Val Anthony Alvero

Making a Food Product

Cooking sucks. At its worst it is following a whole lot of steps with some mistakes resulting in a catastrophic failure (a friend told me a story of unintentionally making an exploding brownie) and at its best it is trying to achieve some creative vision by coming up with a whole lot of steps to follow with some mistakes resulting in a catastrophic failure. Those familiar with the craft may state that the probability of catastrophic failure goes down with practice or familiarity, but following a bunch of steps to achieve a known result sounds more like the domain of expertise of a robot than that of a human.

I know there are many that find therapy or joy in the process of precise mastery in culinary arts, but for me almost all the fun is in the creativity. Yes, that involves failure. Yes, that means there is greater risk. My biggest problems with cooking are not those of failure and risk, but of achieving something worthwhile only to have my stomach drop at the thought of manually reproduce that result. Maybe its my programming background speaking, but if I’m going to spend a portion of my life creating something great I sure as hell don’t want to spend the rest of it repeating that process. And no, I’d also rather not have someone else spend their time doing it in my place.

Cue Food Products

Now I don’t think making a food product solves any of the aforementioned problems completely at this time, but I do believe this is the right direction. My dream is to one day have robots produce recipes via 3D printers. This would allow free reign for the creator to specify their designs and let the computer handle the rest. That being said, those dreams are still a ways away and, if I’ve learned anything about achieving anything, its that moving in the right direction is better than spending significant amounts of time trying to figure out if its the best answer.

The idea of a food product does introduce a couple complexities that boil down to two short question: What? and How?

Think Simple and Effective

Luckily, I already answered the first question as I found out about an ongoing craze with no signs of slowing down over the years. Salted egg chips. They are relatively simple, have a market fit (almost everyone loves chips and Asian snack foods), and there is a gap in the supply and demand. All that’s left was the painstaking process of how to cook it. Just kidding, that’s the easy part.

The rabbit hole of “How”

The first step is coming up with the recipe. This goes like creating any dish. Think of what you want to make and grab whatever ingredients you need to enable that vision. Rinse and repeat until you receive the desired outcome.

Now that the chips have been actualized, the real “fun” can begin. Have a successful prototype of the chips? Great, now break down every step to make it noting every ingredient, cost, measurement etc. Made it once? Excellent, now scale it. Have a bunch of chips? Time to figure out some packaging. Wow, that’s neatly packaged, but how much does it cost? How about last? Does it really last that long? What’s in it again? Will someone buy it? Can you actually sell it? No, I mean can you ACTUALLY sell it?

The first two packaged units: Curry Salted Egg on the left and Original (coconut yuzu) Salted Egg on the right

Now that I’ve brought up the many questions I’ve had to dwell on in many spirals of anxiety, the good news is there are answers to these questions. The bad news is that they don’t really make anything easier.

Some Logistics

I live in the U.S. and, like many countries, this means that food is regulated. More specifically, I live in California, which means that the regulations have regulations. So as you can imagine there are tons of processes in place and logistics to follow. All these requirements funnel into two officially approved approaches:

Make the food product myself in an approved facility
Formulate a recipe to have the production be done by someone else

By going through one of these two strategies, I’d have salted egg chips that I could officially sell to the general public. That of course was what I thought before my local farmers market aptly requested if “I had the necessary paperwork done.”

Bureaucracy at its finest

The paperwork associated with the selling and distribution of food boils down to a surprisingly focused set of requirements. Clearing the requirements to prepare food to sell means either having or renting a pre-approved space. Gaining approval sounds like a lengthy, tedious, and expensive process so I decided to find a commercial kitchen that I could sign up with.

Now, if I’ve learned anything about working with a commercial kitchen its that ghosting isn’t just some online dating trend. Seriously, I have had every kitchen I’ve tried to work with completely ghost me. And I don’t mean that they just never responded from the get go. It’s as if they brought my hopes up until the very moment things could begin taking shape before completely ignoring any means of communication with me. That being said, I was able to talk to one kitchen long enough to become aware that I’d need to visit the local health department before working with any kitchen. I could only hope that I’d have better luck there.

The local health department was actually a breath of fresh air as they have been the only food entity I could actually somewhat consistently get a hold of. They educated me on all the forms and processing fees that I’d need alongside the insurance/security deposit fees and hourly usage rate with the kitchen. Unfortunately it didn’t end there. Remember that one detail about making a salted egg chip food product a.k.a. a packaged food product? Apparently, it’s a bit different for that.

Accurate representation of what all the paperwork and documents feel like.

As many might guess, a packaged food product comes with a few more requirements compared to your locally prepared food stall sandwich. Most of these have to do with packaging standards and labeling accompanied with the caveat that processing this form takes at least 3-6 months. Not enough of a deterrent for you? Well, there’s more. It’s also by far the most expensive part of the process. At $500 paid up front just for the processing, it isn’t obscenely expensive, but you have to remember that, as an experiment or for the average person that can’t afford an unexpected expense over $400, its money sent without knowing when or IF that small investment would pay off. Also there’s still the initial cost of raw ingredients, security deposits, insurance, packaging, any additional tools, hourly rate, time, etc.

What are the other options again?

Get someone else to do it. I never really considered this as an option as I found myself finally in contact with a food business consultant agency to know more about the options out there (I should add this was 2 months after my initial inquiry to them). They told me most of the details I already figured out around the two approaches I outlined, but I actually got to find out exactly how expensive it would be to go with the second option (tens of thousands of dollars depending on how much of the process you wanted someone else to be involved in). Also, they confirmed my suspicion that I had already contacted all the major commercial kitchens available in my area. You can only imagine all the motivation this conversation gave me.

