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I really like this article and the accompanying video about salad.
I love salads. I mean, I LOVE SALADS. I go all orgasmic over salads the way women do over chocolate. When I make them, I swaddle and coddle the vegetables like they were the Baby Jesus. So while the video is in some ways not so great, I like the respect she brings to each ingredient, recognizing each little piece as beautiful and fragile. I think the result is worth it!
There is a fine line between arranging food and "fondling" it. The very talented chef at the former Chinook restaurant in Santa Rosa (?) taught me to never fondle food. I figure the chef should touch the food like a doctor touches his patients. The food, after all, will be part of someone's body, and should get the same consideration. Sometimes there is a lot of intrusive manipulation, but it's respectful, and never done casually or lecherously. I was a little disturbed at first by her "massaging" the lettuce but on reflection it's clear she knows what she is doing.
While the salad is built in three carefully constructed layers, it still looks natural, and adheres to my rule for plating anything, which is that I want it to look like it either fell from the sky or grew from the plate.
This.
I wish that I could have the amount of time necessary to assemble salads like that for my catering clients. Usually I have about five minutes to get ten or twelve plates put together and it's hard to put that kind of care into each one when there's a million things to do.
I love salads. I mean, I LOVE SALADS. I go all orgasmic over salads the way women do over chocolate. When I make them, I swaddle and coddle the vegetables like they were the Baby Jesus. So while the video is in some ways not so great, I like the respect she brings to each ingredient, recognizing each little piece as beautiful and fragile. I think the result is worth it!
There is a fine line between arranging food and "fondling" it. The very talented chef at the former Chinook restaurant in Santa Rosa (?) taught me to never fondle food. I figure the chef should touch the food like a doctor touches his patients. The food, after all, will be part of someone's body, and should get the same consideration. Sometimes there is a lot of intrusive manipulation, but it's respectful, and never done casually or lecherously. I was a little disturbed at first by her "massaging" the lettuce but on reflection it's clear she knows what she is doing.
While the salad is built in three carefully constructed layers, it still looks natural, and adheres to my rule for plating anything, which is that I want it to look like it either fell from the sky or grew from the plate.
This.
I wish that I could have the amount of time necessary to assemble salads like that for my catering clients. Usually I have about five minutes to get ten or twelve plates put together and it's hard to put that kind of care into each one when there's a million things to do.
