Supply and Demand: Giant Cupcake Pan

I love a novelty cake pan, even after the snowman I made for last year's Christmas party took a nosedive off the sideboard onto the dining room rug. (He was top-heavy.)

I especially love the new offering from Sur La Table and Wilton: the Giant Cupcake Cake Pan. This two-part pan creates a bottom half with fluted edges and a top half in the shape of a giant frosting cone. The whole idea is so twisted: a full-sized cake designed to replicate a miniature cake beloved for its very diminutiveness. I think I have to have one.

Supply and Demand: Bling H20

This is the first installment in a new series here on Laskin.com called Supply and Demand, bringing you the most amazing and appalling things available for purchase on the Internet.

Bling H2o is bottled spring water that bills itself as "More than just a pretty taste." How so? The bottle is frosted glass encrusted with Swarovski crystals, for a price of $40 a pop. (A limited edition case of Baby Bling Cobalt Blue will run you a cool $552.)

Bling H20 was the "inspiration of Kevin G. Boyd, Hollywood writer-producer." (Of course he's a hyphenate.) Kevin observed on Hollywood lots that "you could tell a lot about a person by the water they carried." Really? But alas, no existing bottled water made "that defining statement... It's couture water that makes an announcement like a Rolls Royce Phantom." So that announcement would be, I have too much money and no sense?

And don't even get me started on that home page image.