Category: The Way of Cooking

• A Culinary Framework for Delicious Simplicity

  “One of the secrets to success is not unbound freedom, but selecting the proper constraints.”

  — Tim Ferriss

  

  Being a husband, father, employee, and business owner, I have to make a lot of decisions every day. All decisions requires some degree of time, energy, and attention, each of which is in limited supply. Added decisions when it comes to things like what to cook and eat, especially when the options are seemingly infinite, take focus and energy away from other aspects of my life that are more important and making no decision at all means eating poorly, which only makes everything else, my health, my sleep, and my attitude, worse.

  By applying a simple framework to cooking, inspired by Samin Nosrat, we can have variety without having to make a bunch of unnecessary decisions. If we think about the flavor of every dish as being the result of four components — salt, fat, acid, and heat — and we adjust those components, sourcing them from a specific culinary region, adding some regional herbs and alliums for an extra kick if we like, we give ourselves the luxury of infinite flavor options, without having to make an infinite number of decisions along the way.

  Applying this framework to a simple piece of flank steak, we can make a Southeast Asian beef salad by pan searing (heat) the beef in avocado oil (fat), slicing it thin, and tossing it in a dressing of fish sauce (salt), lime juice (acid), and bird chilis (more heat). If we were to use sea salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and red chili flakes, the same exact piece of beef becomes Italian. Soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, and scallions gives a Japanese flavor to the beef.

  Looked at in this way, we do not need to make a lot of choices. We only need to choose a culinary region, allowing the region to tell us what salt, fat, acid, and heat works best for the protein and/or vegetables that are local and fresh.

  By working inside these constraints, we are not only guaranteed to have fewer culinary decisions to make, but we are also promised a delicious outcome that is only restricted by availability and imagination.

  “As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

  -Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

  Share this:

  • X
  • Facebook

  Like Loading…

  July 22, 2019

  cooking, decision fatigue, decisions, essentialism, food, foodie, framework, minimalism, salt fat acid heat, samin nosrat, simplicity, systems, tim ferriss

  ---

• Complexity Does Not Equate To Quality

  “There is always a market for the highest quality.”

  —Tim Ferriss

  

  Complexity is a means of hiding poor quality, not improving it. It is better to start with fewer, higher quality ingredients, to intentionally limit yourself, and to highlight those ingredients than it is to start with a larger quantity of low quality ingredients and to try to make up for low quality with variety and complexity. Low quality does not become high quality simply by having more of it.

  Starting with a limited number of high quality ingredients does not guarantee success, however. Simplicity is unforgiving. It gives us nowhere to hide. Simplicity requires us to be humble, to let the ingredients shine. If we have a few, high quality ingredients, the goal is to enhance their positive attributes, to draw them out, not to mask them.

  Adding unnecessary complexity to a dish will only diminish the overall quality of the final product. Complexity does not improve quality. It mutes it. More is not better. Better is better.

  “As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

  -Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

  Share this:

  • X
  • Facebook

  Like Loading…

  July 19, 2019

  complexity, essentialism, food, quality, quality ingredients, quality over quanitity, quantity, simplicity

  ---

• Fundamentals for the Soul

  “There is a sushi chef in Japan who has made maybe the same forty cuts of sushi for seventy years and he’s still trying to get it right. There is a guy in Spain who does nothing but grill stuff and that’s where all of the chefs want to eat. Very straightforward, very soulful food that’s do devoid of bullshit. No tricks.“

  – Anthony Bourdain

  

  Fads and trends come and go. New tricks and new technology come in and out of favor. Rising stars gain the public’s attention and affection. Beneath all of this, however, behind the scenes and away from the spotlight, remains a constant, unwavering truth. The refined basics, the fundamental skills and techniques of any creative endeavor, never go out of style. They are the basics, they are the fundamentals, because they work, because they are true.

  When you experience this truth, whether it be in food, music, art, or in martial arts, it is undeniable, eye opening, soul satisfying. It is life altering. This is Holistic Budo.

  “As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

  -Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

  Share this:

  • X
  • Facebook

  Like Loading…

  June 26, 2019

  anthony bourdain, basics, budo, Culinary Adventures, culinary arts, food, foodie, fundamental truths, fundamentals, grilled meat, life, no reservations, parts unknown, sushi, truth

  ---

• Art is the Expression of Essence

  “I’ve found that this dish takes a lot of black pepper.”

  -Chef David Chang

  

  Taste is subjective. It is a personal and/or cultural preference. Essence, on the other hand, precedes and transcends taste. It is the thing that just looks, sounds, tastes, or feels ‘right’ even if we cannot exactly describe why. Essence is the truth of a thing. It is the strawberry-ness of a strawberry, the buttery-ness of butter, or the beefy-ness of a steak. An expert is simply someone, whether through good fortune, practice, or education, who can more easily experience, identify, and recreate this essence than others.

  When a chef like David Chang says that he has found that a particular dish “takes a lot of black pepper,” he is not saying that he prefers the taste of that dish with a lot of black pepper. He is saying that the essence of that dish demands a certain amount of pepper in order to be made manifest and be experienced in its ideal form. He is an expert not because he is an arbiter of taste, but because he has developed a palate that is more sensitive and more in-tune with the essence of a particular thing than the average person. He is saying that “this dish is more like itself when it is made with a lot of black pepper.”

  The art of the chef is to honor the essence of an ingredient or a dish so that others may experience it as well.

  “As in life, so too it is in budo. As in budo, so too it is in life.”

  -Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

  39.277001 -76.563395

  Share this:

  • X
  • Facebook

  Like Loading…

  June 17, 2019

  ---

• Steamed Crabs and a Beginner’s Mind

  “You are doing it wrong. Let me show you how to do it the right way.”

  

  One of the summer rituals in Maryland is eating steamed crabs. This is especially true where I live, near the Chesapeake Bay. I have been eating steamed blue crabs with Old Bay seasoning (a spice blend native to this area) nearly every summer since I was first introduced to them by one of my best friends in middle school whose father would buy a bushel of them once or twice a season to eat in their backyard. That is to say, I have eaten a lot of steamed crabs over the past twenty-five or more years.

  My wife and her family also love seafood, especially crabs, so we have continued the summer crab-eating tradition in our home. Being from Cambodia, they did not grow up eating steamed crabs with Old Bay, however. Instead, they cut up the crabs and stir-fry them with various seasonings and spices, such as ginger and green onion or black pepper and coconut milk. If they do steam crabs, they dip the unseasoned, cooked meat in a tangy, spicy sauce made with fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, and chilis. All of these preparations are delicious and I do not discriminate when someone else is doing the cooking.

  One day, we were eating crabs and my wife saw me struggling to pick little pieces of the delicate ‘lump’ crabmeat out of the body of the crab. “You are doing it wrong,” she said, “Let me show you the right way to do it.” She picked up a crab, pulled off the back shell, cleaned off the body, broke it in half, and peeled away the remaining shell so that what was left was a perfect little ‘lollipop’ of lump crabmeat. In spite of many years of doing things one way, a way that seemed to work, I learned a new, better way, better in that it was more efficient, producing greater results with less effort. All I needed was a beginner’s mind.

  – Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

  Share this:

  • X
  • Facebook

  Like Loading…

  May 29, 2019

  beginner’s mind, cambodian, chesapeake bay, crabs, food, maryland, old bay, open mind, steamed crabs, summer tradition

  ---