Archive for the ‘Ingredients’ Category
The Top Ten Culinary Trends of 2009
December 16, 2009
With the many culinary breakthroughs that bubbled to the surface of the national restaurant scene in recent months, 2009 is fated to be remembered as a year of culinary renaissance. Perhaps the recession was the muse that sparked everyone’s renewed thinking about food, serving portions, costs, and restaurant business models. It’s the year that gourmet kitchens turned mobile, restaurants discovered the benefits of local meats and produce, and Americans explored “the fifth taste.” Above all, it was the year in which America’s renewed interest in well-crafted, high quality meals reached its defining moment. There’s never been a better time to eat in America. Below are ten reasons why.
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Paving the Way to Guilt-Free Dining: An Interview with Clean Plates Author Jared Koch
November 4, 2009
New York City can a tough place in many ways, but not in terms of finding healthy food.
In an attempt to prove that delicious taste and varied flavors can be synonymous with good nutrition, Clean Plates puts reviews of Manhattan’s best healthy dining options, plus advice on improving your diet, all in one handy guide. With a nutritionist perspective and a democratic acceptance of diverse preferences and philosophies – yes, the guide does save room for meat, as long as it’s sustainably raised – the 125 restaurants in the compilation have all tastes covered.
Jared Koch, the nutritionist mastermind behind the guide, is a proponent of bioindividuality: a food-forward approach to healthy eating that disperses the single-mindedness of one-size-fits-all diets. Now, like technology, eating is all about customization, and we find that perfectly tech chic. To find out more about New York’s healthy dining scene, we invited Jared to sit down for an interview. Read below to learn his take on personalized diets, how vegan isn’t always healthy, and the healthiest way to incorporate indulgences into your eating choices.
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Posted in Culinary Trends, Dining Reviews, Eating Trends, Health, Ingredients, New York, Restaurants | No Comments »
All The Restaurant’s a Stage
September 23, 2009
The design of a restaurant should tell a story. That’s the conclusion one can draw from observing the overarching trends in dining. The location, the layout, the color schemes, the lighting, the materials and the unifying motifs and themes that comprise a restaurant’s design are ultimately the elements that define the dining experience. From the way food arrives, to the visibility or invisibility of the kitchen, to the distance between tables – the design of a restaurant determines the order of events and the mise-en-scene. It’s no surprise that restaurant designers think of their projects in terms of theater.
The Rockwell Group, who designed the original Nobu restaurant in New York, as well as the more recently opened Nobu 57, may be one of the originators of the restaurant-as-theater approach. The design firm sees the physical space of the restaurant as a frame or stage, and every symbol within that frame is altered by it. The staircase leading down to Nobu 57’s dining room acts as a catwalk for arriving and departing guests – a function that draws on the theater art notion of “entrance,” by which actors enter and exit the fictional world. Guests can thus take on roles; and the aesthetics of the restaurant can serve as emotional inspiration.
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Posted in Architecture, Design-inspired, Dining Culture, Impress, Ingredients, Restaurants | No Comments »
Giving Time and Space to ‘Buying Local’
September 22, 2009
The USDA wants you to buy local –- a concept that may be more revolutionary than you think. The argument in their recent “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” campaign seems straightforward: “Reconnecting consumers and institutions with local producers will stimulate rural economies, improve access to healthy, nutritious food and decrease the amount of resources to transport our food,” says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
What’s less apparent is that this “buy local” approach could be part of a much larger scale shift towards an economy of locality. We mentioned in a previous blog post how the notion of mobility has changed drastically in the last few decades – an erstwhile fascination with the possibilities for individual mobility brought on by the automobile has been overtaken by a desire for more delivery services. While the last decade has been especially defined by a movement towards virtual notions of time and space, due to the around-the-clock access and associated gratification offered by online shopping and downloadable media, the truth is our economy is still very much rooted in physical space. We may not have to move to go shopping, but the goods still have to move across great distances to get to our shops and to us.
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Posted in Design-inspired, Economics, Ingredients, Mobility | No Comments »
The Electric Herb—Rare, Refined and Intriguing
April 16, 2009
Sechuan buttons or Sansho buttons, known in Brazil as the “toothache” or “eyeball” plant, are an increasingly popular ingredient that’s quickly becoming better known to consumers.
A member of the sunflower family, Spilanthes acmella is a small, yellow flower marketed by only two companies in the U.S.: Kopper Cress and Sun Grown Organic. What makes them special is the sensation biting into them provides, which is comparable to (depending on whom you ask) “biting into tinfoil,” “eating electricity,” or “licking a battery.” The tingling, numbing sensation is a result of the flower’s natural alkaloid, spilanthol, which typically lingers for several minutes.
Sechuan buttons are used by creative chefs to amplify the flavors of chili peppers or in place of acids like lemon juice. Common applications include mojitos, sodas, sorbets, and any number of meats, seafood, and sauces. Even Ferran Adrià of the famed El Bulli in Spain offers “electric milk” and a cleansing “edible paper,” both infused with Sechuan buttons.
So the next time you wander into a new restaurant or bar, ask the chef or mixologist, “Does anything on the menu contain Sechuan buttons?”
Sources:
“Like a Taste That Tingles? Then This Bud’s for You,” The Washington Post;
“Sechuan Buttons,” Suite101.com.
Photo courtesy of: www.popsci.com.au.
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