I’m over­joyed to announce that, start­ing in January, I’ll be join­ing the Modernist Cuisine team full-time as the Business Development Manager… and Modernist Cuisine Evangelist! If you’ve been fol­low­ing the blog (or if you’ve ever had a 5-minute con­ver­sa­tion with me) you know that I’ve been a huge fan of Modernist Cuisine since I first heard about the project. From my first inter­view with Nathan Myhrvold in May, 2010 to my recent expe­ri­ence of intern­ing with the kitchen team, it has been my dream to join this team. Now, I’ll have the tremen­dous plea­sure of help­ing Modernist Cuisine grow in new and excit­ing ways, and spread our mes­sage to a much broader audience.

We are for­tu­nate to be wit­ness­ing a world­wide, culi­nary rev­o­lu­tion. Much like Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire for­ever changed cook­ing in the early twen­ti­eth cen­tury, Modernist Cuisine enables con­tem­po­rary ideas, tools and cook­ing tech­niques to spread more widely than any other book before it. In fact, I’ve been infa­mously quoted as say­ing “Escoffier would crap his pants…” at the sight of the five gor­geous, com­pre­hen­sive vol­umes. However, with the U.S. book launch com­pleted and for­eign edi­tions now broadly avail­able, our work is far from done.

More than ever, we are excited about the huge poten­tial we see in the road ahead. We’ll be explor­ing ways for The Cooking Lab to con­tribute to the Modernist rev­o­lu­tion, not only through our books but also through new ser­vices and prod­ucts that we hope to develop our­selves and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with a wide range of other com­pa­nies, from food and equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers to chefs and restau­rant own­ers, to pub­lish­ers and pro­duc­ers. We’ve got a list of great ideas to turn into real­i­ties, but we also want to know what you’d like to see from us. If you have an idea, a request, or a part­ner­ship oppor­tu­nity, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Contact us online or email scott@modernistcuisine.com.

I’m incred­i­bly excited about the future of Modernist Cuisine, and I’m hon­ored by the priv­i­lege of help­ing to shape it!

My good friend and fellow Jet City Gastrophysicist, Eric Rivera, will be leaving Seattle next week to start his new job as Culinary Liaison at Alinea.  This is a big loss for JCG and for Seattle, but we could not be more proud of Eric and his unbelievable trajectory.  Eric and I first met over two years ago when we both frequented the same set of Seattle food blogger events.  I recognized him as the twitchy Puerto Rican guy who talked really fast and blogged 9 times per day.  A few months later, when Jethro got in touch with both of us to start an experimental cooking club, I discovered that Eric would undoubtedly be one of the world’s greatest chefs, one day. 

In past two years, Eric, Jethro and I have created some pretty remarkable dishes and conjured ideas so crazy (and occasionally brilliant) that posting them on the internet would risk blowing your mind forever.  If you don’t already know it, Eric is exactly the right kind of insane to become a revolutionary chef.  Before he had even graduated from culinary school, he was staging at Noma, currently ranked the best restaurant in the world.  At the point in their careers when most grads would be plating house salads, Eric was already Sous Chef at Blueacre.  And, now, only 5 months after graduation, he’s on his way to a coveted position at one of the most respected, forward-thinking restaurants in the world, and we’re ready for him to kick some ass and make Seattle proud.

Go do great things, go learn from the best, and go make it your own.  When you need someone to bounce crazy ideas off of, you know where to find us.

To read more about what Eric will be up to at Alinea, check out the Eater write-up, or his interview in Seattle Weekly. 

Below are a few of Eric’s dishes, which I had the pleasure of photographing over the past few months.

]]> http://seattlefoodgeek.com/2011/10/good-luck-eric-rivera/feed/ 4 http://seattlefoodgeek.com/2011/07/monster-kitchen-premiers-on-food-network-features-seattle-food-geek/ http://seattlefoodgeek.com/2011/07/monster-kitchen-premiers-on-food-network-features-seattle-food-geek/#comments Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000 scott http://seattlefoodgeek.com/2011/07/monster-kitchen-premiers-on-food-network-features-seattle-food-geek/

On Tuesday, July 19th, Food Network will air a new show titled Monster Kitchen, and I’m on it.  The show centers around a grudge match between two Los Angeles chefs: Eric Greenspan of The Foundry on Melrose and Michael Fiorelli of mar’sel.  They put their ego’s on the line in a battle for doughnut supremacy, and in this case, size does matter.  Both chefs call on a food geek (me and Jeff Potter, the author of the fabulous book Cooking for Geeks) and a pastry chef (Michelle Cozens and Amy Brown) to help them pull off the challenge.  I haven’t yet seen the show, but I can tell you that the competition is fierce.  Making a gigantic doughnut requires some clever engineering, a ton of work, and a whole lotta frosting. 

