1. Brainstorming food, having just spent Christmas with my family back home, the experience of feeding my young nieces came to mind. Every meal was a spectacle, a test of hand-eye coordination, with one hand attempted to empty spoonfuls of rice into their distracted mouths, and the other flailing to catch broccoli florets they catapulted across the room. I thought I could translate this domestic circus into a silly game involving finger-eye coordination. The aim of the game would be to feed the baby with one finger and catch flying food with the other (aiming to get more in the mouth than on the floor). Difficulty could be increased from level to level by introducing obstacles in the room making it harder to catch food, or requiring certain finger-gestures to feed the baby such as a zig-zag notion to imitate the aeroplane technique (“open wide, coming in for landing!”).
2. As an Aussie, one of the first things people often say to me upon learning this is “throw some shrimp on the barbie!” (For anyone interested, the phrase originates from a series of TV ads for Australian tourism starring Paul Hogan – aka Crocodile Dundee – where he says “I’ll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you.”) Again, I thought this could be a fun game, where you have to toss shrimp onto a barbie (before they go off in the heat), and take them off the barbie when they’re done (before they burn). Variables making the game harder could include keeping the shrimp away from the neighbour’s dog, catching the beer keg before it spills all over the food, stopping the hills hoist from swinging over the barbie and catching the washing alight, moving the barbie from falling drop bears (and countless other Aussie clichés).
3. On a more serious/practical note, I thought of an app that reveals chef secrets to loyal customers. My flatmate is a vegan, (which can be quite expensive), so she is constantly saying things to me like “I wish I knew how to make those vegan treats at the Bean”. Perhaps each user has a list of their top five favourite restaurants in the city (which can be edited at any point), and the further up the list, and the longer you have a restaurant on your list, the more perks you will get from them. Rewards could include cooking tips, season specials, recipes, coupons etc.
