Stefani Bardin and I launched The Counter Kitchen at Eyebeam in Dec 2010. We started with a day-long workshop with NYC high school students from Hunter Math & Science. They brought their favorite food and home products (such as Strawberry Pop-tarts, Diet Coke, Johnson’s Baby Lotion and Axe Shampoo) for us to reverse engineer together. We got to work mapping out the ingredients — learning where they come from and what they do. Then the students re-labeled their products based on research. Pesticides in your Pop-tarts anyone? 10% petroleum filling and 90% question mark!? Where’s the berry? Fun stuff!! Oh, and we made some gatorade and toothpaste from scratch too. They both got “thumbs up” from our super tasters (the students).
In Dec 2010 we also opened the kitchen to the public for Eyebeam’s Holiday Mixer, making breath mints (image above) from xylitol and pomegranate juice. Also on the burner were DIY gummi bears and more gatorade and toothpaste.
Next up: we are going to polish up those re-labels to share with you and start experimenting with new recipes (some baby lotion and diet coke perhaps…). We are also lining up some guests to join us in TCK so we can do more and do it better.