January 18, 2012 meeting

aemcbride — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:36:22 +0000

Michael J Cirino is the voice and creative director of the culinary performance art group a razor, a shiny knife, which hosts educational, social and theatrical experiences. The group produces events around the world that push the boundaries of what is possible and expected to happen around a kitchen and table. For the past five years, Mr. Cirino has sought to redefine the guest/host relationship and create a space in the culinary world for a different paradigms of social interaction around food that fits outside of the restaurant and home kitchen. This conversation will explore the traditional roles of the host and the guest, the rewards that each role seeks to obtain, and start a conversation on how we can all take these roles and pervert them into something ridiculous and inspiring.

December 14, 2011 Meeting

aemcbride — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 03:16:13 +0000

ECC co-founder and self-styled “Outlaw of Pastry” Will Goldfarb is currently the executive pastry chef of KU DE TA, Bali. Chef Goldfarb owns and operates Willpowder and Willequipped, and has been making desserts for nearly 15 years. In his (ideally) non-pretentious talk, Planet One: School for Boys (and Girls), Mr. Goldfarb will discuss the creative narrative from the 2011 season of dessert making, and its evolution from 2010′s Planet Zero. This is a detailed, behind-the-scene look at the research, development, and execution of a slightly off-balance but very well intentioned pastry chef.

November 30, 2011 Meeting

aemcbride — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:42:03 +0000

On November 30, Prof. Dana Small, who runs Yale University’s Affective Sensory Neuroscience Laboratory and is also an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and an associate professor of psychology at Yale University, will give a presentation titled The Flavor Modality. In her own words: “When we ‘taste,’ we also touch the food or drink in our mouths and sense its odor via retronasal olfaction. The term flavor describes this multimodal experience. The aim of this lecture will be to describe how the independent sensations of taste, touch and smell converge to create unitary flavor percepts and how, through experience, the brain encodes these ‘flavor objects’ and their associated physiological significance. Psychophysical and neuroimaging data will be presented to support the existence of a binding mechanism, possibly residing in the somatomotor mouth area, that underlies illusory processes that bring taste, touch and smell into a common spatial and temporal field. Activation of this mechanism then allows flavor objects that reside in the insular cortex to become associated with the post-ingestive consequences of feeding, which then drives flavor preference formation.”

October 15, 2011 Meeting

aemcbride — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:45:08 +0000

Click here for Chef Yosses’ PowerPoint presentation.

In his October 15 presentation, The Prism of Flavors, 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.

He 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.

ECC Down Under

aemcbride — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:51:05 +0000

If you happen to be visiting New Zealand and Australia, or living there, you can catch a series of talks given by ECC co-founder Kent Kirshenbaum. On Wednesday, August 9, and Friday, August 11, he will appear at Wellington on a Plate. On August 14, he will be in Palmerston North On August 15, he will be at Ruth Pretty’s Catering on the Otaki Coast. On Thursday, August 18, he will be at the Polytechnic Institute of Technology in Christchurch. And on August 22, he will be at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

June 15, 2011 Meeting

aemcbride — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:27:46 +0000

The June meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective will take place on Wednesday, June 15, from 4 to 6 p.m. at NYU.

In his presentation, The Color of Meat (Put a Smoke Ring On It), ECC co-founder and NYU chemistry professor Kent Kirshenbaum will examine the origin of color in meat. What gives a steak its distinctive red color? How reliable is color for determining freshness? Why does meat change color when it is cooked? We will evaluate methods for manipulating meat color. To seal the deal, we will investigate barbecue and the mysterious smoke ring.

The Jell-O Mold Design Competition: Call for Entries

aemcbride — Mon, 30 May 2011 23:36:16 +0000

JELL-O’S BIG ADVENTURE

Saturday June 25, 2011 from 6-10pm

Register by Wednesday June 15, 2011 to compete

The Jell-O Mold Competition has taken Jell-O out of the cafeteria, but the time has come to take it out of the kitchen altogether and into the world at large! This year, Jell-O takes New York!

To get things wobbling, we took Jell-O out to the city and into the classroom for a Jell-O Mold Workshop [www.gowanusstudio.org/jello/ workshop2011.html] for NYC high school students run in partnership with Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, with additional support from Smart Design–now it’s your turn to get in on the adventure.

This year’s competition asks designers to explore the everyday uses of this wobbly, delicious, shape shifting medium.

