Food Finds | ideas that taste good

Two brothers fight over innovation

August 30, 2015 by antdina

Tom and Terry live in an unforgotten corner of Arizona. Most days, their parents are away from home. It doesn’t bother them. They unlock their 5th and 4th grade imagination to evenly divide the world. Tom dislikes strawberries. It’s bitter and tart. However chocolate sings to his soul. To Terry, chocolate tastes more like dirt than the dusty field across from the house. He prefers to slide on sweet strawberry silk. This friendly categorization continues with everything. Even in joint play. Tom is Captain […]

Categories: Food Finds, Meaning • Tags: brothers, Chicago, hot air ballon, innovation, Nonna, ravioli, Trattoria 10

Some concepts are best re-washed and re-folded

June 28, 2015 by antdina

Opposites argue. They yell at each other without truly listening. It’s the point and counterpoint comedy of Saturday Night Live’s classic Weekend Update. We laugh at Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd because the lampoon reveals satire in our own lives. However complements don’t yell. Complements are improvisational theater. A ridiculous claim by one player is the launching pad for the next. The audience moves through the unfolding narrative because the actors know that to sustain attention, they must work together. […]

Categories: Food Finds • Tags: brick chicken, crab, ice cream sandwich, lamb, Launderette, Laura Sawicki, Rene Ortiz, toast

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The opposable mind of China’s mountain cooking

November 9, 2014 by antdina

Airplanes only arrive in the evening. They deposit fresh tourists, then whisk away the fulfilled. The landing strip is large enough to land a jet. Though you’d never be able to tell by the quiet landscape. It might as well be called Aspen. The Aspen of Hunan, China. Except there is no skiing. No six-foot tall snow bunnies wearing furs and Prada boots. No ski bums staffing restaurants. This is China. Elegant and serene. A culture infused with black tea, yellow […]

Categories: Food Finds • Tags: Avatar, bacon, breakfast taco, China, fiddlehead fern, Hunan, monkey, rice cake, ZhangJiaJie

If cooking was like comedy, this would be stand up

September 7, 2014 by antdina

According Jonah Weiner, Jerry Seinfeld’s success stems from audience intimacy. It’s about making small things appear big. And it’s about obsessing over details like building a Japanese cricket cage. Jonah is not defending the architecture of Seinfeld, the popular nineties sitcom. He’s talking about dying while standing up. Because to live is to stand up to failure. The NY Times Magazine profile showcases Jerry’s obsession with joke refinement. An exercise which might take years to accomplish. Akin to the mastery of a violin. An intricate process […]

Categories: Food Finds, Pioneer • Tags: Dinner Lab, Ek Timrek, hamachi, Jerry Seinfield, Jonah Weiner, Kao Soi, NY Times Magazine, Seinfeld, shrimp and grits, stand up, Thai, Tom Kah, tom kha gai

A timeless story told with a Japanese tongue and German wit

August 24, 2014 by antdina

Now when they found a little brook leaping brightly over the stones, the brother was going to drink out of it, but the sister heard how it said as it ran, “Who drinks of me will be a tiger; who drinks of me will be a tiger.” Then the sister cried, “Pray, dear brother, do not drink, or you will become a wild beast, and tear me to pieces.” The brother did not drink, although he was so thirsty, but […]

Categories: Food Finds • Tags: Barlata, beets, Fairytale, meat and potatoes, Nobuo, Phoenix, sushi, tuna tataki

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A taste for ambiguity

June 8, 2014 by antdina

The human mind favors twists. It admires obscurity. It delights in the denaturing of categories. It is the gasoline which ignites the imagination. Artists know how to sing this song. They bust classifications as fervently as the mainstream endures to preserve them. Doubt this fact? Consider Rockabilly. Ask Lyle Lovett for his rationale of both a brass section and a steel guitar. Talk to Bo Jackson. Will he be remembered for the 1987 record breaking rushing or the 1989 MVP in the Allstars? Is he a football […]

Categories: Food Finds, The Taste Lab • Tags: ambiguity, cajeta, Cheddar cheese ice cream, David Bowie, Elvis, ice cream sandwich, Mario Batali, olive oil ice cream, peanut butter, Pizza, Qui, Thai food, William Shakespeare

Journeys are defined by the side trips

May 11, 2014 by antdina

Most Americans capture their personal universe on smartphones. Parents who bear witness to their prodigies taking one for the team or putting one in the goal. Fluffy or spot with an adorable head tilt. Dashing sunsets. Or even a snap of where they parked the car. Just in case clarity escapes by the time they return. The need to remember and the need to share. Foodies, a nation without borders, layer in one more photo category. Like some kind of passport stamp, […]

Categories: Food Finds • Tags: Amarin Thai, chicken wings, Mai's, Mark Twain, salt toast shrimp, sushi, Thai Basil, Thai food, Tokyo, Vietnamese food

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In his hands, it’s no longer tacky

April 6, 2014 by antdina

What if Zorro worked at Benihana? Or maybe Mario Andretti operated a taxi cab? How about Steinbeck writing personal ads? That’s pretty much what cheese and crackers at Paul Qui’s self-named restaurant is like. The idea of elevated kitsch cooking is not new. The minute that Barclay’s Prime put a hundred dollar philly cheesesteak on the menu… or Ina Garten topped meatloaf with caramelized, rosemary-infused onions… or someone plumped up mac and cheese with lobster meat, we crossed the chasm from red-neck […]

Categories: Food Finds • Tags: aerosol cheese, cheese and crackers, Easy Cheese, Elvis, parmesan, Paul Qui, Qui, Ritz cracker, squeeze cheese, Velvet Elvis

The upside of being upside down

December 22, 2013 by antdina

Say what you want, but inversion poses are amazing. The human form defying gravity, head below heart. Sometimes the weight rests solely on the hands. Other times on the head. Regardless, the world is upside down for the yoga practitioner. While it takes strength and poise, it truly requires a quite mind. When the sky and earth trade places, the world appears as new. We see more objectively. We toss aside frivolous thoughts and witness that which threads the mundane […]

Categories: Food Finds • Tags: Bar Keep, bourbon, Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Buffalo Trace Bourbon Smash, Chinese bitters, cocktail, inversion, Jack Allen's Kitchen, orange, simple syrup, whiskey, whiskey smash, whisky, yoga

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Fight back the winter wind with crunch and chew

December 8, 2013 by antdina

Jack Frost is a bastard. He sends gusts around buildings to infiltrates even the thickest down. And God forbid if any skin is exposed. It is here that the icy knife of winter penetrates through to the bone. The season of Sun has gone to sleep. The stomach cries for the rich and the savory. Research tells us that we prepare for cold with an increased calorie consumption. Makes sense. Store energy like a chipmunk. Except that our belts bulge […]

Categories: Food Finds • Tags: brain in our gut, chipolte cream, cold, crispy, crispy foods, crunch, food, Harvard, jalapeno, John S. Allen, linguini, mango, Nova, nueroanthropologist, oysters, potato chips, Syrah, The Grove, umami, wind, winter, Zelo

ideas that taste good

storytelling through food

Category Archives: Food Finds

Two brothers fight over innovation

Some concepts are best re-washed and re-folded

The opposable mind of China’s mountain cooking

If cooking was like comedy, this would be stand up

A timeless story told with a Japanese tongue and German wit

A taste for ambiguity

Journeys are defined by the side trips

In his hands, it’s no longer tacky

The upside of being upside down

Fight back the winter wind with crunch and chew