Tune in to Food Network Tuesday, July 19th at 9PM to see what happens!

My $75 DIY Sous Vide build make was just published in Volume 25 of Make Magazine, the premier publication for hackers, modders and DIYers and food geeks the world over.  I re-wrote the instructions for the build, adding detailed photos and tips for construction.  The folks at Make did a phenomenal job laying out and illustrating the article!

View a preview of the magazine article online

View the project page on Make

View the original $75 DIY Sous Vide article

Bonus! The nice folks at Boing Boing linked to the project on Make.

Sure, you claim to avoid fast food chains and only shop at the farmers’ market. But the numbers tell another story. Data recently made available from data.mint.com shows where the people of Seattle are spending their food dollars. The data is based on the credit and debit transactions of Mint.com users in the greater Seattle area.

I am thrilled to announce that SeattleFoodGeek.com won the King 5 Best of Western Washington viewer’s poll for Best Food Blog!  This is a great honor, and I want to thank everyone who voted.  Thank you!  I was honored to be included in such a talented pool of nominees, including CakeSpy, Java Cupcake, Vegan Score, and Seattle Local Food.

The pictures and videos below are from a reception that the Modernist Cuisine team hosted as part of the International Food Blogger’s Conference.   Needless to say, this is the most sophisticated kitchen on earth, and as a food geek, I was in heaven.  Click through for more photos and video.

[Click the picture to view full-size] This panorama gives you a sense of the kitchen’s layout.  All of the stations are on wheels and the whole kitchen can be rearranged as the team focuses on different projects. 

In this video clip, CEO and King of the Food Geeks Dr. Nathan Myhrvold discusses the decision to not dumb down the book to cover only the equipment you’re likely to have in your home kitchen.

[Click the picture for the full-size image (so you can read the labels)]  This is the Modernist Cuisine kitchen’s idea of a spice cabinet.  Many of the products are available through the website www.chefrubber.com

A centrifuge is used here to separate solids from liquids and clarify sauces and stocks.  The green bottle is finely-blended raw peas that have separated into solids and pea water.

In this video, Chef Chris Young talks about the benefits of having a kitchen without customers.  The unique design of the Modernist Cuisine kitchen allows the staff (up to 36 people at certain points in the book’s development) to focus on research and testing of new recipes and techniques. 

You’re looking at the world’s only deep-fried watermelon chips.  I have no idea how they managed to deep fry watermelon, but I promise that it’s a dangerous proposition if attempted incorrectly.  The chips were light and delicious, with a recognizable hint of caramelized watermelon flavor.

Those look like beautiful cherries, don’t they? They’re actually made of foie gras.  And yes, they were delicious.

Chefs plate a small bite of horse mackerel sashimi with ginger and plum, proving that not all of the recipes require a particle accelerator.

My favorite dish of the night’: "tongue and cheek pastrami and rye”.  A thin slice of sous vide smoked Wagyu beef cheek is served with thinly-shaved tongue and delicate rye chips.  But, what makes this dish spectacular is the beef marrow mousseline (shown being shot out of a CO2 charger).  The mousseline is like the richest, fattiest mayonnaise you could imagine, except it’s made from sous vide egg yolks and bone marrow, and it is served warm. 

The frozen pistachio “cream” (ie. pistachio ice cream) alone is worth the price of the book.  As you can see from its beautiful glossy sheen, the ice cream was creamy and incredibly smooth.  What makes this dish really incredible is that the ice cream is made only from pistachios, emulsifiers and sugar.  No milk. No Cream. No eggs.  That’s right, it’s vegan!

And, for a little whimsy, they made olive oil and vanilla bean gummy worms.

And finally, I was thrilled to get a picture with Nathan.  See that grin on my face?  I kept it for days.

For more information on the book, check back here and also be sure to visit the official site for the project, www.ModernistCuisine.com. 

Update: The book finally has a shipping date – March 14th, 2011!  Pre-order your copy today!

If you want to keep up with the conference, just keep hitting refresh.

