The perks of my school

Ah, they look like wee ants against the awesome power of the Gelato Uni. sign, don't they?
And yes, this place is real, and is as much of an actual University as Dr. Pepper actually holds a Phd. Just kidding. This is the place to learn all things gelato. The way that American ice cream has a higher fat content (10-20%, vs. 3-12% in gelato), that a proper gelato increases in volume by 20% when properly spun, and that sugar directly affects the size of the ice crystals, which in turn cannot be perceived by the human tongue when less than 25-30 microns.
I know what you're thinking. You're like "Wow, Andrew, that's amazing. But I've always wanted to know if the freezing temperature of a substance increases in direct proportion to its molecular weight."
Well, my friend, it does. And on that note, if you're calling me Andrew, you're not my friend. Go away.
Seeing the glorious, gleaming equipment inside the Gelato University made me realize just how old-school our sorbet and ice cream production was back at the Lumi. Towards the end, Johnny T and I would stand there at our 2 1/2 gallon pots, and whisk away, bringing the arse-ton of cream and vanilla up over a low heat in order to properly temp in the egg yolks for vanilla ice cream. It was truly a bonding experience, and no one really cared if you got the sweet sweet vanilla cream all over you from vigorous over-whisking. Mas nous ne sommes pas les poofs...I can guarantee that.
But seriously, there's a whole University DEVOTED to gelato! They're freakin' serious about it too. We went over the chemical compositions of the bases, the viable substitutes for sugars, proteins, and whatnot. It lets you see what's behind the curtain for a bit, which is almost bittersweet. I love the frozen stuff...it takes me to a better place (a place that's slightly cooler than the 104 degrees that I am currently forced to exist in.) But you learn too much about it, and it loses some of its innocence. And ice cream, gelato, sherbet, the sorbet I was weaned on during my many years as a lactard...well they're the physical manifestation of innocence. A luxury, and a creation of desire rather than necessity, well part of me just want to be able to experience that for as long as I can....
At the same time....I'm a numbers dork, and I love seeing how things work. At now I can see why Grom on the upper west side of Manhattan can get away with their insane prices....its worth it, when you know what goes into making true, proper gelato (especially given Grom's environmental approach.) And, it doesn't hurt that the didactic aspects of our studies here involve making, and consuming, large quantities of gelato. Pas mal.
At the end of the day though, I'm still a total sucker for B&J's Heath Bar Crunch.
Off to Burgundy in the a.m., and I shall try to write more while I'm there.

A very Italian moment

Somehow I've made it 140 views of my blog, which means one of several things: either you guys have WAY too much time at your desks, and yearn for the sporadic psycho-babble that can only come from a displaced redhead, or you're writing geeks who love to pick on people who dangle their participles more often than the weird guy across the street dangles his old bread out the window. Or it could be that you read this in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, I'll say what I'm doing here. I do know that if I could do it all over, I'd probably choose a Italian city that was closer to the water, and not so damn expensive.
Ah, after a moment of deep inner-thought, perhaps the absence of an accurate description of my life's current purpose is due to the fact that I've been a little slow in embracing my new position as student. It's a hard thing to admit, hell, to actually do, to give up making money, and instead watch it slowly drip away, hoping that in some crazy way, the intellectual trade-off works out in your favor.
Especially given my "past life," which basically involved putting order to chaos, with a steady output of food when I did it correctly. There's a reason that a lot of chef's coats could pass for straight jackets. We seem to be comforted by something that wraps round us, instantly labeling us a wee bit crazy, but still sane enough to walk amongst the normies.
But just like the pinnacle moment of my personal worst day ever, when I saw (heard would be more accurate) my girlfriend's expensive clothes get sucked out the window of my Geo Prizm as I hauled ass up I-93, I look back at all those crazy, crappy, suck-it-up moments of that past life, and can't help but smile.
And I was reminded of this last night. Sitting in the shadow of the Duomo in Parma, the streetlights out, lightning streaking across the sky, and rats scurrying away from the windows full of Italians fanatical about their upcoming Eurocup win, I had my moment. My very Italian moment. Catherine and I popped a bottle of '04 Valpolicella, which only tasted better out of rain-stained plastic cups, and talked food. The first time I saw her, I could tell that she had spent some time in a real kitchen; she had those crazy eyes. So we giggled maniacally over her obsession with segmenting oranges, and my obsession with being the one who crossed off the completed items on my prep list back at Lumiere. A great moment to be around someone like that. A very good person, she be.
So that's it. A moment, loving where I was, at a specific place in time. The only thing Italian about it was the place, really, but what more do you need? It taught me that, at least for the moment, I'm happy with where I am.