The agency eventually pointed me in the direction of a food scientist I could talk to about what it would look like to take the outsource approach. At least I assume that’s what he would have done if he didn’t ghost me when we were supposed to schedule a meeting. I had to cut him some slack though as it was the middle of a pandemic.

Honestly, I would never use any of their services anyway unless I was ready to go all in blindly staking everything onto the project. Networking is an invaluable asset at its best and a scam when done for the money. Unfortunately, it looks like I’ll probably never find out which side they were on.

This was solely an experiment I was planning to incrementally scale, but it was nice imaging having someone somewhat vested in my success.

Newfound Respect

I’ve been really humbled by the experience of trying to bring a food product to market. On one hand I’ve felt great pride in the packaged units I have produced, and on the other I feel like I never really got anywhere close to making an actual food product. It’s a great reminder of what many small businesses have to go through to just get up and running. I’d love to join them with this food product that I know can compete out there, but at this point I can’t say I have.

I originally wanted to release my experience as a success story of me overcoming the odds and having my own product out there, except I’m not quite sure where I want to go from here. I feel lucky to have had many people show interest throughout my various levels of prototypes, but mentally it’s hard being alone out there navigating through all these requirements and getting no responses with people you’re supposed to work with. And most of that was before the pandemic ravaged the food industry.

Once everything settles down I may find the perseverance I need to complete this project, but for now it looks like its just lessons learned to a better future. A future currently with a couple less salted egg chips.

Decadence In the Rough: A5 Wagyu Beef

March 2020 marked the beginning of an unprecedented pandemic and with it came a flurry of repercussions. Difficult times call for clever adaptations and never was this more true than with the food industry. Restaurants were shuttering with many not knowing when or if they would open again, but amongst the plethora of problems came a forced evolution. Businesses now looked for every opportunity to survive. Suppliers of the now shut down fine dining establishments began delivering their wholesale products to the average consumer.

Death By Wagyu

Ok, maybe not death and more the actualization of a dream to answer the most crucial of questions. How much A5 Wagyu is too much? Does black truffle butter or white truffle butter complement A5 Wagyu better? What happens when I replace a normal beef in X dish with A5 Wagyu? Is A5 Wagyu Katsu really as great as it looks on Youtube?

My dreams may be weird, but at least they’re delicious.

And if you’re wondering about the answers to those questions:

8 oz before I somehow feel too full to eat
white truffle butter and it’s not even close
unsurprisingly it does indeed make dishes better
I now think Wagyu katsu is pretty overrated

To some these answers may be pretty obvious, but there’s not much that’s more satisfying than concrete evidence. And if I’m being completely honest, I actually thought black truffle butter would suit A5 Wagyu more and that Wagyu katsu would be pretty special. Well I don’t know if that should be obvious, but it was a surprise to me personally.

Besides having some fun with all the extravagant decadence in all this, it also served as a reminder to make the most out of a bad situation and to attend to personal curiosity and creativity to take a mind off the difficulty of a situation. In the future this might all be a speck in the past, but for now its a silver lining of the present.

Giant California-Style Okonomiyaki

The idea was one of those moments where you swear it had to be done many times before, but at the time of its conception I couldn’t find any examples of 1) a truly giant/layered okonomiyaki or 2) an okonomiyaki incorporating fries or really any kind of “fusion” for that matter. So I did the only rational thing and made that idea come to life.

A first for Okonomiyaki?

I find it hard to believe that I would be first to undertake this endeavor, but the world of okonomiyaki is an under-fulfilled and underrepresented one if the internet isn’t filled with such examples. Living in Southern California, you can find a fair share of them if you look hard enough, but the majority are more akin to vegetable pancakes than okonomiyaki. I guess if all produce was amazing that might sound like a good idea, but if you’ve been to Southern California you know that’s not possible outside of the trendy LA /vegan dining scene. Both areas not typically fit for the more casual, non-vegan concept of okonomiyaki.

Example of some okonomiyaki I had in Japan

Even on my many trips to Japan I found okonomiyaki to be uninspiring given the concept and its visual appeal. Okonomiyaki at its core is a essentially a savory vegetable omelet pancake composed of eggs, flour, some form of sugar, dashi, shredded cabbage, and diced green onion. Other than some optional go to toppings of nori, bonito, Japanese mayonnaise, and okonomi sauce, that’s really all there is to it and is honestly enough to make it a standout dish. I don’t really know of anything quite like okonomiyaki and was sad to find out there isn’t much variation to it outside of your protein of choice or a random mix-in such as kimchi. In short, I was disappointed by what I felt was unfulfilled potential.

Cue California Style Okonomiyaki

After all the hype fries get, some may wonder if shoving in fries wherever humanly possible is a worthwhile endeavor at this point (it definitely is), but the formula for okonomiyaki has largely been untouched and the only popular pairing is yakisoba. This meant I had no choice but to follow in the footsteps of the genius that dared to shove fries into a burrito by in turn creating California style Okonomiyaki. Of course, I didn’t want to the intermingling of cultural phenomena to stop there so I included queso fresco, a homemade creamy guacamole, a California red wine infused okonomi sauce, red pepper beef, yuzu garlic shrimp, caramel dashi red onions, and my signature dashi black beans to the mix to create the most California of okonimyakis.