Thursday

The conference unofficially began on Thursday evening.  A small group of bloggers and real journalists were invited to the Intellectual Ventures lab – the one responsible for producing the Modernist Cuisine cookbook that will change the world upon its release in December. 

I’ll be dedicating upcoming posts to the tour of the lab and the details we know about the book, but in short, this was the most exciting night of my life, short of certain sexual milestones. 

Friday

Friday evening, IFBC threw a great kickoff reception at Hotel Monaco.  The highlight of the evening was a keynote discussion with Morgan Spurlock.  Here’s a little clip:

Saturday – Day 1

The first session of the morning is The Art of Recipe Writing, paneled by these lovely and accomplished people:

• Amy Sherman (moderator), food writer and recipe developer. Author of Williams-Sonoma New Flavors for Appetizers: Classic Recipes Redefined and the blog Cooking with Amy
• Dianne Jacob, best-selling author of “Will Write for Food.“
• Kristine Kidd, cookbook author, blogger, and former food editor at Bon Appétit

Audience – when choosing a recipe to blog, consider your audience.  Is this the type of dish that your readers want to make?  Is the recipe presented with enough description?  Is it too challenging?

Voice – Develop your personal style of writing, and be consistent.  When someone has been reading your blog for a while, they should be able to identify you from someone else. 

Measurements – Include more than one measurement in your recipes.  For example, say “1 large onion diced, about 1 cup.”

Salt – There’s a debate on the panel about how to specify salt.  To taste? Specific quantity?  Personally, I prefer salting to taste.  But, some people under salt their food and, as a result, don’t like the dish. 

Ingredients – List your damned ingredients in their order of use!  Also, recognize that your readers treat an ingredient list as a shopping list.  They don’t buy 2 cups of onion.

Punctuation – There is a violent disagreement about the use of semicolons, commas and paragraph breaks.  Diane Jacob believes that semicolons are pretentious.

Time – Think about including the working time along with the total time.  You may turn your readers off from a recipe if the time reads “3 Hours”, though the actual working time might only be 15 minutes.

Links – Use links to explain concepts that may need description for your readers.  Links to articles on Foodista.com and rouxbe.com are great resources, for example.

Going pro – What happens if you’re contacted by corporate or editorial clients?  Well, this can be a big pleasure from blogging.  And, this can lead to moving beyond blogging and into a professional realm.  So, how do you do it?

• Maintain an online portfolio of recipes
• Join a professional organization, like IACP
• Give yourself the title of “Recipe Developer”
• Network!

There aren’t any credentials for being a recipe developer, so it’s OK to present yourself that way.  If you’re trying to go pro, it’s great to hang out with bloggers, but start networking with the pros too (ex. IACP). 

Don’t give recipes away for free!  Although it may be very flattering to be asked to contribute your recipe to some site or book with a ton of exposure, if you’re giving your recipe away for free you’re undercutting everyone out there who makes their living by developing and selling recipes.

Also, don’t be afraid to negotiate.  At Bon Appétit, for example, they will pay you higher rates if you’ve contributed many recipes over time.

Testing recipes  – How many people have your recipes tested [by someone else] before putting them on the blog (show of hands reveals exactly none).  However, when you’re writing for a magazine, the recipes have to work.  Even on your blog, it is essential that your recipes work. 

Advantages of blogs over printed media:

• Include as many photos as you like
• Blog seasonally – magazines have a 6-month delay to print
• Link to details.  Making something complicated?  Someone else has probably already broken down the sub-steps.

How to avoid embarrassing yourself:

• Don’t include ingredients that you forget to use
• Don’t write recipes that don’t work
• Print out your recipes, test them, and check off ingredients and steps
• If you call for prep’d ingredients (1 cup potatoes diced), you don’t need to reiterate the prep in your steps
• Don’t assume that people have all the equipment or knowledge that you do

About copyright and attribution: Be honest and accurate.  If your recipe was inspired by someone else’s, just give attribution.  If you change some part of the recipe, yes, legally, it is your recipe.  But basically, don’t be a dick.

The ingredients list on its own, is not copyrightable.  However, if the recipe is wrapped by a heading or a story, or if your recipe is in a collection (like a cookbook) it may have some copyright protection.

Common sense in recipes – There was a time when cookbooks assumed you knew how to cook.  They didn’t have to explain what poach, fold, julienne, etc. was.  Then, at some point, recipes became more standardized, and more explained.  Now, there is some backlash.  Some writers are saying “we have dumbed down recipes and turned people into technicians to the point that they don’t have confidence or intuition.”  Has the pendulum swung to far?

