants” in 2003. They used a household blender to prepare the “organ” for transplant. I hope it was a disposable blender.

blender, originally uploaded by redjar.

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I’m not making this up.

More links if you don’t believe me.

• Washington Post
• Poop for the Cure

[Link coutesy of Metroblogging Twin Cities]

My uncle sent me a wonderful present recently. It is an indoor Stove Top Smoker. I had never really considered anything like this for my kitchen. I have been around people smoking food outdoors but was never really interested enough in smoking food to devote an entire day to the activity.

After using this pan a few times I have to say it is really fabulous — better than expected. I smoked both a small brisket and a salmon fillet over the weekend. Both dishers were very simple to to prepare and had a wonderful but not overpowering smoky taste. I can’t wait to try roasting veggies in this pan.

The pan itself is a really heavy stainless steel pan that doubles as a deep roasting pan, so is a much appreciated addition to the kitchen.

There didn’t appear to be any smoke escaping from the pan but the house did smell vaguely of a butcher shop afterwards. This is good news to me since I love the smell of a butcher shop.

I’ve often thought that “butcher shop” would be a really great men’s cologne. I’ve always been afraid that if I were to actually procure or create “eau de butcher shop cologne” I would become a pied piper of puppies.

The Caribou on the way to work has a great staff who provide a bright spot in my mornings. I was pleasantly surprised to find out one of the barista’s is a musician. Check out Girl With Guitar or her spot on myspace.

Mickey’s Diner, originally uploaded by timbu.

I’ve wanted to eat at the St. Paul landmark, Mickey’s Diner, since 1988, before I ever moved to Minnesota. Today was my lucky day.

The kids and I sat at the counter and had a complete diner experience. I had a very nice Mulligan Stew and they had pancakes in the shape of a well known mouse with agressive trademark lawyers.

At lunch I heard about a service where you can upload a photo and have the photo printed onto a glossy post card and mailed directly to the address of your choosing. That rawks! I wish I had known about that when I was at Disney World. They will even print and mail one for free. Checkout postCards from the post office, via amazing mail.

If I didn’t even know what the post office was doing, maybe there were other things you could do with a picture that I don’t know about — help me google. I then found Photo Cupcakes — hey, that’s cool too!

Hmm, cupcakes, I like cupcakes — this led me to a blog full of cupcake recipes, which led me to 52 Cupcakes, where there is a new cupcake recipe posted every week.

That is where I found the recipe for Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.

Unisex Handwashing – Chino Latino, originally uploaded by timbu.

I didn’t sneak into the women’s room to snap this photo.

Nope, it’s a unisex hand washing area outside the restrom proper – thanks Chino Latino, it was a first for us.

Chino Latino Menu, originally uploaded by timbu.

What do you get when you add a dark restaurant and a menu that was painstakingly created to resemble something beaten out of a typewriter that fell off a donkey in darkest Peru — Chino Latino!

The food was very good, if you can do fusion food like a sushi salmon roll with roasted corn salso on top.

The menu was annoying to read, but the food was fun to eat. I’ll be back, hopefully with more people, so I can try more things.

Sebastian Joe’s has awesome ice-cream, coffee and wi-fi — why don’t I stop there more often?

I made hummus at home this weekend. I cannot believe how trivial it was to make, I don’t think I will be buying hummus at the store any more. I started with this recipe on Epicurious. Now that I’ve made it once, I can see how I could improve this and tweak it — adding more garlic for instance.

I’ve been out of tea for a while, so I swung by Tea Source yesterday. I bought a packet of my old favorite tea blend, Prairie Passion. After some head scratching I decided that I should try another oolong, so after some guessing I decided to try “Green Dragon Oolong“. After the second cup I’ve decided that this tea is my new favorite. The tea comes out much greener than most green teas I’ve brewed before. It tastes very smooth — like honey. It also stands up to multiple steepings very nicely, making the steep price easier to swallow.