Competitors will battle it out for mold supremacy in the following categories:

- creativity

- aesthetics

- structural/sculptural integrity

- edibility/culinary appeal

- best use and showcase of Jell-O

Designers will compete for a grand prize of $400 in cash, a year membership to the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, gifts from Papabubble, Holstee, and more!

A crack panel of respected judges including Allan Chochinov of Core77, Emily Elsen of Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie shop, Josee Lepage of creative agency Bondtoo, and Keith Ozar of MakerBot will announce the winners at 8pm on Saturday, June 25, 2011. Anney Fresh of Space Kittys will host.

The judging and awards ceremony will be held at The Gowanus Studio Space in Brooklyn.

Designers must register by Wednesday June 15, 2011 to participate in the competition:

$15 registration fee, $10 for students. Space is limited, so register early!

www.gowanusstudio.org/jello

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsMmUk4GMs&feature=player_embedded

Experimental Cuisine Collective Hosts Fourth Anniversary Symposium at NYU

aemcbride — Tue, 10 May 2011 01:37:04 +0000

NEW YORK, May 1, 2011—The Experimental Cuisine Collective, an interdisciplinary group founded to examine the properties, boundaries, and conventions of food, celebrates its fourth anniversary with a day-long symposium, “Experimental Cuisine: Foundation to Innovation,” on Monday, May 16, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at NYU.

Speakers are Prof. Charles Zuker of Columbia University; David Arnold, director of technology at the French Culinary Institute and author of the blog Cooking Issues; chefs Maxime Bilet, co-author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, and Grant Crilly, one of the book’s development chefs; and Michael Laiskonis, executive pastry chef at Le Bernardin. Jeffrey Steingarten, food critic at Vogue and one of the first people to write about experimental cooking, will be the day’s MC. Lisa Abend, author of The Sorcerer’s Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria’s elBulli, will moderate a roundtable among the speakers.

Admission to the symposium, which will take place at Lipton Hall (108 W. Third Street), is free, but RSVPs are mandatory. Click here to register and for a full program.

March 23, 2011 Meeting

aemcbride — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 02:22:06 +0000

The March meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective will take place on Wednesday, March 23, from 4 to 6 p.m. This event is reserved to ECC members.

Chef Ferran Adria of elBulli, author and journalist Lisa Abend, and former elBulli stagiaire Katie Button will discuss the role that stagiaires play in the creativity process at elBulli. This focus stems from Lisa’s new book, The Sorcerer’s Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria’s elBulli, which follows the stagiaires of the 2009 season at the restaurant. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing.

Much thanks go to Astor Center and to our volunteers: Scott Barton, Arielle Johnson, Jackie Rohel, Jenny Schumacher, and Christy Spackman.

Umami Food and Art Festival Edible Architecture Gala

aemcbride — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 02:16:45 +0000

Edible Architecture
Umami food and art festival
2011 gala event
featuring
a sneak peek of Terri Hanlon’s new video
Meringue Diplomacy
and
Desserts by chef Sam Mason

Astor Center for Food and Wine
399 Lafayette Street (at 4th Street), New York City
Monday, March 28th, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
www.umamifestival2010.com

The life of Antonin Carême, the recognized founder of French grande cuisine, is the inspiration for the experimental documentary video entitled Meringue Diplomacy, produced and directed by Terri Hanlon. Umami food and art festival is proud to present a sneak-peek at this original work before its official premiere in April. The evening will open with whimsical hors d’oeuvres, special cocktails and other edible-architecture treats, and will close with chef Sam Mason’s fabulous desserts inspired by the film.

This special collaboration between chef and artist offers a unique opportunity to engage with both the food and the art in new and exciting ways. Proceeds from the event go to support Umami food and art festival’s mission to open avenues of collaboration between artists and culinary professionals, present new ways to look at art and to integrate art into daily life, and offer an environment for non-traditional mediums and forms. Tickets to the gala are $150 and include, in addition to the screening, cocktails, tastings, desserts, a chance to hear from both the artist and the chef, and a limited edition Umami gift bag.

Meringue Diplomacy filters Antonin Carême’s life through an ensemble cast of performers, who in their 21st Century lives possess aspects of the personalities of their early 19th Century counterparts. Home chef/performer Eric Barsness plays the role of Carême, and author, diplomat and wine connoisseur Jacques Bekaert plays the role of Talleyrand. Carol Clements, entrepreneur and choreographer, plays Lady Morgan, who wrote about Carême during his lifetime.

Tickets available through www.umamifestival2010.com

For more information contact Yael Raviv yael@umamifestival.com