As a chef, one of the most difficult aspects of life is creating inspired cuisine year after year, season after season. You find yourself stealing from your last kitchen, cribbing on yourself and hoping ingredients will speak for themselves. If you're cooking regionally specific and seasonal food there are only so many amalgamations of ingredients and techniques one can apply to keep things fresh in the mind and interesting in the kitchen. Yet, from the outside one of the most interesting things about a dining experience is understanding how the chef created the plate. Where did the ideas come from? What are we eating? More often than not we are eating someone's childhood memory, reinvented by professional technique and higher quality ingredients than available to the general public. Often we are sampling cleverness on a plate with some aesthetic sensibilities garnishing the old standby flavor combination. There is nothing wrong with either of these things. It is quality food and deeply satisfying when served with kindness and prepared with pride. But, when it comes to the cooking the well can run dry. So how do we prevent that from happening?
We are striving to build a method that puts the creative process at the forefront of cuisine and removes it from being an individual moment of alchemy. The method is the goal, and to make it a strong working tool we must examine our cuisine and experiment tirelessly. So, what do we want from our cuisine? We want it to be relevant to our lives and the lives of those we serve. Relevance here means that the food is complimentary to the environment, culture and climate in which it is being served and consumed. We want to use the best ingredients available at the time of service. This thought is the basis of farm to table, eating local and other such sustainable mantras if you remove the weight of their socioeconomic moral code. We are not so much concerned with loyalty to small producers because we share the same stomping grounds. Rather, if there is a higher quality product that can be sourced in cost effective way, rest assured we'll be using it over our neighbor's heirloom cranberry beans. We want our cuisine to be visually appealing; beautiful but not rarefied. Finally we want our cuisine to transcend the process that created it, by creating bold flavors and unique textures that are humble, approachable and inspiring rather than challenging and confrontational. That's it. So how do we make it happen?????
EXPERIMENT ONE: Periodical, Music, Art.
"Wary of Egypt Unrest, China Censors Web"
Edward Wong and David Barboza, NY Times; February 1st, 2011Twin Shadow's "Forget"
Title track from Twin Shadow Full Length Debut 2009 release (Terrible Records)
Photograph by Guy Bourdin
Originally published in Vogue Paris May 1970, taken from "In Between" Steidl, Berlin 2010.
MENU:
Hand pulled noodles w. Ras al Hanout beef tendon, red roe, bamboo shoots and Nile River stock
Crispy Crab Crackers w. cherry paste and smoked oyster oil
Crocodile Bites Camel (10k points)
One Up Mushrooms
Lipstick Pigs
FORGET LYRICS:
Forget
They’ll give us something; they’ll give us so much to forget
Or enough rope to deal with it
With pencil and knife you heard your love again
You wrestled your nightmares, the sweat in your bed sheets
This is all of it; this is everything I’m wanting to forget
When winter sets in, it has a way of crystallizing the bad times
The fevers, the heart aches
This is all of it; this is everyone I’m wanting to forgive
They’ll give us something; they’ll give us so much to forget
Or enough rope to deal with it
With pencil and knife you heard your love again
You wrestled your nightmares, the sweat in your bed sheets
This is all of it; this is everything I’m wanting to forget