Hard to see, but there are three layers of okonomiyaki in there

Go big or go home

With the ingredients decided, it was now time for composition. Instead of just expanding the okonomiyaki in width, I opted to add height by making the okonomiyaki three layers high with several other layers to add depth to the texture, flavors, and visuals.

Ingredients by Layer:

French fries
Okonomiyaki base with queso fresco
Creamy guacamole: lime, avocado, salt, black pepper, mascarpone, garlic, cayenne pepper, dark amber maple syrup
Okonomiyaki base with queso fresco
Surf’n Turf: yuzu, garlic salt, black pepper, and sumac seasoned shrimp with beef seasoned with red pepper, aleppo pepper, black pepper, salt, honey
Okonomiyaki base with queso fresco
Toppings: Black bean puree – yuzu, dashi, dark amber maple syrup, garlic, Thai chili, and chile morita seco, homemade red wine okonomi sauce – ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce, honey, and a California red wine blend (Old vine from Bogle Vineyards – but really any well rounded wine that isn’t too strong on any notes would work), Japanese mayo, nori furikake, bonito, dashi caramel red onions, lime marinated cilantro

Crunchy fries would meet the first layer of okonomiyaki as the salty starch is met by cheesy savory egg omelet flavor reminiscent of a hearty breakfast, only to be broken up by fresh crunchy cabbage and green onions.

From there, the following layer of rich and creamy guacamole would take over to be rounded out by yet another okonomiyaki layer. After that comes the surf’n turf layer adding heat from the beef with savory tart shrimp coupled with the final okonomiyaki layer.

Last are the toppings of black beans and red onions with the more traditional okonomiyaki toppings of nori furikake, Japanese mayo, bonito, and California Red Wine okonomi Sauce creating a burst of flavors new and old. Savory sweetness from the red onions with a hint of pepper, salty seaweed from the nori, a full bodied tart from the okonomi sauce, sweet creaminess from the Japanese mayo, dried umami from the bonito, and a starchy, robust umami flavor packing some heat from the black beans.

The future of Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki literally is a combination for the Japanese words for “what you like/how do you like it” and “cooked” making it the most fitting mishmash of cultural food fusion. I think it’s high time the appeal of okonomiyaki hits more widespread popularity by having more dishes utilize it as such a versatile food medium.

Although difficult to put together, this project was a fun over the top showcase of okonomiyaki’s potential. It was able to successfully absorb the aggressive flavors of the Mexican-American California style, while remaining resilient enough to form a large, interesting structure.

Ultimately, some may think of this feat as a blasphemous attempt at a time honed cultural tradition, but if I learned anything from this experience, it’s that this is a gold mine of food inspiration and there is no way this is the last time I am making a new okonomiyaki concept.

Creativity

The antithesis of creativity is the fear of failure. Failure to not please others. Failure to not meet a standard or goal. The fears are endless, but in reality the only measure of creativity should be how a work represents you in a given medium. So if everyone is creative in their own right, then why do we constantly distinguish between the creative and uncreative?

Breaking out of the mold

For a long time I viewed myself as uncreative purely based on comments from my peers on whether I could draw, design, etc. I grew up with the constant notion of creativity as a level of artistic skill. There were those that had it, and those that didn’t. So I never really thought about creating anything. I believed I didn’t have the creativity to make something meaningful. Something people could view as creative and admirable. In other words, I thought I couldn’t succeed. That all I could do was fail.

The first step in creativity is realizing you are creative in your own right. That the expression is what matters. It doesn’t mean you’ll change lives. It doesn’t mean everyone will love what you do. But when you’re truly out there expressing your creativity, you’re creating something only you would choose to do. Something undeniably unique to you.

I know there are those that would disagree. Those that would pull up countless examples of regurgitated or similar work and say that’s uncreative. They may be even be right for some of those examples, but I believe the quirks of every individual shine in their own self expression and that’s what matters. Little details that come out when they choose to express their creativity that snowball after deciding not to chase the standards of creativity that other people set.

For me, that is what cooking is and has always been. Cooking was what freed me from my own self-perception of being uncreative. It’s what led me to explore my creativity by writing and even some other things. For whatever reason, I never hesitated to express myself by changing a recipe or creating my own dish. I created whatever came to mind. I created what I wanted. My creations were mine and I enjoyed it for what it was. Luckily, other people did too and so I realized I was creative. Except in reality I always was and you are too.

Expressing Yourself

I think its important to distinguish that being creative may have nothing to do with whether people like what you create. There is some pattern to what people like based on where you live, time, etc. and its fine if people around you don’t care for what you do. The most important thing is to create what you want and then, if you feel inclined to do so, there’s an endless amount of ways to reach others with that weird and magical thing we call the internet.

All it takes is browsing channels on YouTube to see the broad range of human creativity and interests. People often like to generalize what people will end up loving or hating, but there’s some weirdly popular stuff out there. Many people might swear against them as it doesn’t adhere to the formulas/quality of success content (I love this channel by the way, but I doubt many would bet on its success) that you see in many big time TV shows.

Formulas aren’t creative. The process of creating one might be, but definitely not once it is used repeatedly. In fact, its kind of the opposite. Its filtering your thoughts into a predefined way of thinking. Its a focus on the standard of success, and with the opportunity of success comes the chance of failure.

Just like how videos exist to cover a wide range of interests and tastes free from predefined formulas, food should always do the same. A world where everyone cooks the same thing (a.k.a. recipes) would be hell and I don’t understand the obsession with right or wrong in cooking. It is exactly like how some people group others as creative and uncreative. I always tell people the best way to cook is to cook what you want.

