Category Archives: Culinary Arts

Top New Culinary Books: “Sushi Shokunin” – Andrea Fazzari -“Stunning Images”

In this stunning monograph, James Beard Award-winning photographer and author Andrea Fazzari profiles twenty of the most celebrated sushi masters on the Japanese food scene. Through a combination of striking photography and intimate essays, each chapter introduces readers to a new master and restaurant, capturing the aesthetics, philosophy, and level of dedication that illustrates their status as the world’s finest culinary shokunin.

In Japan, cooking often bears aesthetic value, and the making of sushi is exalted as one of the finest culinary crafts. In line with this ideal of food as art, the Japanese often employ the word shokunin, loosely defined as “artisan”, to refer to highly skilled sushi masters. Connoting excellence and devotion to one’s craft, this title is reserved for those who approach their work with an artistic eye and seemingly spiritual sense of purpose, or ikigai.

A must-have for sushi enthusiasts—and for anyone interested in fine food culture—Sushi Shokunin is the first book of its kind to the most revered sushi masters and restaurants. Fazzari invites readers to explore the rarefied world of top shokunin who view sushi making not only as a career, but also as a way of life.

Andrea Fazzari is a Tokyo-based James Beard Award-winning photographer and author specializing in travel and the culinary world. Her previous book was Tokyo New WaveShe was chosen as one of “30 Photographers to Watch” by Photo District News in 2004. Her editorial and advertising clients include Travel + LeisureDeparturesSaveurCathay Pacific Airlines, and Four Seasons Hotels

Read more or purchase

Food & Nature: “The Wild Harvest – Mid Summer” With Chef Alan Bergo

 

Filmed and Directed by: Jesse Roesler

Produced by: Credo Nonfiction
Featuring: Alan Bergo, Forager Chef

Edited by: Sam Kaiser

From James Beard Award-winning filmmaker Jesse Roesler and renowned Forager Chef Alan Bergo, The Wild Harvest is a new foraging & cooking series that celebrates the beauty and bounty of nature and explores what’s culinarily possible with easily foraged wild foods. This series is being created safely during quarantine using social distancing measures.

Episode 3 features the bounty of mid summer in the northern hemisphere including a wild greens salad, walleye wrapped in squash leaves with chanterelles and a blueberry desert that captures the spirit of the pine barrens. Featured foraged ingredients include Lamb’s Quarters, Chickweed, Purslane, Bee Balm, Chanterelles, Wild Blueberries, Sweet Fern, Hazelnuts.

We hope to release a new episode every 3-4 weeks for free, but are currently seeking sponsors.

Website

Food Trends: American “Fresh Seaweed” Products Are Expanding (Podcast)

NPR PodcastAtlantic Sea Farms is the largest commercial seaweed farm in the U.S. They line-grow their seaweed in clear, icy cold Maine waters. The seaweed — which is sold frozen in pureed cubes and in ready to eat cut strands and fermented products — is never dyed or dehydrated.

Beyond sushi restaurants and roasted snacks, seaweed is increasingly accepted, appreciated, even adored, in American kitchens — and for good reason.

Seaweed is really good for you. It’s loaded with potassium, magnesium, Vitamin B12, iodine, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and tons of calcium. And then there’s the umami bomb of taste: briny, sweet, meaty, and vegetal are just some of the ways cooks describe the flavor of various seaweeds.

Website

Dining: Interview With Private Chef Platform “APT” – Richard Lee Massey

The EntrepreneursRichard Lee Massey is the founder of Apt, a new hospitality platform in London. The reopening of London’s restaurants earlier this month was a welcome relief for many. But with physical-distancing restrictions still in place, Apt will allow groups of friends to dine in a more intimate setting.

They can choose from a host of top chefs and rent one of 98 private apartments at east London’s Town Hall Hotel for their meal.

Travel, Food & Wine: Top Australian Restaurants And Vineyards (Podcast)

Monocle 24 Only In Australia PodcastUnrestrained by culinary tradition, Australia’s fine drinking and dining scene applauds creativity and food fusion. The country’s outdoor eating culture is enlivened by some of the world’s best fresh produce, breathtaking landscapes and ideal growing conditions. 

Get your tummy ready to rumble as Georgina Godwin takes a tour through some of Australia’s finest dining rooms, vineyards and cellar doors, with star wine-makers, foragers of fine food and industry-leading artisans as her guides.

Food & Dining: “How A Michelin Star Restaurant Will Cope Post Covid-19”

After months in lockdown, restaurants are back. But they’re coming out of hibernation into a strange new world shaped by the coronavirus pandemic. In the first in a new series of films, food writer Tim Hayward and the FT’s Daniel Garrahan visit Lyle’s in east London to see how a Michelin star restaurant has pivoted from fine dining to pizza.

