Published on: May 3, 2010
There was a wonderful piece on “60 Minutes” last night about chef Jose Andres, who has an “avant-garde approach to cooking” that focuses on "molecular gastronomy" - a cooking technique that embraces science and technology."Eating has to be fun, has to be a social event, but where you have fun that you are relaxed. But at the same time that you are relaxed, doesn't mean that you cannot be putting a lot of thought behind what eating, what the food means to you," Andres told correspondent Anderson Cooper.
Food writer Ruth Reichl says that when one eats a meal by Andres, one should “expect wonders. Food is going to do things that you never imagined. It's going to come floating at you. It's going to explode. It's going to have textures that you didn't ever think that would be in your mouth ... It's a kind of magic. It's like a circus of the mouth.”
Andres is “GQ magazine's chef of the year, runs restaurants on both coasts and has been nominated for outstanding chef in America by the James Beard Foundation. But, the program suggests, “he is probably prouder of the kitchen he has volunteered at for the last 17 years in a tough Washington D.C. neighborhood,” called the DC Central Kitchen. Andres started volunteering there just weeks after moving to the US: “He was drawn to their model: a 12-week culinary training course for people with little hope - former prisoners, drug abusers and homeless. Now they distribute fresh meals daily prepared from one ton of donated surplus food.”
You can watch the video here .
- KC's View:
- If you don’t smile while watching this story, then you’d better check your pulse.
And if this doesn’t make you hungry...well, you’d better check into a hospital.
This was just a delightful story...and since it is a rainy Monday morning here in the northeast, I thought it was the best way to begin the week.
But there is an important business point here, especially for the retail food industry, where sometimes people forget that they are in the business of making food fun, enticing, and embracing. Not everyone needs to be in the business of “molecular gastronomy,” but I just love it when a food retailer pushes beyond the traditional, the conventional and the mainstream...and actually surprises the consumer.