Creating a dish should be about what you want

Let’s suppose a situation where you want to prepare dish A for your family or friends. You could follow recipe X, but whose to stop you from adding your own flair or taking your own risks. Maybe you like spicy food and the recipe isn’t spicy, so you add some spice. It may not always work and I may be part of the minority when I say this, but I find a conversation about the things you tried more interesting than the recipe that you followed.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to follow a recipe just because you want to eat something without having to think much. There is everything wrong with feeling like you can’t try to make something just because you don’t know the right way to do it. Remember there is almost always more than one way to do things. And if there isn’t, then I guess you were just creative enough to create something new.

You may not get what you want the first time. You may not even get it after five times. But focus on what you want to eat and I guarantee that you’ll enjoy the process and eventually the result. A result that will be unique to you. This is because you dictate what you like and no one can take that away from you. It’s because you have your own creativity. There is no replacement for your unique perspective and using that will always result in a creation unique to you. That is unless you post the recipe and everyone follows it religiously. The irony of it all.

Friendsgiving

Food is one of the best ways to bring people together and it’s an innate human tradition I definitely agree with. So when the opportunity arose to put together a friendsgiving for my long standing group of first year college dorm friends, I took to some prior inspiration to revisit a feat I had undertaken once in the past. This time, bigger and better than ever. I’m talking about a giant sushi roll also known as the sushiritto.

Anyone else wonder what differentiates a giant sushi roll from a sushiritto?

Setting the Stage

Like with the quesarito before it, bigger was a major goal, but it also had to evolve into much more given all my cooking experiences throughout the years. Grander in both scale and flavor profile. The visual impact of a roll about the width of my head (I really couldn’t come up with a better comparison) sounded like a good start given that I wanted to still be able to roll the thing. As for deciding on the ingredients, I pulled out all the stops and went with my most tried and true method: pacing down the aisles of my favorite groceries a few hours before the actual event (yes, groceries plural as I seem to be incapable of composing a single dish without visiting at least three groceries). So as I paced down the aisles accumulating a laundry list of concepts and ingredients new and old, everything started to come together.

So what’s actually in it…

I settled on yellowtail as the centerpiece to build around. This would help combat the battle and confusion between proteins I find so common in most American sushi rolls. For sauce, I love the play of miso and wasabi with yellowtail and it wouldn’t be a sushiritto without some signature Japanese Kewpie mayo. Now that’s a lot to choose from, so I figured there was no reason I couldn’t just mix them all together with some honey.

The rest of the accompaniments were a blend of new and old. From sushirittos I made years ago, I chose tempura green onions, seaweed salad, masago, buttered kanikama, nori furikake, avocado, and ginger. It’s like they say, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Though sometimes I’ll admit I just want to save myself from re-pacing through all those aisles of the grocery store.

And because I am also almost incapable of not trying something new, bonito, my ever growing fondness of dashi and yuzu, some Russian caviar I had to finish up, a sprig of freshness from Japanese mitsuba, tart red shiso, and the clean, defined spice of Thai chili join the mix to round out the sushiritto’s flavors. With all the actors at hand, it was time for the composition.

Putting it all together

With the all the ingredients on hand and the dinner three hours away, preparations finally began. A relatively easier feat given the lack of cooked ingredients. At least it would have been if I had full use of both my hands (I sliced my finger preparing some chips for an ongoing project). Fortunately, this was a friendsgiving so I had the power of friendship on my side. Or in less euphemistic terms, I could offload all the grunt work while I focused on composing all the flavors I needed. Friends are the best.

The hardest part up to here was definitely laying all that rice down -_-

I went with a 4×4 seaweed base as that seemed like the right size to give it the girth of my head. I also just like the term 4×4. From there the foundation would be the sushi rice followed by the crab mixture and nori furikake to ensure a certain level of decadence and consistent flavor with each bite. Afterwards, the placement of the main protein, yellowtail, as all ingredients would be paired with it. The yellowtail would then be dressed with a homemade yuzu ponzu, dashi, torched on one side to give textural and temperatural contrast, and topped with some Russian caviar I had on hand. Next came a rotation of decisions based on color and flavor going from the tempura green onions, masago, avocado, sauces, and bonito. Finally the remaining garnishes of mitsuba, ginger, Thai Chili, and red shiso.

Now just one quick roll and it was time to dig in! That was the plan anyway, but it was as challenging as you’d supposed. Luckily the quesarito had at least warmed my friends and I for this challenge, though a couple mid procedure patch jobs were necessary.

And the result…

I’m sure by this point you’re filled with questions like “how did you eat it?” and “isn’t that a lot of rice?” but when there is a will there is a way and sweating those details isn’t my style. There’s a method to my madness, which means I had planned ahead to solve any of those problems by A) brute forcing my way to make portions using foil and a sharp knife and B) making sure the resulting giant roll slice would have every bite be as enticing as possible to create a worthwhile marathon of entertaining flavors.

But let’s focus less on the semantics and more on the flavor composition. As great as yellowtail is, I wanted to keep cost down so there was only about 2 pounds in it (the whole thing was probably around 20 pounds). This meant all the other ingredients had to be standout enough to rise up to the challenge of providing robust flavors in its absence. As I alluded to earlier, the base was the garlic shouyu butter kanikama with the sushi rice, seaweed, and nori furikake. This, in it of itself, gave a hefty flavor profile but would get boring after a few bites. So in comes the tempura green onions to give texture and a sharp green onion flavor alongside a dash of salty sweetness for the masago. The torched yellowtail was then reinforced with a pair of sauces that resulted in notes of wasabi, mayo, miso, honey, and unagi sauce, and then finally coupled with caviar and bonito to bring an intense wave of umami despite its smaller ratio. All of this coupled together to form interleaving waves of flavor between the base layer and the more aggressive flavors from the yellowtail and its accompaniments.

