Balanzza Ergo: Digital Luggage Scale

by Josh Rubin

In a time when airlines charge for everything including your first piece of checked luggage and any sort of overage in weight, the Balanzza Ergo is a handy, money saving gadget. A digital luggage scale, it is an ergonomically designed device that lets you easily weigh your baggage before you get to the airline counter so you can anticipate or avoid extra charges.

Weighing only 8 oz. itself and compact in size, it's easy to pack to take with you on your trip just in case you buy a bunch of gifts for the return trip. Simple to use, just secure the scale to the bag's handle by using the provided strap and lift the luggage until you hear a beep indicating the weight has been registered. A bright easy to read LCD display indicates weight. During these days of stressful and difficult travel, being informed is vital and can save you money. Be a bit more prepared and purchase the Balanzza Ergo for $25 from Balanzza.

American Spoon

by Brian Fichtner

American Spoon has been in the business of making artisinal fruit preserves for nearly three decades. While many commercial manufacturers pump their jellies and jams full of sweeteners, American Spoon makes every effort to use as little sugar as necessary to create a fruit-forward product while preserving the natural flavors that often get lost in big batch production.

Based in Petosky, Michigan, American Spoon is ideally positioned to tap into a wealth of locally harvested fruits. Despite its picturesque locale—a quaint Main Street American town on the northern shores of Lake Michigan—the region can feel rather remote. Company co-founder Justin Rashid comments about his home, “There are two things you need to bring with you when you move to Petosky—a job and a wife.” Having left New York City in the late 70s with the aim of harvesting the region’s bountiful produce, Justin fulfilled the first prerequisite quite readily by supplying foraged foods to New York Chef Larry Forgione. With Larry’s brunch business in full swing, it wasn’t long before Justin found himself making preserves from Michigan fruits.

What sets American Spoon apart is their ethos. “We’re in the business of selling authenticity,” Justin declared. Authenticity means not only making natural preserves, but preserving varietals through strategic partnerships with regional farmers. While national distribution dictates the need for more hardy (read: less flavorful) fruits, American Spoon works with farmers to save heirloom varieties like its Red Haven Peach Preserves ($8 / 9.5 oz.) that might otherwise be lost from cultivation. American Spoon is one of the last companies to hand-peel this fragile fruit, known as a “melting flesh” peach variety. Despite the intensive labor, it yields an extremely succulent preserve loaded with large fleshy chunks.

The Wild Thimbleberry Jam ($17 / 9 oz.) is another delicious and rare product. Found only in some of the most remote regions of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the thimbleberry is similar in resemblance to a raspberry, however it bruises far more easily, making it unsuitable for mass cultivation. If the fruit falls to the ground, it's all but lost from the damage. Foragers can only pick a couple pounds in twice as many hours but the rewards are an incredibly aromatic jam, punctuated by the thimbleberry's miniscule, nutty seeds. For breakfast, we'd recommend using this jam in a crèpe.

Every American Spoon store—there are six in Michigan—features a tasting counter where customers are encouraged to both sample every product available and learn about its history. Look for our inclusion of American Spoon gift boxes in this year's upcoming holiday gift guide. American Spoon can be purchased online, through mail order or at gourmet retailers such as Dean & Deluca in New York or Surfas in Culver City.

Jaybo aka Monk: Paint My House

by Ami Kealoha

Taking on Berlin's largest cathedral, the Berliner Dom, street artist Jaybo recently transformed the facade with a sea of cartoon hands.

The sketch (above) looks like Disney and Hokusai collaborated on the piece, but the luminous realization of it (thanks to the high-powered projectors of Skudi Optix) takes the concept a step further. Contact Tristesse Deluxe for more info on the project and check Circleculture Gallery to learn more about Jaybo's upcoming show there.

Burton Private Stock

by Tim Yu

A first look at a new initiative by Burton, Private Stock is an extremely limited collection of products available exclusively at a select group of 100 specialty retailers worldwide. For the launch of Private Stock, Burton collaborated with one of Cool Hunting's favorites, Ron English. Known for his politically charged illustrations and subverted billboards, English's works are used on the Burton Hero (pictured right) and women's Blender (pictured below left) snowboards which are both available for $400. The collection also includes the Freezone Boot and Mission EST Binding which are different than the regular catalog offerings because they have special added features. The boot is comprised of both Freestyle and Ozone technologies and the binding features a Shredbed and Ultracap strap. Both are resonably priced at $200.

Featuring the upper crust of Burton product, the Private stock collection fuses the best in art and technology making for some of their most advanced and limited gear yet. You won't find any info on the Burton website so the only way to find out where and how to get these is to call the Burton Rider Service at +1 800 881 3138 to find an exclusive dealer near you. A very limited selection of Private Stock is also currently available at Burton flagship stores in New York, Burlington and Los Angeles.

Luckily, we were able to catch up with Greg Dacyshyn, VP and Creative Director of Product, to learn more about Private Stock. Dacyshyn runs point for most of Burton's creative directions so he had plenty of info to share with us regarding this new project and what we can expect from Burton in the near future.

How did the Private Stock Collection come about and how does it work?
Private Stock was created to support our most fashion forward, progressive dealers, who are really in touch with what’s going on in the art and fashion world, and who are looking for a more discerning unexpected product line. It allows us another avenue to work on “out of the box” collaborations and special products that we wouldn’t drop into our regular collections. Private Stock dealers are very experimental in that to be a Private Stock partner you basically sign up for a series of products that you have no visibility on. In turn, these dealers can offer something to their customers that is truly unique. How it works is that on set dates, these dealers get a shipment of new products that they have never seen and that will definitely be super limited and exclusive. The intention is that these products disappear at retail as soon as they arrive. It will always be fresh, unexpected and cutting edge, but that is as much as the dealers know in advance. It’s a pretty next level program.

How is the Private Stock Collection different from Burtons other artist designed projects?
Private Stock is not different in terms of the ‘process’ of how it’s created. Just like all of our artist collaborations, Private Stock seeks out the most innovative and fresh artists in the world to create unique products. What makes it different from other products in the line is the distribution. Private Stock is only distributed by a small number of our most style driven and forward thinking dealers. These dealers are chosen because they continue to push the sport of snowboarding as well as the lifestyle around it in unique and progressive ways. While this is not meant to discriminate from our other dealers, it simply comes down to those dealers who are experimental and who have a customer base which demands the most cutting edge products.

Continue reading the interview and see more images after the jump.