IDEAS IN FOOD

Lunch at Wd-50

If you were afraid to go down to Clinton Street after dark, fear no more.  Wylie is serving lunch.  From the on-line menu it appears he is weaving a few creations from the past into his repertoire of new and evolving dishes.  I cannot wait to pop in during daylight hours, truly my favorite time to dine.

Creative Think

Do you know A Whack on the Side of the Head?

Just recently I found out that Roger von Oech has revised this ground breaking work and also he has a blog which acts as an open voice and interactive companion piece to the ideas in the book and a continued look at creativity and ways to spark, breakthrough, understand, appreciate and uncover new thoughts.

What is equally exciting is that the "whacks" resonate differently with individuals.  The use of approachable stories and often taken for granted questions and their assumed answers helps to clear the path to an oasis of creative thinking.

Here is the post which motivated me to write this morning.

Nigella Sativa

Otherwise known as kalonji or black onion seeds, these tiny beauties are the product of a flowering herb plant that is native to southwest Asia. The seeds and oil from this plant are often utilized in homeopathic medicine to treat a wide range of ailments from indigestion and intestinal disorders to muscle aches, skin inflammations and dandruff. The seeds are triangular in shape and pungent in aroma with a savory, slightly bitter flavor that is reminiscent of dehydrated onions.

Here we have pressure cooked them for fifty minutes to tenderize them and remove some of their bitter backbone.  The result of the pressure cooking produced a tender seed which still has its bold  allium flavor along with notes of pine and citrus.  The tenderized version of Nigella Sativa opens up a number of possibilities from flavoring breads to making making a puree to using in a relish of grapefruit and celery leaves.

Time and a few tests will begin to allow us to uncover a few more thoughts and uses.

Eating Noodles in Tokyo

 



















 































 

 

Lunch in Kodiak

After an incredible lunch of King crab legs, fish and chips and chowder we came across another local inhabitant of Kodiak, dining alfresco.

Smoked French Fries

Why have we not tried smoking French fries?  We go through a number of steps to improve the texture, why have we forgotten about the enhancement and exploration of flavor?  Time to fire up the smoker.  Actually, it is time to purchase a smoker, unfortunately I have not reached the end of the Pacojet moratorium.  Perhaps I will get all Magyver-like and see what we can put together.

Anyway you look at it, we need to start eating smoked French fries.  Since we are talking about the world of fried and smoked foods, what about smoked onion rings, tater tots and even calamari? It is a good thing we will be back in our kitchen soon.

Understanding An Ingredient

It took a refreshing hike in the Alaskan woods this morning for me to realize that often times we do not fully understand ingredients and their actual potential.  We were walking and I was grabbing leaves and branches, squeezing needles and leaves, inhaling the fragrant perfume of the forest floor mingling with the evergreen essential oils still fresh on my fingertips.  I reached for a spruce branch and it pricked my finger, which prompted me to take a closer look.  The spruce branch itself was mature with strong, pointed needles.  The tips of the branches were covered with small buds, which seemed to be wrapped in a rough papery skin.  When I picked one and peeled it, a Kermit the Frog green bud was exposed.  Inside this protective coating was a tiny, delicate spruce bud.  The minute needles were tender with a subtle clean spruce flavor.  The lemony notes of the spruce were also apparent and the tannins, which are so often dominant in spruce tips, were tamed.  I suddenly realized that in many of our uses and applications of spruce we have been using slightly older tips, which while fragrant and much easier to deal with than mature needles, were not ideal for being served on their own.  The discovery of the spruce bud was an awakening for my palate and for my imagination.

What else have we been using without understanding the true potential of what was cradled in the palms of our hands?

Multiples

I was particularly intrigued by the idea of multiples in the piece on Nathan Myhrvold, written by Malcolm Gladwell.  The idea that several individuals could come up with the same idea almost simultaneously is remarkable.  I was also interested in facts behind the difference between a genius and a smart innovator.  Theoretically the distinction is the quantity of ideas produced and executed.  The genius shares breakthrough ideas with many individuals.  What this means is the genius mind may come up with thirty or more brilliant breakthroughs while thirty innovators will each come up with one great idea each. 

Being either a genius or an innovative thinker is a remarkable achievement.

The article continued on to detail the concept that artistic genius does not occur in multiples.  What does this mean?  It may actually solve the answer between what is an art and what is a craft, particularly in the field of food.  While I believe an aesthetic, even an artistic approach to food is essential, the fact remains that the science behind the ingredients, their interactions, and the new cooking techniques that are appearing in kitchens all across the globe almost simultaneously point to the fact that food is more scientific than we thought.  We are not writing concertos nor painting or sculpting original pieces.  We are working with food, an organic substance that behaves in accordance to scientific principles.  That means the combination and development of dishes is not the completely original forum we like to think it is.  Yet, the individual arrangement and presentation of these ideas may be where the true creative process lies.  In fact, based on these insights it is the balance of flavors and the presentation of food that may distinguish a chef craftsmen from a chef artist.  Now that is interesting.