All that would be good, but not enough to be great. This is where the supporting role of the remaining ingredients comes in. Their role was to provide yet another layer of security in preventing a bored palate by presenting the most complementary bold fresh flavors I could think of. They ranged from a fresh greens flavor from the mitsuba, sharp spice from the Thai Chili, herbal citrus from the red shiso, and the tang of sweet pickled root from the ginger. I placed one to two lines of these ingredients so they would come in as surprises randomly between bites to confuse the palate and keep everything fresh. A necessary break in between the rush of waves between the base layer, the yellowtail, and its supporting actors.

All is well

A more impromptu event finalized a mere few days out, but overall a successful display of food and friendship benefiting of the title of friendsgiving. The sushiritto delivered on being a unique experience aptly compared to that of an amazing poke bowl as a giant sushi roll. Only thing left was a night filled with many drinks in celebration. Or in other words the other innate human tradition bringing people together.

What does it really mean to cook?

The most common question I get asked when someone finds out I cook is “what recipes do you use?” and the answer I give is typically some variation of me describing how I come up with recipes myself. This is generally followed by a couple nods in agreements, me showing some examples of things I have made, and then finally proceeded by the question “so what recipes did you use?” Well, at least they changed out a word.

Why cooking is such a loaded term

In all seriousness, I get asked these questions all the time and, for many years, I thought this was weird. I felt like I had to repeat myself like a broken record and constantly show pictures before they would really understand my answers. After all that, and maybe even trying some food I made, the light bulb finally clicks when they say “oh, you really do cook.”

I’ve pondered heavily on why this is such a common occurrence. Don’t a lot of people cook? At the very least, doesn’t everyone have to put together a meal at some point? So why is it so shocking when people find out that I (or anyone else for that matter) can cook? Culture and media probably plays the largest role in deep seated perceptions such as this. Cooking is generally pegged as this magical process that can break at any moment, and braving a new trail in a world of recipes is viewed as a route to certain failure more often than not.

In its essence, cooking is just the process required to manufacture sustenance for you to maintain your life. Or in more layman terms, to fill your belly so it can stop growling at you. The difference is that some people may lack the initial knowledge, intuition, and/or creativity, and settle for the simplest methods to satisfy their hunger. This leads to a distinguishable difference in quality in what is cooked (or even avoids cooking altogether). But quality aside, whose really to say where the line is drawn between cooking and not cooking? People often say microwaving isn’t cooking, but what about microwave cakes and processes that utilize a microwave to melt an ingredient. I think this is all unnecessary semantics and everything involving a process with food should be considered cooking to some degree.

That being said, I have noticed a commonality in the public perception of cooking. Most people consider someone is not cooking when he/she prepares a microwave meal by following the directions on the box as that is just following the expressions from some member of the manufacturer; aka the true creator or cook.

How is following any recipe any different

So where is the line drawn when we say the mom that follows recipe A from blog B is an amazing cook, while the son that follows the cup noodles directions can be considered someone who can’t cook to save his life. Why are people so drawn to the moms of the world who know how to cook while these sons are overlooked? One key difference may be the complexity of the aforementioned dishes and their corresponding techniques, but if complexity of the technique employed is used to measure one’s ability to cook, then where does that leave creativity.

If I’m creating a unique dish using cooking that only utilizes a microwave, and the resulting dish tastes better than a complex recipe someone regurgitates, does that make me a better or worse cook? What about if we take the microwave out of the situation and use just raw ingredients? Now was it packaged or processed? How about mixed with anything? The questions can go on and on, but the key is that “cooking” is really a loaded term that disregards individual creativity.

Everything else aside, how would we go about factoring in the creativity of the creator? Cooking would be no different from person to person without creativity. Everyone would be following the steps and rules we call recipes, but all the results would be the same. Creativity’s role is really to fill the gap between what is available to you and the experience of the dish you want to create.

The line between a chef and a cook

Those that bring to life these new experiences in dishes are often given the title of chefs. Chefs are creators at heart and, though the quality and creativity of the resulting food may vary wildly to each person, the process of representing one’s unique influence is what makes them a creator.

Although many don’t think much of this distinction, I think there are those that are catching onto this idea of non-professional chefs. I’ve noticed that, once someone really believes I can cook, they would call me a chef (though some people seem to call anyone that cooks anything a chef). Yes, the group of people who cook a myriad of dishes (cooks) and group that comes up with creative concepts (chefs) may overlap, but the point is that both groups are not measured the same. Cooks are measured by what they can cook and chefs are measured by what food they can come up with. And even if they were measured the same, we should be equally interested in how much their own personal creativity was factored into the food they create as much as the fact that they actually went through the process of creating it.

So maybe the answer to this loaded question of “do you cook?” really boils down to asking the deeper follow-up question: “are you a cook or a chef?”

The Mexican Feastival

Two concept tests and a couple hours of prep — after feeling like preparations would go on forever, I finally completed some of my best work yet. Improving upon design, complexity, and quality, this feast showcased my serious commitment to the genre as it marked my official start in hosting these events on a more regular basis.

