Journal

Seward Nebraska…

Aug 25 | Posted by Joshua Ingber | Add a Comment

…is home of the Lutheran Teachers College, and just one of the places I stopped on my driving journey to Vegas and back. In Seward we met Ronoc, and when I say “we” there needs to be some clarification: “We” is my band, the Upwelling; consisting of Ari, Conor and myself. We were on a tour through the midwest and Seward seemed like a good place to stop for a cheap motel, gas, and a sandwich. Little did we know, we would gain an insight into the Creator, himself.

Ronoc is a Seward Elder, but his youthful zeal is surprising to a bunch of New Yorkers. His blue eyes gleam with no squint or trace of redness, and he talks excitedly to Conor of his early morning rise (5am) and jaunt into nature.

Conor is the youngest in our band, and has seen and experienced more of the world than I suspect Ari or I. He seldom goes to bed before sun up, and his brown eyes reveal the wear of his journeys. His experiences with nature have been tenuos at best. This is most evident by the series of scars on his elbow from diving into a bed of Rocks in Iowa.

Watching Conor and Ronoc talk about their opposite lives on the corner of a Seward street (as it was being cleared for the town’s weenie-race), was surreal. There was a purple glow of light surrounding both figures. Each seemed to go out of focus. I thought they would cancel each other out.

Luckily Conor left Seward safely, excluding a minor headache. He blames the coffee. Ari blames Ronoc…I blame God.

The point is, clearly God created the universe with principles pertaining to balanced design. But unlike theMechanism, God seems a bit careless. How could God let diametrically opposite aspects of his creation come into contact like they did in Seward? It is a miracle that the Universe didn’t collapse.

I guess in a way, I am thankful. I got to witness the “miracle of design” and survive!

Josh Ingber is the Controller at theMechanism, a maxi-media firm in New York City and London. When he’s not tapping out rhythms on his desk, or pondering the mysteries of the universe on company time, he drums for a New York-based band, The Upwelling.

FoodArt

Aug 17 | Posted by Yum | 2 comments

It was a year ago, almost to the day, that I graduated from Culinary School and officially became a professionally trained chef. In the time since, I have had stints at several fast-paced and trendy New York City restaurants where strength, speed and endurance took the forefront and the actual pleasure and creativity of designing a meal was not an option to be enjoyed. Working 17 hour days and lifting equipment and containers of food equaling my body weight of a mere 100 lbs. left little time and energy for creation. Sure, I was constantly inspired working with internationally renowned chefs, who recognized design and balance as reverently as taste. People eat with their eyes before their mouths so creating food that is visually stimulating is just as important in pleasing the customer.

Food is “Art.” Color, texture and scale are all as important as they are in architecture or your favorite painting at the Met, in addition to the common thread of pleasing your customer. Food applies to all of the senses, not only can you see and taste it, but you can smell it, hear it, touch it creating a very complex sensory experience. But during the breakneck speed of my experience as a line cook, I was falling into a robotic slump from the exhaustion of serving 200 covers or more in a span of a five hour dinner service and sometimes an even less three hour lunch!

So now a year from my graduation, I am independently catering my first luncheon, where I will orchestrate a culinary experience from start to finish. In this role, I will design a menu where dishes will be considered as they relate to each other as a whole as well as individually. It will be important to offer a variety of tastes equipped to linger on the taste buds and tease and unexpect the lucky recipient. Presentation and timing will further enhance the experience. Not only what the dish is to be served in but what will accompany it and what will follow, taking the taster through a journey of flavors. The key is in the details, all with the end goal of creating a memory that will reflect satisfaction and beg for revisitation.

So I leave you with a recipe of fresh seasonal ingredients to seal the last balmy days of summer. It’s a cold soup, known as gazpacho. I learned this recipe at a very snobby French Michelin starred restaurant and am happy to reveal their formula to you outstanding Mechanism fans. Gazpacho traditionally has tomatoes, which are also in season and a good substitute. But of course the French have to be different so in this case it’s a cucumber and apple variety. Which is actually really refreshing.

