NAMING FOOD

Intellectually, this is what binds the creative process of cooking. I start with the ingredients I have, and what they are (this is obvious) is what is ultimately served up. But what is not obvious is the technique through which they can be processed to deliciousness. The alchemy is really intrinsic to what the ingredient is - you can't make a compote from a butt cut, but from a fruit or citrus (separately they can be combined, of course.) My point is: name food from the "chemical" level - derive the salivation from the food prior to taste.

An example: Calamansi-Lemon Marmalade Bread Cake (which I had made recently for our visiting guests from the Philippines); for last Sunday's brunch prior to attending the Frieze Show on Randall Island, owing to a brilliant East River weather, I made Caesar Lettuce and Pink Apples Salad, and for the main dish a Roasted Garlic and Curly Parsley Cacio e Pepe Pasta; and last night I was thinking protein, so I cooked up a kind of  mixed traditions rice bowl or Korean bibimbap using Whole Wheat Berries (boiled in tea leaves) with Salted Herring (marinated in lemon juice and Argentine Torrontes - a white wine) and Topped With Fried Red and Green Mung Beans Cake dressed with the juice of the herring marinade) and Melting Egg Yolk.

Naming good is its audience expectation. The good it will become is entirely up to the cook. So I follow the "watering" in my mouth.