If these pictures look noticeably better than some others on the site, it’s because it is. With help from a friend, I was able to up the quality of photos and videos while being left able to focus on the presentation

But what’s in it?

Now this wouldn’t be a feastival if I didn’t put the utmost attention into the food that goes in and this does not disappoint. Boasting the most expansive ingredient list of any of my creations, I’ll have to break this into parts just to make it anywhere near comprehensible.

Every ingredient was chosen to work with other ingredients as much as possible, but for ease of breakdown I am going to describe this in layers.

The Center

At the center we have mole, sesame seeds, Queso Cotija Don Francisco, sliced baby tomato rolled in Chile Morita Seco, and cilantro. Simple. Well it would be if it weren’t for the fact this homemade mole is comprised of:

Dried Chile De Arbol
Toasted Chile De Arbol
California Dried Chile
Black Dried Chile
Dried Ancho Chile
Chile Morita Seco
Brown Sugar
Dark Amber Maple Syrup
Sesame oil
Vegetable oil
Sesame seeds
Black pepper
Salt
Raw walnuts
Roasted peanuts
Roasted pumpkin seed
Garlic powder
Water
Roasted chile pasilla
Crema Oaxacena
Aleppo pepper
Lime
Coriander
Cumin

Looking at the list, I second guess that I even came up with this. Anyway, the mole is similar to my previous test with a couple modifications (notably sesame seeds and sesame oil for an added layer of umami, and brown sugar to round out the sweetness of the dark amber syrup). A few changes were also made to the ratios from my learnings from the first time, but the goal was still similar. The mole had a mild smoke from the dried chiles complimented by the bitterness of the cacao and a dull sweetness from the sugars. Crema added some much needed creaminess with starch from the corn tortillas. Nuts and oils were present to provide a sense of umami, while the remaining ingredients were used to fill in all the gaps between the main tasting notes. All of this packaged together gave off a full range of flavor palate, finishing off with a dull burn that hurts just enough for you to ask for more.

This layer acted as a compliment to the others — meant to be added on as needed for extra intensity to any desired flavor. Salty cheese in the cotija, deep full-flavored spice from the mole, smoky sweetness in the spiced baby tomatoes, and herbal notes in the cilantro. Its also the only layer that didn’t have components that you would normally eat by itself.

The Middle Layer

Moving on, we have the middle layer composed of a mix of a standalone dish in the ceviche tostadas, and several other complimentary components.

At the bottom we have a yuzu, dashi, dark amber syrup, garlic, black pepper, chile morita seco, and aleppo pepper infused black bean puree bringing a well-rounded, starchy umami. On top we have lime salted avocados, chile morita seco infused crema oxaquena, and roasted red bell peppers. The avocados and crema add extra creaminess throughout any bites, while the roasted bell pepper and chile adds smoky sweetness.

Finally we have the ceviche:

Ground shrimp
Shredded Octopus
Agave syrup
Grapefruit
Danjou Pears
Cilantro
Garlic Salt
Cayenne Pepper
Black pepper
Lime
Yuzu

This take on ceviche was crafted to be sweeter than most (due to the heavy focus on sweet ingredients like the fruits and agave nectar), while keeping it balanced with the more traditional accompaniments such as lime, salt, onions, cilantro, and even some light heat from the cayenne and black pepper. Its citric sweetness played nicely to act as a refresher in between meaty bites from the outer layer and the intenser spices from other aspects of the feast.

The Outer Layer

Finally, we have the heavy hitter. The hearty, meaty layer meant to be complemented from everything within.

Tortillas – hatch chile flour tortillas and corn tortillas
Slow cooked beef tongue marinated in honey, aleppo pepper, red pepper, lime, apple cider vinegar, black pepper, garlic, and garlic salt
White mushrooms sauteed with honey, thyme, salt, and a mushroom spice blend
Sauteed red onions
Oaxacan cheese
Queso Fresco Pancho
Green Onion
Fried Sous Vide Pork Belly
Manzano Peppers stuffed with Oaxacan Cheese
Limes
Brown sugar dashi carmelized green onion bulbs with black pepper
Roasted Chile Pasilla

Tender beef tongue meeting contemporary accompaniments, this layer was the only section featuring meat and is essentially constituted of tacos. Onions and mushrooms are used to directly complement the beef tongue as the cheese add some salty richness to be cut by the green onions and roasted chile pasilla. Lime is added to taste, while pork belly and oaxacan cheese stuffed manzano peppers are available to take the experience to the extreme.

How did it all work together?

As I found out in my first tests, a lot of the ingredients are surprisingly versatile despite their intense flavors. I took advantage of this by placing smaller complimenting ingredients and dishes to accompany the full fledged dishes. Avocados, crema, black beans, and roasted red bell peppers brought some heft to the tostadas, but they could also be used to bright up the beef tongue tacos. If anyone’s palate got bored for any reason, the components in the center would kick things up a few notches.

A better analogy to describe the experience is that the whole feast was as full in flavor as it was full of color. Everything was packed with flavor, but each component had its particular focus. This meant that anything could be paired and eaten without worrying about competing forces. There is fun in being able free to eat the way you want and I wanted to enable that sense of freedom as much as possible. The last thing I want to do in a feast is lay down a thousand rules on how to eat anything.

Plating the Feast

Now plating a table full of food is always an exercise in adaptability. I can’t tell you how many adjustments I had to make during the actual placement of the food, but I can give you a concrete example of how plans don’t always work out:

My astonishingly well drawn vision of what would unfold /s

Design is always a challenge with these feastivals as its not easy to grasp the proportions when laying out 10+ pounds of food across a myriad of dishes. I will admit I had my worries with the design in the beginning, but it turned out to be the best looking feast I have ever done.

