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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

More Swedish Oddities

H knows a great place for Swedish meatballs, which are more or less as good as advertised in American foodlore. I'll buy one order of Swedish meatballs--round-trip airfare not included--for the person who can correctly identify these (found in the "housewares" section of a 2nd-hand store in Stockholm):

Please tell me you haven't sassed the neighborhood fauna with those things.

If you think you know, please post your notions in comments. But be prepared to back up your claim, since I haven't the least idea of what they are, and I'm not that gullible.

5 comments:

HLMP said...

I wanted to be the first to offer my thoughts. These are 1950s style torture devices for baby dolls who have been behaving naughtily. The one to the left is for girl dolls, the one the the right is for boy dolls.

-H

PS - bring on the meatballs.

Lian Chang said...

um, wine holders?

J. Powers said...

Any evidence to back that up, Lian?

Dre said...

I was waiting to come up with a 'truthiness' answer, but couldn't come up with anything better than 'industrial soldering iron holder' or 'gerbil anal probe' so I'll just go ahead with the right answer and agree with Lian: wine bottle holder.

The base that projects out further shows that it needs to maintain a center of gravity for something that projects out (a reclining wine bottle). The one on the right shows more evidently that a cylinder (hence to points) is meant to be resting on it.

The spiral loop would give it a 'boing' factor that would permit one to bend it out of the way and place the last bigger loop through the wine bottle nozzle.

(Maybe that the whole spiral part of the device can serve as a handle... to pour the wine. Maybe the Swedes, deep down, are afraid of cold, thus explaining, towel warmers and wine bottle holders.)

Oh yeah, and don't get distracted by the conical piece of wood, it's only ornament.

Having said all that, what's the advantage of keeping your wine at an angle?

Dre said...

Allow me to Conover-ise my post:

I was waiting to come up with a 'truthiness' answer [shut up, you're not Stephen Colbert], but couldn't come up with anything better than 'industrial soldering iron holder' or 'gerbil anal probe' [Lian may or may not like that one] so I'll just go ahead with the right answer and agree with Lian: wine bottle holder. [Finally something correct.]

The base that projects out further shows that it needs to maintain a center of gravity for something that projects out (a reclining wine bottle). The one on the right shows more evidently that a cylinder (hence to points) [hmmmmm, I think you mean TWO and not TO] is meant to be resting on it. [You should explain a few things about tangents, cirlces and points of contact here...]

The spiral loop would give it a 'boing' factor that would permit one to bend it out of the way and place the last bigger loop through the wine bottle nozzle. [Did you just say 'boing factor'?]

(Maybe that [Why is the 'that' there?] the whole spiral part of the device can serve as a handle... to pour the wine. Maybe the Swedes, deep down, are afraid of cold, thus explaining, towel warmers and wine bottle holders.[Is that a future MIT Press book?])

Oh yeah, and don't get distracted by the conical piece of wood, it's only ornament.[Ornament is NOT a crime.]

Having said all that, what's the advantage of keeping your wine at an angle? [Phhht, if you don't know, then you'll never understand].