Two Takes on Passatelli

21 Aug 2015 20 Comments

by scolgin in Cookbooks, Recipes Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

My ever-generous big sister, Andrea, sent me two cookbooks for my birthday. One was a simple and useful book on tacos and Mexican snacks; the other, a coffee table volume of the most complicated Italian cooking on earth called “Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef.”

Mossimo Bottura

Mossimo Bottura

I love cookbooks from the art press, Phaidon, of which the latter is one. They are beautifully designed, with full page spreads of food you would never cook, as they tend to honor the world’s most daring chefs. Such is the case with “Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef.” The subject is Modena chef Massimo Bottura and his acclaimed restaurant, Osteria Francescana, which inevitably lands in the Top 5 of the world’s best restaurant lists, though never seems able to unseat previous #1 El Bulli and current #1 Noma (both subjects of multiple Phaidon titles). More

Hara Hachi Bunme

10 Jan 2012 4 Comments

by scolgin in Cooking Tips, Observations Tags: , , , , , , , ,

“When the crew at el Bulli sees a tree, it is only a tree. The Japanese, however, see more than just a tree. A very small part of that vision is what we try to incorporate at el Bulli. It is not science, but Japanese cuisine that has had the most influence on el Bulli…”
— Ferran Adria

I write a lot about the Japanese. And I cook a lot of Japanese food. The Japanese aesthetic in regard to food is in many ways the strongest influence in my own cooking, whether I’m doing Japanese or something else. But especially when I’m being creative and coming up with my own dishes, free of regional influences. It is then that the lessons of the Japanese are most obvious in my food. More

In the Presence of Greatness

06 Sep 2011 4 Comments

by scolgin in Cookbooks Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Cookbooks are the new coffee table art book. And among the many stunning culinary tomes out there, none are more conversation-stopping than the beautiful books of Phaidon.

Phaidon books on the coffee table

I currently have four Phaidon titles on my coffee table. The newest is “Noma,” featuring the culinary art of Denmark’s renowned René Redzepi of the restaurant Noma — frequently named best restaurant in the world, and sure to solidify that position with the closing of Spain’s famous el Bulli. More

Responding to the Avant Garde

22 Feb 2011 5 Comments

by scolgin in Observations, On the Road Tags: , , , , , , ,

Ferran Adria & staff on the beach at Cala Montjoi

I once exchanged emails with el Bulli. If you’re one of the increasingly few people on Earth who have not heard of el Bulli, it’s a restaurant on an isolated bay called Cala Montjoi on Spain’s Costa Brava, a couple hours north of Barcelona. And even if you’ve not heard of it, you’ve been eating its influence whether you recognized it or not for years. More