CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF HOLLANDAISE

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF HOLLANDAISE- whipped eggs whites (cooked gently on a bath of hot water), quick poached egg yolk, grated gravlax, shattered asparagus, hollandaise espuma, pink sea salt.

First let me say this dish is the closest thing to true original creativity that i have come to in this pint in my career. two nights ago while in the middle of a deep dreamy sleep i was awakened with the idea to cook whipped eggs whites (meringue...but savory) atop a 207 degree bath of hot water, and top it with the reserved and lightly poached egg yolk. The result; a cloud like pillow of egg which desolves and disappears in your mouth before you swallow, leaving only the residual delicious fattiness of the yolk lingering. a good idea but not perfect. you see...i believe in balance, so what to do with this great, but imperfect idea? well...perfect it. As Thomas Keller says "refine." Ok...well then...so what do we know?....acidity cuts fat and can be used to BALANCE it out....ok...well theres one classic dish that i know of that does this (particularly in dealing with balancing the fat of an egg yolk) that dish is eggs Benedict. One of my favorites!!! if done correctly the acidity of the hollandaise balances out the poached eggs and the saltiness of the ham and creates a beautiful dining experience. so yeah...lets go with that. in this case i substituted the ham or Canadian bacon with shaved gravelox (which i thought would lend a delightful light oily fishy accent. knowing that asparagus goes well with gravlax as well as hollandaise sauce i decided to add that to the mix in the form of asparagus pods frozen with liquid nitrogen and shattered to provide texture and temperature contrast. are you following me? NOW!!! lets talk about the Hollandaise. I figured hollundaise sauce as it traditionally is; would be too heavy against the light whipped egg whites, so naturally..."espuma" (a fatty liquid infused with CO2 to make a fluffy foam like consistency) imagine a buttery velvety sauce making love to a Cumulus cloud, this would be the love child. Hence lightening up the heavy butter sauce to submit to the lightness of the egg. um...duh!!! Garnish with a bit of pink sea salt because the high minerality plays well with asparagus and there you go...you got yourself a well refined "originalish" dish that you can pretend to call your own. until next time.

The Quest To Create

"ten minutes on a veal. order in: two bass one walu one terrine. how long on table seventeen? start plating in ninety seconds. less veg on this plate... let the fish be the star. fire table nine. slow down the salmon i need four minutes on that pick. pickup two foie. go on table seventeen."


To a professional chef this is the music of his day to day work. the kitchen is the stage, his cooks are the singers, the food is the star and he is the conductor. the time keeper. making sure that everyone is in sync to create a PERFECT experience for the audience. But what happens when perfection is not enough anymore? when the music loses its magic because "its been done before." more and more people are asking themselves "have i seen this done before" as opposed to "is this executed perfectly" the quest for the chef then shifts from the need to make perfect, to the need to make new. the quest to create.

"Make New Friends, Keep the Old"

A song me and my sister Christal used to sing went "make new friends, keep the old. one is silver and the other is gold"

I think that it is important to maintain this ideal in the world of food as well. In the creative mosh pit that the culinary industry is becoming, one MUST keep in mind the solid foundations that allowed them to get to the point that they can express themselves creatively. everything thing starts with technique. once technique is learned, then you can apply creativity. but first and foremost...you must, must, must have technique. in a world of hyper modern cooking appliances, and texture bending chemicals such as sodium alginate and methyl cellulose, it is easy to get sucked into the gimmick and lose appreciation for the flavor or the ingredient itself. when younger chefs ask me about how to use new age techniques i always ask them the same question "what is NaCl?" if they dont know then i tell them that they have no business learning new techniques if they dont have the basics down. when the cant even identify the proper chemical name for the most prominant ingredient in the kitchen. "Make new friends" (NaCl) "Keep the old" (salt)