My good friend and talented Environments Designer, Rachel Maloney, designed our new IDEO test kitchen. In this post, she shares some of the prototyping secrets from IDEO's test kitchen—great ideas for the home cook or aspiring chef.
...Or so says the blog from IDEO. this is my best burger ever. Freshly ground grass fed beef (for the gamier taste and sustainable practice), iceberg lettuce, runny farm-egg, white onion, sliced pickles—top with some sharp cheddar, steak sauce (ketchup, worchestershire, sweet relish, yellow mustard), mayo, and we're good to go. Thank you to Josh Harding for the beautiful images.
My outstanding IDEO colleague Vivian Barad shares her journey back to cooking. Vivian's path led her from foraging with friends, to cooking lessons with yours truly, to investigating the intersection of food + health with physicians. her story is timely and inspiring. please check it out.
I recently returned from an incredible trip through the Yunnan province of China in search of developing a semblance of the history of Yunnanese food, formulating an idea of who makes the region their home and, finding some training in local cooking techniques. the results were...well...the trip of a lifetime. Here are a few photos i took while on the road. More can be found here.
REINVENTING THE BAGEL ON THE IDEO BLOG!
I'm honored to be featured on the IDEO blog. Never felt more inspired and productive—love my team! Check it out here.
Sometimes I think of myself as a self-proclaimed "Jack-of-all-trades" -- good at many things, master of none. Jacob Collier makes me rethink saying this out loud.
A good friend of mine sent this link over to me. This friend can be amongst the harshest critics I know (one of the many reasons we are friends) particularly when it comes to music. Naturally, I watched it immediately.
Jacob played the instruments, sang and filmed and edited the video. Nothing "Jack" about him. In fact, he redefines the term -- "Ace of all trades". Oh yeah...he's only 20 years old.
Check it out here.
When thinking about my start-up, preparing a menu for a group or even writing this blog, I find myself trying to figure out what content engages the greatest number of people -- what does the 'average user' want to consume?
This question often drives me to look at analytics, research social media optimization (which I don't even understand!), take polls from friends and family, or rely on some anecdotal example of a strategy that works for everyone.
What is a 'representative audience member'? Who is an 'average user'?
As I was preparing this site, I quickly realized that finding something that most people liked got harder the deeper I looked into it. It seems that examining the make up of an average user exposes that there is, in fact, no such thing.
The question about what is 'average' has bled into other areas of my life: What is the best education style for a 6 year old? What kind of restaurant environment attracts the largest customer base?
Just as I was beginning to lose my mind trying to tailor-make this website for the largest possible audience, my friend sent me an article about the idea of 'average' within education. It didn't help me figure out the best way to go about operating my business or even writing this blog, but it did help me understand that the problem of figuring out what is 'average' is a universal one.
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/15/08/beyond-average
I just listened to "Parker's Place", an incredible new record by musician Parker Bent and super-producer Larry Klein (!). The record is technically classified as "children's album" but Parker managed to make a category-defying piece of art for the whole fam. Parker's music avoids all of the condescension and skin-crawling-barney-like-silliness that sadly defines this genre. His work is deep, introspective, thoughtful and fun. I wish there was more work out there for kids that adopted Parker's tone of genuine respect and calm.
Check it out here.