mercredi 12 octobre 2011

From our American friends

Hello all,


Due to the very long waitlist accumulated for the October 15 meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective, we moved the location to 12 Waverly (between Mercer and Greene Streets), room 108 (ground floor auditorium). The event will still run from 2 to 4 p.m. If your schedule changed and you'd like to join us, a few seats are available through ecc102011.eventbrite.com.



Bill Yosses will be joined by Najat Kaanache, a stagiaire from elBulli who is now traveling around the world demonstrating some of the groundbreaking techniques from the restaurant. She has also staged at The French Laundry, Per Se, Alinea, and Noma.



The original announcement is below, if you missed it.



In his presentation, The Prism of Flavors, White House Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses will focus on emulsions, foams, and gels to discuss how he seeks to better understand ingredients and techniques. As he takes us from the beginning of cooking to today's technology, he will also demonstrate recipes that illustrate the principles driving his pastry work.



Chef Yosses, author of The Perfect Finish, joined the White House in 2007. There, his role also includes beekeeping and gardening, in line with First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to promote healthy eating. During his outstanding career in New York restaurants, he ran the pastry kitchens of Josephs Citarella, Bouley, Tavern on the Green, and Montrachet. Click here for a 2010 New York Times profile.


Please RSVP at ecc102011.eventbrite.com. A link is also posted on our website. If you RSVP and can no longer make it, please let me know so that your seat can be released. Thank you.

All my best,

Anne

----
Anne E. McBride
Director, Experimental Cuisine Collective

vendredi 7 octobre 2011

A gift from Nicholas Kurti

I find again what Nicholas offered me when I was 40 yo :


I keep six honest serving-men
(they taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west ;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
(R. Kipling)

jeudi 6 octobre 2011

After more than ten years...

for 10 years, I am inventing a new thing every month, and display it on Pierre Gagnaire's site.
Now, the game changed, see http://www.pierre-gagnaire.com/#/pg/pierre_et_herve

mercredi 5 octobre 2011

From our US friends.

Hello all,


The October meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective will take place on Saturday, October 15, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Chemistry Department at NYU, room 1003 (31 Washington Place, between Washington Square Park and Greene Street). You will need a photo ID to enter the building.



In his presentation, The Prism of Flavors, White House Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses will focus on emulsions, foams, and gels to discuss how he seeks to better understand ingredients and techniques. As he takes us from the beginning of cooking to today's technology, he will also demonstrate recipes that illustrate the principles driving his pastry work.



Chef Yosses, author of The Perfect Finish, joined the White House in 2007. There, his role also includes beekeeping and gardening, in line with First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to promote healthy eating. During his outstanding career in New York restaurants, he ran the pastry kitchens of Josephs Citarella, Bouley, Tavern on the Green, and Montrachet. Click here for a 2010 New York Times profile.


Please RSVP at ecc102011.eventbrite.com. A link is also posted on our website. If you RSVP and can no longer make it, please let me know so that your seat can be released. Thank you.

All my best,

Anne

----
Anne E. McBride
Director, Experimental Cuisine Collective
ABOUT THE EXPERIMENTAL CUISINE COLLECTIVE
The Experimental Cuisine Collective is a working group that assembles scholars, scientists, chefs, writers, journalists, performance artists, and food enthusiasts. We launched in April 2007, as a result of the collaboration of Kent Kirshenbaum of the chemistry department and Amy Bentley of the nutrition, food studies, and public health department at New York University with Chef Will Goldfarb of WillPowder. Our overall aim is to develop a broad-based and rigorous academic approach that employs techniques and approaches from both the humanities and sciences to examine the properties, boundaries, and conventions of food.

Visit the ECC online at www.experimentalcuisine.com.

dimanche 2 octobre 2011

"Good Food"

Much confusion remains today about Molecular Gastronomy and cuisine.
Of course, those who come in this blog know well that molecular gastronomy is a scientific activity, and that molecular cuisine is an application of it (definition : using new tools, new ingredients, new methods).
However, I recently stumbled on "culinary science" : indeed this is not possible as far as "science" is used in the meaning of "philosophia naturalis" (the title of Newton's book), i.e. science of nature, and not only "knowledge".
It does not mean that cooks have no "science" (knowledge), but this has nothing to do with the activity of "scientists", such as chemists, biologists, physicists...

And what about "the science of good food"? This definition of molecular gastronomy was given by people who did not enough consider what science is (and indeed some are food writers, not scientists). Such a "science" cannot exist, in the meaning of philosophia naturalis, because "good" is not of scientific nature (refutable, let's say for short).

Please use "molecular gastronomy" to describe the scientific investigation of culinary phenomena, keeping in mind that science (philosophia naturalis) is looking for the mechanisms of phenomena, using the "scientific method" (see another post).