INMHO
What in the World-Eats??
Why so quiet on Aroma Cucina? We’re celebrating because we’ve been nursing a new baby: World-Eats!
What is this World-Eats anyway?
From food policy and advocacy, to food art, to living la vida local, World-Eats seeks out the best intel on the planet and we share it with you. World-Eats is your food and drink hub. It’s about connecting and communicating. And maybe about world peace. Or world peach, but only if it’s in season.We are a startup non-profit org that wants food-centric people to share and we’re working on ways to make that happen.
Read MoreBe Careful What You Wish For
Chris Cosenting came to #MAD4 to tell us about his nose-holding job. Turns out making a deal with the devil that is ‘reality’ TV can almost kill you.
Chris Cosentino, first and foremost is a respected chef, from the recently closed Incanto to his about to open Cockscomb restaurant in San Francisco. He is a champion of seducing people to love offal. And a bona fide celebrity thanks to “Chef v. City” and “Top Chef Masters”.
Learn to love Ugly Fruit
Let’s say you have 3 kids. One is very tall, one is short and fat and one is absolutely medium in every way. Would you throw out the tall and short ones and just keep the medium one? Probably not. Besides there are laws about throwing your children into the trash just because they aren’t standard size.
Now, let’s say you have 3 ripe tomatoes, but they don’t look alike. In many countries, if you are a vegetable seller, you are required to throw out odd shaped tomato and only keep the standard tomato. Because after all, when it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables, conformity matters more than waste or taste.
Read MoreWhat is cooking in a mad, mad, mad, mad world?
What happens when Rene Redzepi and his merry band of pranksters bring together a gaggle of chefs and culinary people to talk about “What Is Cooking”? It becomes a MAD affair!
Read MoreYou call this sustainable?
Sustainable is the new organic. It’s the buzzword-du-jour. It’s soft marketing. let’s just talk about small farms and sustainable agriculture, ok? We can get to sustainable bio-dynamic gin and tonics another day. Not that I’m the least bit cynical about marketing techniques.
Read MoreThe Mediterranean Are-You-Kidding-Me Diet
What exactly is this Mediterranean diet everyone speaks of?
Having lived on a Mediterranean island for a few weeks, where eating anything other than the local diet wasn’t really possible, I’m going to say it’s very delicious, but I’m not so sure it travels well.
Read More2014 Food & Beverage Trends & Predictions
Predictions:
Chef Tattoos: In a timesaving move, many restaurants will have on-sight tattooing stations for line cooks.
Sustainability becomes a hot button topic as two chef contenders in the reality show “Last One Standing” shoot each other over the final remaining morel in the state of Oregon.
Read MoreKung-Fu-Zen-Grasshopper Cooking or How I Learned to Banish the Recipe
t’s time to banish the recipe as GPS and tune in to the Kung-Fu-Zen-Grasshopper (c)
technique of cooking. It is time for us to cook in the ways of our ancestors, by using our senses. It is also time to cook in the modern way, which is so, like, totally, about self-indulgent self-pleasuring by making exactly what you want.
50 Shades of Salt
Let me see a show of hands. Are you a sweet or a salty person? Potato chips or gelato? And for the smug amongst us who are voting for umami..sit down. That’s a story for another day.
I’m salty. I’ll take a good pickle over a pastry anytime. Which is a good thing because living in Umbria, you better like salt.
Good sea salt is about 20 cents a kilo in Italy, so we
use it with wild abandon. You can pour an entire kilo onto a baking sheet to roast a fish and not blink a parsimonious eye. Which also means you can take salt for granted, and not pay attention to all the flavor possibilities.
The Cook, The Recipe, His Wife & Her Music
I’ve been thinking about recipes.
And I’ve been wondering, how do you use a cookbook? Do you use it like a bible? Do you read it like a detective novel? Are you a voyeur?