New Arts & Culture Books: “La Colombe d’Or – Saint Paul de Vence” (Assouline)

La Colombe d'Or - Assouline“Provence has a treasure; it’s a Colombe d’Or. It has the precious scent of thyme and nostalgia and the golden colour of olive oil and happy days. The Colombe is a part of my life. For me, it’s a place that’s as full of promise as of magnificent memories. The Colombe is indefinable, inimitable. I’m happy that today a book brings back the atmosphere of this place which is like no other in the world.”

La Colombe d’Or hotel and restaurant in the South of France is known all over the world as a privileged place where the Provençal art de vivre goes hand in hand with an astonishing private COLLECTION of modern art.

La Colombe d'Or - Assouline

First opened in 1920 as Chez Robinson, a café-bar with an open-air terrace, it quickly became a very popular meeting place and expanded into a small hotel and restaurant. The friendly atmosphere together with owner Paul Roux’s deep interest in the arts attracted many artists of the day, and the walls were soon covered by paintings, often exchanged for a stay or a few meals. As regular visitors to this beautiful place, Matisse, Braque, Léger, Calder, César, and many other artists have left magnificent works that now form part of the unique setting, including splendid pages in the fascinating guest books—presented to the world for the first time in this volume—in which the greatest artists of our time have drawn and signed moments of happiness. The next generation of the Roux family continues to care for the Colombe d’Or, and the art COLLECTION is still growing today.

Read more or purchase

Interviews: Indonesian Cookbook “Coconut & Sambal” Author Lara Lee

Monocle 24 The MenuLara Lee, the author of the new cookery book ‘Coconut & Sambal’, shares one of her favourite recipes.

About Coconut & Sambal

Coconut & SambalBe transported to the bountiful islands of Indonesia by this collection of fragrant, colourful and mouth-watering recipes.

‘An exciting and panoramic selection of dishes and snacks’
– Fuchsia Dunlop, author of The Food of Sichuan


‘Start with Lara’s fragrant chicken soup, do lots of exploring on the way whilst dousing everything with spoonfuls of sambal, and end with her coconut and pandan sponge cake’
 Yotam Ottolenghi, author of SIMPLE

Coconut & Sambal reveals the secrets behind authentic Indonesian cookery. With more than 80 traditional and vibrant recipes that have been passed down through the generations, you will discover dishes such as Nasi goreng, Beef rendang, Chilli prawn satay and Pandan cake, alongside a variety of recipes for sambals: fragrant, spicy relishes that are undoubtedly the heart and soul of every meal.Lara uses simple techniques and easily accessible ingredients throughout Coconut and Sambal, interweaving the recipes with beguiling tales of island life and gorgeous travel photography that shines a light on the magnificent, little-known cuisine of Indonesia.

What are you waiting for? Travel the beautiful islands of Indonesia and taste the different regions through these recipes.

Read more or purchase

Top Restaurant Videos: Gion Mikaku In Kyoto, Japan’s Best Steakhouse

Gion Mikaku, founded 1929: – 2 different cuts of beef: Tajima beef filet mignon and Kobe beef rump steak with just the right amount of marbling (intra-muscular fat) and no extra-muscular fat – 400g in total. Steak cutting behind a window in their kitchen, friendly, dedicated service, pleasant view, extra hot griddle for proper searing, right timing and handling of the steaks: they certainly know what they are doing – This restaurant meal included garlic rice (between steak and dessert).

Gion Mikaku Kyoto Japan Best Kobe Beef Steakhouse Menu

Website

Food Podcasts: The “Rich Delights” Of Cork, Ireland’s Second City

The Menu Monocle 24Monocle’s Charlie Jermyn talks us through the rich and varied culinary delights on offer in Ireland’s second city.

Cork is the second largest city in Ireland. Located in the south-west of Ireland, in the province of Munster, since an extension to the city’s boundary in 2019, its population is c.210,000.

The city centre is an island positioned between two channels of the River Lee which meet downstream at the eastern end of the city centre, where the quays and docks along the river lead outwards towards Lough Mahon and Cork Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world.

Originally a monastic settlement, Cork was expanded by Viking invaders around 915. Its charter was granted by Prince John in 1185. Cork city was once fully walled, and the remnants of the old medieval town centre can be found around South and North Main streets. The third largest city by population on the island of Ireland, the city’s cognomen of “the rebel city” originates in its support for the Yorkist cause in the Wars of the Roses. Corkonians sometimes refer to the city as “the real capital”, a  reference to its opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in the Irish Civil War.