We also know that the French are all about their garnishes, and the frenchie chef’s voice rings jarringly in my memory with his guttural pronunciation of “more gairneesh.” “Oui chef, oui” always the subservient response (but in my mind, how stupid and suck up coming from purebred Americans!). In this case the gairneesh or garnish really work well and give a good visual of designing balance and texture within a dish.

For the cucumber apple gazpacho, the garnish is a small mound of bread salad rising up from the soup. Now we’re not talking a big bowl of cambells, but a delicate shallow bowl to sample and savor. They call this an “Amuse Buse” something which amuses the mouth. This salad combines fine diced cucumbers, tomatoes, homemade croutons of sourdough bread, gruyere cheese (god bless the french) and hard boil egg whites and yolk (separately pushed through a sieve) all marinated in a beautiful marriage of olive oil, lemon juice, sherry vinegar and salt and pepper.

The importance in the salad as a garnish is to be consistent and perfectly symmetrical in your fine dice and if done properly will produce confetti-like cubes of red, white, yellow and green. Theoretically, the soup embodies the essence of the crisp cucumber garnish and what satisfaction to experience the essence and then the realization of this very flavorful summer soup. Top the mound with a fresh almond soaked in milk for additional visual height and a burst of freshness in your mouth. Final product should resemble a shallow sea of mint green liquid and an island of multicolor confetti in the center of the bowl.

Recipe

Soup Ingredients:

• 4 cucumbers
• 4 green apples
• 3 green peppers
• 2 onions
• about a 1/2 cup of cooked rice
• Almond powder
• 1 hard boiled egg

Garnish Ingredients:

• 1 tomato
• 1 cucumber
• 1 square wedge of gruyere cheese
• cucumber peel
• fresh almonds soaked in milk

Flavoring Ingredients:

• salt and pepper to taste
• tabasco oil to taste
• lemon juice to taste
• Sherry vinegar to taste

Directions:

1. Wash, peel and chop first four ingredients.
2. Combine chopped ingredients, add cooked rice and fill bowl with water to cover, flavor with 1 - 2 tbs of red wine vinegar. Let sit and marinate for 1 hr.
3. In batches, ladle chopped mix and liquid marinade to cover in blender leaving about two inches on top not filled for circulation and puree till smooth. Add 1 tsp of almond powder and blend to mix.
4. Pour smooth liquid through a chinois or cheese cloth to extract any remaining solids or grittiness and to ensure ultra smooth soup.
5. Flavor with ingredients listed to taste.
6. Chill

For Garnish:

1. Fine dice sourdough bread. Spread out of a baking sheet. Add s&p, and a bit of olive oil. Bake on 200 degrees until crisp. Keep your eye on this it won’t take long and you don’t want very much color or to burn them. You’ll want to shake up the sheet a few times to rotate the croutons and distribute crispness and color evenly. Let cool.
2. Take hard boiled egg and separate yolk from egg white. Push them separately through a clean sieve to get a powder like substance of yellow and white. Refrigerate separately in small bowls or containers.
3. Take a tomato and score the top center by thinly carving an x with a knife. Add scored tomato to boiling water for about 10-15 seconds and then place in ice water to stop cooking. This is a method called “blanch and shock” and is used to soften the skin so that it can be removed with a pairing knife carefully not to damage the tomato. You do not want the tomato too become soft or mushy but to keep its firmness. Then quarter the tomato and remove the seeds. From this point, cut into flat rectangular 1 inch strips and cut cubes.
4. Dice up cheese and cucumbers.
5. Cut thin perfectly sized strips of cucumber peel.

To assemble soup, combine all garnishes in a bowl and mix with lemon juice, sherry vinegar, tabsco, salt and pepper. Portion an appropriate quantity in the center of the bowl. Pour liquid around the garnish mixture to about half way up. Top with a fresh almond and sprinkle julienned cucumber peel.

Note: This recipe has been scaled down from a much larger quantity. Feel free to adjust measurements to your taste. Not only will this make it your own but will serve in its capacity to “Inspire.”