Here’s how it went down:

You don’t know how many times I began putting something down only to wonder if I had enough to make it all the way around

Final Thoughts

Overall the flavors delivered a complete experience with the ability to mix and match anything your heart desires. As with any time I utilize Mexican food, I am always blown away with the adaptability of the flavors and ingredients that comprise the majority of Mexican cuisine; a truly optimal match for the feast format.

Stay tuned for more food feastivals as I hope to tackle some Japanese inspired feast concepts in the near future.

Bringing Fun Back To Food

I was driving back from the grocery one fall evening and my friend made the suggestion to put the rotisserie chicken in the front trunk (frunk) of my Tesla. “You could say it’s chicken powered,” he laughed. To which I replied, “It’d have to at least be filled to the brim with fried chicken before I said that.”

And one year later…

Now you might be wondering what was stopping me from dropping by the nearest fried chicken establishment and grabbing over 100 pieces of fried chicken. The short answer is that I thought only me and my friend would care and that seemed like a whole lot of effort for two people (we actually did have a date set initially that didn’t go through, but that’s the reason I didn’t set a new one until much later).

Also, champagne just because I want to be extra.

So why did I finally do it?

Two reasons: my decision to use social media to create and publicize my food events gave me motivation to do more things and I just remembered that I wanted to do this.

Though these two reasons are really rooted in the same idea — I wanted to do more food events that would make food more fun for everyone. There could be these ridiculous creations that everyone could laugh at in amazement, while still bringing my own twists to the table in unique flavor combinations. Ridiculously large foods and feasts are out there, but I felt like there’s a general perception of large and good as being mutually exclusive in the food world.

With my car getting the newly released enhanced summon Tesla update, I decided to pair the two events together. I could have fun treating my full sized car as a remote control toy and get a kick out of the ridiculousness that is a frunk full of fried chicken. Two long standing dreams at once! So I jumped at the opportunity and created an event, while pitching the idea of having a video where my car would drive up from where it was parked to deliver me my frunk full of fried chicken to a couple co-workers.

I expected some interest, but was blown away by the amount of support I actually got. One person to edit, another to bring a drone, people to participate in the video and help out, and someone to even bring a cat for a possible video idea. Everyone I told went from initial shock (giving me that “what would even drive me to propose such a concept” look) to being enamored with actually seeing it happen.

All these events culminated in people from all ages enjoying fried chicken out of the frunk of my car, which made me sure of one thing: it really is great to have fun with your food.

The world could always use more fun food events

Sometimes I feel like the food world takes itself too seriously all the time. There is often a stress on executing the right technique/steps, paying respect to culture/history, or having to prove yourself in the pursuit of doing things differently. I do think its important to have “perfecting your craft” as part of the focal point, but I don’t think it has to mean sidelining silliness. After all, that silliness is a crucial point to the uniqueness of any creator’s artistic endeavor.

This is not to say that fun food is not out there. It just usually isn’t accessible. The internet is filled with ridiculous food creations if you look hard enough, but when’s the last time you were actually able to participate in one.

All this is exactly why I want to break that mold with more food events. The world is in constant need of more opportunities for people to not just enjoy food, but for it to be fun events that they can participate in. I want to continue to capture ridiculous moments where there is more to enjoy than just the food itself. But more importantly, I want more people to experience the fun of these concepts themselves.

In the words of Tesla founder Elon Musk himself, “fun is underrated.”

Time will tell if I’m wrong and people just want regurgitated formats and impersonal food experiences. But if I’ve learned anything from sharing my thoughts and experiences with people, it’s just that people want to have fun with food. There needs to be a shift in the perception of what can actually be done and is available to them. A realization that there is more to food appreciation than the food itself. There’s so much in the little details of food presentation and the environment surrounding a meal left to be explored to continue to spark the imaginations of all those who partake.

So here I’ll continue to try to do just that. Trying to play my part in making food a personal, fun experience that all can enjoy. Hopefully you’ll join in on this journey, one fried chicken filled Tesla frunk at a time.

Making Moles

Making moles is a relatively complicated process involving many components and a lot of trial and error. And just to be clear, not this mole:

But this one:

This is the mole I made throughout the process described below.

That being said, I am sure both are delicious in their own way.

With the upcoming feastival, I turned my focus on making mole as it’s been something I’ve always wanted to undertake and this seemed like the perfect time to do so. Its depth of flavor emanates an unexpected complexity despite its initially unappetizing appearance. A complexity in both color and flavor that I’d be hard pressed to recreate with any other dish.

Now the ingredients that compose mole can largely be broken up into 5 different categories: chiles, sour ingredients (vinegars, tomatillos, etc.), sweet ingredients (fruits and other sugary foods), spices (garlic, cumin, etc.), and thickeners (nuts, tortillas, crackers, etc.). Going further, there are also different types, such as mole poblano and mole negro, but I have limited time to spend learning all these nuances so I opted to just taste all the chile varieties I could get my hands on and go from there.

All this and I didn’t even get to testing out the different nuts and chiles roasted.