The role of "chef"

"What should the role of the chef be in modern-day society?"
It was Ferran Adria's turn to ask questions of us. After divulging what he has for breakfast, what "being famous" means to him, and dismissing the idea of making wine with a "pft" and wave of the hand, we got down to business.
To answer the question, I would say: to give more than you take. The irony is, Chef Adria questioned what he himself is doing, because with the chef having the ability to create food to feed the masses, is it really a noble cause to be at the helm of a place where dinner costs 300 Euros per person?
I'm not trying to slander the existence of El Bulli, or its famed chef, in any way, but there have been increasing wonder as to whether Adria has crossed the line from chef to artist, and in doing so, has blurred the lines on both sides.
What he has done, is show that as long as you maintain the true taste of something (which is something I personally believe in, and show with my cooking), then everything else is essentially secondary. You can alter appearance, texture, temperature, all the other factors, as long as taste remains static and intact. And for that, I respect him.
But what is he giving to the food society of the world? If it is a new way to look at food, to create it, than he is indeed an artist. But if he does what he does to feed people, just to feed them, than he is a chef.
On a side note, Ferran Adria cooks family meal. EVERY DAY. For all 80 staff, he cooks. At that point, he is indeed a chef. But I doubt that his family meals are full of foams and gels. So I guess, in the end, he dances across the line, from artist, to chef and back again, every day.
These are just some little nibbles, like the tasty bits in the bottom of McDonald's french fries (back when they still fried in that sweet, sweet tallow), for you to feast on, or spit out, if that's the way you roll.

Pus to the eigth degree

Octopus has had a rough life. It gets vilified in movies (Octopussy, The Goonies), it has to sit back and sulk in a cloud of its own ink while it's more mobile cousin, the squid, gets deep-fried and served with sauce of the fiercest tartar. And to make it worse, just when it makes it to the big leagues, in sushi restaurants, it ends up placing second to shoe leather in terms of tenderness and flavor.
And the name. What, was it first discovered by the math club from some Mediterranean high school? "Use the latin word for eight in a real-world situation." "Oh, and throw pus in there if you can." As a math club member myself, I can attest to the fact that math dorks can't float or swim so good, so we actually make great divers. I can see it now...
Diver 1: "What the Eff is that thing?"
Diver 2: "I don't know, but it's cute."
Diver 1: "Cute? Do you even know what cute means?"
Diver 2: "Um, apparently not. Help me, would you? It's eating my arm."
Diver 1: "Now that you mention it, it does remind me of my ex-wife. Same crazy eyes."
Diver 2: "Ow! What is that, a freaking beak? Holy crap, it is like your ex-wife...except it doesn't bite as hard."
Octopus: "Oooh, awkward."
(Note: I realize that very few high schoolers would be married, and certainly not math club kids, but it's a funny vignette, so shut up and go with it, ok?)
The one thing I will say about the octopus though...it puts up a fight. Birds can just fly around until they get shot. Even squirrels will just stare out you with their wee beady eyes and cheeks that remind you of the fat kid in the fourth grade until their head gets taken off by a hammer at 50 yards (story for another time.) But I think food is tastier when it comes after a fight to the death. Which is why, from this day forth, I shall only eat octopus that I personally kill with my bare hands. Because I want to revel in the silence of bringing my own kill into a sushi restaurant. that silence that falls over the dining room as they see the round bruises on your arm? They know that you're a suction junkie, they just don't want to say anything.
See, that's why I can't understand the whole beating-the-hell-out-the-octopus-by-beating-it-against-a-rock thing. You've already killed it, already pulled it out of its natural habitat. It's been speared and subsequently drowned. But go ahead, wail away on that thing! Yeah, cuz you're a MAN! You don't taken s--t from no sea creature! That thing was talking about your mama not five minutes ago.
Seriously, though. The tenderness thing? I've seen the cork trick, the braise-in-wine thing, the absence of salt during cooking, and the afore-mentioned beating. Just cook it slow. Put on some Barry White, light some candles, braise that thing slower than...well, that fat kid I talked about back in the fourth grade? Slower than he could run the bases in kick ball. I guarantee you'll have yourself some crazy-tender octopus. So help give the octopus a raison d'etre: cook it slow.