“Recipe called for ‘toss the salad in a bowl’ and a student asked "’how far away from the bowl do I need to stand’?””  Oy.

Question – How do you gauge yields, since everyone has a different appetite? 
Choose a personal style.  The current guidelines at Bon Apetit suggest a protein portion of 4-6 oz.  But, you can also offer a starter/entrée size (ex. serves 4 as a starter or two as an entrée.)  Or, state “makes 2 servings plus leftovers”.

First session is over.  10 minute break!

Session 2:

Next up, we’ll learn about this “social media” thing I’ve been hearing so much about.

Important terms.  And no, “hits” isn’t an important metric.

To track your blog on sites like Alexa.com, and compare it to other sites.

How Google determines your relevance – over 200 factors, including a match between your page title and the search term, how frequently you update, etc.

It’s hard to make money on your blog.

Joy Victory from WordPress.com just announced a new feature coming on wordpress.com…

Foodpress!  Coming in October.  I can’t wait to hear more!

Really great session on how to use keywords. If you’re writing about (or thinking of writing about) corn, go check out Google Insights.  Look for the keywords related to corn, and look for other trending topics.  Then, make sure to use those words in:

• The first sentence of your post
• Subtitles
• photo captions
• links
• and the URL to the blog post

Next up, Urbanspoon!

The keys to Urbanspoon’s success:

• Leveraging SEO
• Keeping a very clean site design
• Focusing on restaurants by neighborhood, not by city.

Other than that, it’s pretty much a rundown of what Urbanspoon is and does.

Amazing graph – this is how fast the term “food blog” is growing relative to everything else!

Interesting comment from Joy Victory, WordPress.com Editorial Czar: People like to comment on posts on Twitter far more than on the built-in comments system.

From WordPress – The first three things you should do for a successful blog:

1. Have a niche, and be specific.  Don’t try to be all things to all people. 
2. Keep perspective.  It takes a long time to build a big group of followers.
3. Update often.  That helps both search engines and your readers.

From Urbanspoon

1. Be specific
2. Link a lot

From Foodista – know what you want to get out of it?  Do you want 1M page vews per month and make a living on advertizing?  To you want to become a professional food writer?  Do you want to support a particular restaurant?  Or, do you want it just to be an expression of your passion.

Comment from a representative of Saveur: put your contact info on your blog!  They’d love to get in touch with you!

Next Up: Kathleen Flinn – Writing with all five senses

She passed lemons around the room.  Here comes something philosophical.  She’s asking us to describe a lemon, without using the word “lemon”.  Here’s my attempt, which would have passed in 10th grade English.

Imagine the smell of a freshly cleaned summer house, with a gentle breeze blowing through the open north windows.  Imagine the weight of a fish – heavy for its size, but delightful to balance in your hand. Imagine the taste of surprise, the recoil of your tongue and a tingling of your lips against an acid splash. Imagine the dull thud of of a steak against the butcher’s block.

From the audience “a nipple at one end and a dimple at the other.”  “Nature’s definition of yellow.”  “It has an outie for a belly button.”

Then, we all closed our eyes and listened to Kat chop a lemon.  The experience was actually pretty interesting!

You can hear the chimes of the blade as the lime gives way, followed by a visceral, satisfying thud.  You know you’ve made it through.  The sound is accomplished and complete, like connecting a swinging bat to a ball. Work has been done.

And after listening to the excerpts from the room, everyone is now horny.  People wrote about college roommates humping, and juicy sacs, and all kinds of thinly-veiled innuendo. 

Next up… the smell. 

It smells like sour honey, and the waxy leaves of a garden tree.  It smells like hot tea and a headache.

Other attendees’ descriptions were much better.

Kat now challenges us to pause and listen.  What do we hear?  How are we really connecting with our senses?  It’s pretty remarkable, actually.

Kat tells us to pay attention to every moment of our lives.  Most of us aren’t getting paid for it, so we must love it.  She challenges us to love more.

Lunchtime!!!

They had to turn off the Twitter feed on the projector due to inappropriate tweets!  Here’s Spinasse’s Jason Stratton telling us what he’s prepared.  I didn’t catch it all, but it sounds fantastic.

Restaurateur powerhouse John Howie will be serving a Salmon Carpaccio

Campagne (and Café Campagne) chef Daisley Gordon will be serving beef tartare!  I can’t tell you how excited I am for this!

