Chef's Table: Jeong Kwan Jeong Kwan, Chef's Table www.imdb.com 172. Garden Growing WildThe garden is a riot gardensfoodzen
The true meaning of tea There is no true deformation that does not follow the laws of necessity. In later years, when deformation came to be consciously created, when the rejection of perfection became a matter of deliberate manipulation, the true meaning of tea began to be lost. To put it in somewhat contradictory terms, true tea existed only before the advent of the tea ceremony. After the coming of tea, when deformation came to be consciously sought, common everyday beauty disappeared and unnatural manipulation began. Yanagi Sōetsu, The Japanese Perspective food
Substitutes for the thermal experience Such clues from other senses can become so strongly associated with a sense of coolness or warmth that they can occasionally substitute for the thermal experience itself. For example, the taste of mint seems refreshing and cool regardless of what temperature it is. Similarly, the pressure of heavy blankets conveys a feeling of warmth quite independent of their actual thermal qualities. Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture You can taste it with your eyes sensesfood
You can taste it with your eyes It was one of those good rides, where the motion of the train is soothing, and the interior temperature pleasantly warm but not hot. I imagined the subway car as a rapidly moving load of bread. The motto "You can taste it with your eyes" occurred to me. Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine Substitutes for the thermal experience food
Madness All our madness comes from having our stomachs empty and our heads full of air. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote foodmadness
If you can't beat the classics Choi: I love [this contemporary banana cream pie] because sometimes new presentations create that iconic or nostalgic thing, but then they don't taste like nostalgia. But this one tastes like a banana cream pie. Puck: So many young chefs today forget that food has to be delicious. If it's not delicious, why do it? If it's just interesting, you go once, that's it – "okay, I get it, but I don't want to go back." Choi: I hear you chef. That's what I teach my cooks. I say, "You can do anything you want, but if you can't beat a banana cream pie, then the banana cream pie still wins." In most cases they don't. They can't beat the original. Jon Favreau, Roy Choi & Wolfgang Puck, The Chef Show: Wolfgang Puck foodnostalgiaprogress
Waiting there to be experienced "Paintings are like what you can barely make out through a keyhole compared with the richness of perception that's just waiting there in the world to be experienced all the time. It's strange. With food, for instance, people seem able to understand what's involved: you savor the taste rather than just feed the body. But people have a hard time understanding that it should be the same way with visual experience." Lawrence Wechler & Robert Irwin, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees perceptionfood
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat A Book by Samin Nosrat www.saltfatacidheat.com Research, empathy, simplicity, speed foodcraft
The Incompatible Food Triad An Idea www.georgehart.com Can you find three foods such that all three do not go together (by any reasonable definition of foods "going together") but every pair of them does go together? food
Art of the Menu A Blog www.underconsideration.com Cataloguing the underrated creativity of menus from around the world. foodcollections
I recommend eating chips An Essay by Sam Anderson www.nytimes.com Join me. Grab whatever you’ve got. Open the bag. Pinch it on its crinkly edges and pull apart the seams. Now we’re in business: We have broken the seal. The inside of the bag is silver and shining, a marvel of engineering — strong and flexible and reflective, like an astronaut suit. Lean in, inhale that unmistakable bouquet: toasted corn, dopamine, America, grief! We are the first humans to see these chips since they left the factory who knows when. They have been waiting for us, embalmed in preservatives, like a pharaoh in his dark tomb. Looking Closely is EverythingOne brick seeingdetailsfood
In Praise of Small Menus An Article by Rachel Sugar www.grubstreet.com The best way to experience a restaurant, I have always felt, is by eating exactly what it wants to feed you. I do not want choices. I want the best thing. A restaurant might have five or ten best things, but it cannot have 45. There are many infuriating things about the world, but one of the more fixable is the sensation of acute regret from having ordered wrong. Why are there possibly wrong orders? Recently, I was at a fancy restaurant with great pastas and bad pizzas. So cut the pizzas! A kitchen that focuses on its strengths turns out consistently excellent things, even if that results in fewer total things. fooduxchoicesimplicity
On onion cutting An Article by Ana Rodrigues ohhelloana.blog In the television show Masterchef there was an episode where the judges did a test on what they call “basic skills”. One of the judges often says that in order to be a “true chef”, you must know how to quickly and finely cut onions. ...This was really bothering me and I am stubborn so I wanted to win this fake argument really badly so I looked up why the way one cuts onions is important: as it turns out, the shape and even the surface area affect the end flavour. I thought the whole “chop chop chop” was about performance in the kitchen. Cut quickly to serve quickly! I was wrong. craftfoodwwwskill
A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics A Book by Donald Richie www.goodreads.com Listings and jottingsProcess vs. productWe have been given a standardMerely ornateNo words to describe+4 More
Listings and jottings Most likely to succeed in defining Japanese aesthetics is a net of associations composed of listings or jottings, connected intuitively, that fills in a background and renders the subject visible. collections
Process vs. product ...more concerned with process than with product, with the actual construction of a self than with self-expression. designidentitymaking
We have been given a standard We have been given a standard to use. It is there, handy daily: things as they are, or Nature itself. This makes good sense, the only sense really—Nature should be our model. naturemaking
Merely ornate There is nothing merely ornate about nature: every branch, twig, or leaf counts. natureornament
No words to describe If there is no term for something, it might be thought that the commodity is of small importance. But it is just as likely that this something is of such importance that it is taken for granted, and thus any conveniences, like words, for discussing it are unnecessary. The quality without a nameThis is Water meaningwords
Mimesis Realism played small part in the realities of life as experienced by the traditional Japanese artist. The expectations of the artist's cultivated sensibilities did not demand mimesis. Rather, indication, suggestion, simplicity took the place of any fidelity to outward appearance. art
Cherry blossoms Cherry blossoms are to be preferred not when they are at their fullest but afterward, when the air is thick with their falling petals and with the unavoidable reminder that they too have had their day and must rightly perish. Immortality, in that it is considered at all, is to be found through nature's way. The form is kept though the contents evaporate. deathnature
Wabi-sabi Sabi is an aesthetic term, rooted in a given concern. It is concerned with chronology, with time and its effects, with product. Wabi is a more philosophical concept, a quality not attached merely to a given object. It is concerned with manner, with process, with direction. wabi-sabi
How painful life here would be A mountain village Where there is not even hope Of a visitor: If not for the loneliness, How painful life here would be. — Saigyo (Donald Keene translation) melancholysolitude