Roasting nuts (pecans, walnuts, peanuts, cacao, and pumpkin seeds) and chiles (chile pasilla, serano, habanero, manzano, and chile de arbol, and more) and tomatillo

After a hour and half of tasting and trying to remember what each chile was called (keep in mind all the dried chiles I also had to taste), I settled on the following blend:

Dried Chile De Arbol
California Dried Chile
Black Dried Chile
Dried Ancho Chile
Dark Amber Maple Syrup
Apple Cider Vinegar
Raw walnuts
Roasted peanuts
Roasted pumpkin seed
Garlic powder
Water
Roasted chile pasilla
Crema Oaxacena
Aleppo pepper
Lime
Coriander
Cumin

If you’re wondering what criteria I chose for the ingredients, it was mostly about creating a deep, dry spice flavor with a splash of smoke and tones of dull sweetness and nuttiness throughout to keep things interesting.

Now all that was left was to blend everything together with some tortilla and spend about 30 minutes tweaking ratios. It got to the point that even the smell of chiles made me nauseous, but I couldn’t stop and let all my efforts go to waste.

The mixture before it was run through the food processor.

And finally it was over!

The resulting dishes using the aforementioned mole.

As you’ve just noticed, I didn’t want to just eat mole by itself so I took the opportunity to test out some accompaniments.

Beef tongue, thyme mushrooms, and some tacos

The first dish pictured above is cilantro, thyme mushroom, and slow cooked beef tongue with a drizzle of lime over a bed of mole that is sprinkled with sesame seeds. A sea of dry, smoky spice with a hint of dull sweetness (akin to the sweetness a raisin gives off) are interrupted only by brief moments of sesame as the meaty flavor of beef tongue comes in with its tender, shredded texture. The thyme mushroom then arrives to complement the tongue with notes of cilantro and lime to act as palate cleanser in between each wave of flavor.

Although pretty, it wasn’t quite filling enough for lunch so I went a little further.

Tacos because anything is worth trying as a taco

Same components as the previous dish, but served as a taco with tortillas (corn for the first and hatch chile flour for the second), Oaxacan cheese, crema oaxaquena, and queso cotija don francisco. The tortillas add good texture as the starchiness from corn and flour go with practically anything lacking that. Meanwhile, the crema and oaxcan cheese compliment the mole’s deep spice and dull sweetness with its creaminess, while the cotija adds much needed tinges of salt.

And now for anyone who wants to see a little more.

Some more behind the scenes

Sauteed mushroom with thyme and the beef tongue with its outer layer peeled in all its glory. The tongue is slow cooked for 8 hours in a crock pot with spiced honey, aleppo pepper, garlic, black pepper, and a little apple cider vinegar. I admit the beef tongue isn’t the most beautiful sight to behold, but it makes the process that more amazing right?

Follow me on Instagram (@valanthonyalvero) to keep up with all these experiments, events and more. And if you are interested in participating in anything like this in the future be sure to comment and/or DM me with your interest.

Food Events: The Beginning of “Feastivals”

I began cooking because I had ideas that I’d only be able to experience if I made them happen. Then I realized I could share some of my creations and cater to larger groups of people. Eventually I stopped that to try my hand at doing smaller coursed dinners for a select group of friends, but with their busy schedules it ended up happening rather infrequently. Fast forward a couple life experiences over the 6 years since those beginnings, and I am at a place where I want to take this more seriously and further than ever before.

A Change in Approach

In all honesty I never took food that seriously. I had all these grand ideas, but I couldn’t care less if they were ever actualized. It was barely even a hobby as everything was just a “spur of the moment” kind of deal and nothing more.

So why did I never take it a step further? It may sound dramatic, but I’ve been avoiding the next steps this whole time. My culinary creativity and intuition ended up always being held back because I didn’t want to fail at what felt like my most innate natural talent.

I’m done not fully utilizing this talent and I’m going to step forward. Earlier this year I started this blog with the intent of being a little more serious by sharing my thoughts, experiences, and creations around food, but in doing so I realized it isn’t nearly enough. I want to go further and be able to personally share everything involving my culinary creation process from start to finish.

New Beginnings

First and foremost, I want to invite everyone on this new journey as food is nothing without the people to enjoy it with. The way I’m structuring this is by having shorter updates and notices on Instagram (@valanthonyalvero), continuing to have the longer detailed write ups of my thoughts and the experience on this blog, and food events that you can attend and get to experience my creations yourself. Going forward, my focus and goal will be to harness my culinary creativity into these mediums as much as possible.

Instagram will be the primary entry point for involvement as I plan to host more events and projects for people to get involved in. The first series of food events will be “feastivals” similar to the pictures below.

Left: Filipino Kamayan Feast
Right: Giant Surf’n Turf California Quesarito (read more about this here)

How to get Involved

In order to attend, suggest events, and know more about upcoming events like this and more, follow, DM, and/or comment on the corresponding event posts on Instagram with your interest so I can keep track and notify you of the events you can join.

Your involvement is key to growing this as the cadence of events and even the events themselves will be adjusted rapidly around everyone’s interest and feedback. I can’t guarantee all the logistics will be perfect from the get go, but I will guarantee that I will bring you unique, high quality food events you wouldn’t get the opportunity to see or try otherwise.

One of the goals is to hopefully grow this beyond the circle of people I directly know. Getting the opportunity to reach different people would exponentially add to my creativity and expand the range of projects I could work on; be it social media, this blog, the actual events, or any other medium. Though the first events may be more limited to people I directly know, I hope to quickly expand those who attend through second degree connections and so forth with the only requirement being that attendees be part of my followers on Instagram.

Now with all that said, I’d like to present the details on first event here. I’m excited to finally get the opportunity to share all these experiences with everyone from start to finish so follow me on Instagram (@valanthonyalvero) and stay engaged with all the corresponding event posts.