Chef Shanon from Bastille will be serving grilled octopus and arugula from their rooftop garden.

Sunday – Day 2

First session of the morning – Writing: Food Blogging For Specialized Diets

• Shauna James Ahern, author of the blog Gluten-Free Girl and the book Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back…And How You Can Too
• Alex Jamieson, author of Living Vegan for Dummies and The Great American Detox Diet

Did you know that 1 out of 7 people in America has a problem digesting gluten?  Shauna had us stand up if we (or someone we love) has foods they can’t eat.  Nearly everyone was on their feet!

Great discussion on eating with restrictions!

Guess what’s next…. Nathan Myhrvold and Modernist Cuisine!!! I can’t wait.

Seattle will go sous-vide crazy

The fancy restaurants have already been doing it for years (though, perhaps illegally).  But in 2010, I predict that sous-vide preparations will start showing up on restaurant menus everywhere (like The Keg and McCormick & Schmick’s), not just at cutting-edge gastropubs.  If you’re unfamiliar with the term, sous-vide describes a cooking method where food is vacu-sealed and heated very slowly (hours or even days) in temperature-controlled water baths.  The method lets cooks achieve heavenly textures not achievable with an oven, stove or fry-o-lator.  2009 saw the release of the SousVide Supreme, the world’s first home-use water oven.  But at $499, it only appeals to serious food geeks (even I don’t have one yet).  I predict that 2010 will give us the “George Foreman Grill of sous-vide”, an afforable, mass-market water oven, complete with late night infomercial.

Homemade Pasta is the new Canvolution

There’s nothing new about homemade pasta.  Nor is there anything new about canned foods.  Both are oldschool, inexpensive, and very social ways of preparing food.  2009 gave rise to a huge wave of canning parties, covered under the umbrella movement of “Canvolution”.  I predict a similar wave of ad-hoc food gatherings next year, and I think homemade pasta could be the recipe of choice.  Making pasta – particularly rolling and cutting noodles – is a fun group activity.  Plus, dried pasta lasts forever and makes for a great gift (just like canned goods).  Stock up on Semolina flour – it’s gonna be a carb-tastic new year!

Sliders Out, Rillettes In

You know sliders are falling out of fashion when they appear on the menu at Jack-In-The-Box.  Although the mini-burgers enjoyed  their time in the spotlight at almost every restaurant in the city, it’s time for us to move on to the next “it” dish.  My prediction: rillettes.  Sure, they lack the mass appeal of a very small hamburger, but these spreadable potted meats are a total rustic treat.  The first rillette I ever tasted was a creamy little pot of salmon at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in New York.  Let me tell you, it left an impression.  Although pâté may be hopelessly off the mainstream, I think rillettes have a fighting chance.

Other Predictions, Hopes and Ramblings…

1. Cupcakes are over.  And so are the Pinkberry knockoffs.  Please, let’s move on.
2. Sustainable sushi will be the new norm.  With more and more diners checking sustainable seafood watchlists at the dinner table, we can no longer gorge on unagi without social consequences.  Bravo to chefs like Hajime at West Seattle’s Mashiko for leading the charge.
3. Salts on the rise.  Look for specialty salts to play a major role in restaurant menus.  Oh, and regular table salt is so last decade.  If it’s not Chardonnay-smoked, truffle-infused, or from an obscure seaport town in France, I’m not interested.
4. We get it: bacon is delicious and makes for ironic kitsch.  Let’s find a new punch line in 2010.  How about blowfish?
5. Seattle chefs embrace (or at least tinker with) molecular gastronomy.  It may not be for everyone, but molecular gastronomy – sciencey food made through extremely geeky methods – is still turning heads around the country.  There are a number of brave Seattle chefs are already having fun with science, but in a city with so many artists, I have to believe the best (and weirdest) is yet to come.

Sorry it’s been awhile since my last post, but I was off getting married to the love of my life, Rachel.  The wedding was better than we ever dreamed it would be and we’ve spent the past nine days on our honeymoon drinking margaritas and soaking up the sun in Mexico.  I’ll post a full write-up when we get more photos back from our photographer.  I’d also like to give a big thanks to all of our vendors, every one of whom was amazing!

• The Sorrento Hotel, and Chef Matthew Mina at the Hunt Club
• J. Garner Photography
• Morphey’s Cakes
• Aisle of View planning services
• Forever Yours Music

And if you’re feeling particularly curious, our photographer has a few more shots up on his blog.

More to come soon…