When I turned on my TV yesterday, it was set randomly on PBS in the middle of an episode of the cooking program Simply Ming. I'd never watched this show before, but what the guest chef, Hubert Keller (he of the $5000 burger, puh-leeze), was doing kept me from changing the channel.

At one of his Vegas ventures, Burger Bar, Keller creates a chocolate mousse "cheeseburger" dessert. The patty is a circle of frozen chocolate mousse, the bun is a hole-less donut, the cheese is a thin slice of passionfruit gelee, the tomato is sliced strawberry, and the pickles are sliced kiwi. A slathering of whipped cream stands in for mayo (and holds the whole thing together), and a swirl of raspberry puree on the plate represents ketchup.

While none of these ingredients or even the combination sounds unappetizing, I can't say I looked at the finished product and thought, "Yum!" But that's part of the charm: the way this slightly silly creation plays with your senses, demonstrating how closely sight is tied to taste and vice versa.

I do so love this kind of thing. Another example is candy sushi; NotMartha has a nice roundup of links to photos and recipes for this less gourmand take on food made to look like other food.