Small Bites

Little Vittles

Packed in potent tin six-packs, Buzz Bites are teeny pocket-size chocolate chews that pack a hell of a wallop. They taste innocuous enough, something like a slightly shudder-inducing Milk Dud. Once the thing absorbs, though — it's laced with copious amounts of caffeine, B vitamins, ginseng and taurine — you'll be fighting off the power jitters with a stick/climbing a mountain/roundhousing an infant. Available at vroomfoods.com.

-Drew Lazor

One of the many joys of Philly dining is our bountiful BYO scene — packing your own grape juice controls the final check, and you're usually in such merry spirits by the time it lands that you leave an appreciative tip. The only bummer? For those sporting larger sniffers, there's no way your nose is clearing the edge of the tiny jelly glass they've given you to sip from. Yardley's Peter Rigas, however, did not invent the Silhouette with the nasally blessed in mind — rather, the notch cut in the edge of the oversize glass allows you to better appreciate the bouquet of your wine. Rigas' company, Tomzi International, is boasting the $54 pickup as the first major innovation in wine glass construction in hundreds of years. Since up to 90 percent of taste is attributable to smell, the subtle aromas lurking in your wine glass should now come roaring up the old schnozz and explode on the tongue like fireworks. The Silhouette may stir some controversy among oenophiles and experts, but for those of us with nose enough for two, the innovation smells like roses. Available online at tomzi.com.

—Felicia D'Ambrosio

It's reassuring that, at the peak of our green thumb-twiddling, a savvy recycling genius has stumbled upon a real use for massive vats of wasted veggie oil. Already keen to converting L.A. restaurants' goopy grease into biofuel for his 1984 Mercedes 300D, Marshall Dostal, an ex-New Yorker who now calls Pasadena home, decided to process the leftover glycerin into an epicurean's top soap called Further ($18.50, furthersoap.com). With the help of his wife, Megan, a former Vogue event planner, and the assistance of essential oils like bergamot and olive (disguising the comfortingly faint stench of french fries and calamari), an extra-foamy, impressively light, FDA-approved soap star has been born.

—Amy Strauss

Foodimentary Food Facts on Twitter

Did you know that a young castrated rooster is called a capon? That Grand Rapids, Mich., was the first U.S. city to fluoridate its drinking water? That A1 steak sauce was invented by the personal chef to England's King George IV? Alabamian John Bryan-Hopkins, a self-described "burnt-out interior designer" who started the Foodimentary Food Facts Blog (foodimentaryfoodfacts.blogspot.com) two years ago, knows all those things and more, and he's keen on sharing the tidbits his steel-trap mind has culled via his three-month-old Twitter page (twitter.com/foodimentary). Every day, Bryan-Hopkins spends anywhere from 12 to 14 hours blasting out obscure and fascinating tidbits, quotes and "on this day ... " factoids, much to the delight of his 25,000-plus followers. "The only way to give dignity to food is to learn where it comes from," says Bryan-Hopkins, who has yet to make a cent on his efforts but chalks it up to "creating a brand." We couldn't agree more. Also, did you know that the term gazpacho is Arabic in origin and means "soaked bread"?

—Drew Lazor