Food Play

Culinary Art - When Food Meets Music

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The Time Machine \ Rockfour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJQDjtximFI

Citrus butter biscuit, hazelnut praline sable, caramelized puff pastry, chocolate nemesis, vanilla ricotta mousse, white chocolate lemon ganache

There is a gap between the black and white fantasies that swirl around in my head and the grey that materializes in reality. Sometimes this leads me to entertain thoughts about the practicality of a time machine, even if just to be able to go back, slap some sense into myself, then disappear back into the future.

In the song, Rockfour sings, “in a twisted maze of alternate reality, thoughts are light and knowledge is a value.” Honestly, if I could, I would go back to shake myself up a bit and then evaporate. To shed some light on the trains of thought, to prevent mistakes and settle doubts. Maybe this chronicity is predetermined, like the tastes I imagined for the time machine. I wanted to reinvent, to change it up a bit, but in the end I stuck with the same tastes I thought of in the beginning: timeless tastes in any reality, even an alternate one.

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Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) \ Steve Harley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpJ0cyXbMbI

A brownie board tiled with white and bittersweet chocolate squares. “The Whites”- Dulcey  Praline with a white port ganache filling. “The Blacks” – 72% cacao praline with a red port ganache filling

Leaving a mark, asserting an opinion, relevance and ownership – these are the secrete ingredients of the social network. A collective network of supreme narcissism that penetrates the DNA of every one of us. Today’s youth don’t have to sneak around and struggle to graffiti a wall at night. They can type on the wall, constantly in pursuit of the next post. Upon a shooting star, they wish for abajillion likes and shares. Only then they will feel like they belong somewhere in the abyss of the virtual Rolodex. The gluttonous ego will never succeed in making a statement on the wall. Like a chess game that never reaches a checkmate or an obvious advantage. In any case, the observers have already moved on to the next board

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Get Lucky - Daft Punk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I

Pralines and coconut tuile on a mango and grape carpaccio

Tel Aviv never sleeps. Flooding with temptations, shoving aside satisfaction. Night after night, people go out in search of emotions, new or familiar. The theory is often far from reality, and time after time the trap of inflated expectations leaves a bitter and pungent taste the morning after. But even this does not bring an end to the ritual. Every night the game begins anew. On the plate, bittersweet chocolate and espresso pralines with a spike of nutmeg and coffee beans/ coffee and cardamom/ coffee and smoked spicy paprika/ double espresso and vodka are randomly arranged. The selection is a game of Russian roulette. Every praline guarantees a strong shot of coffee, but the spike is purely the luck of the draw.

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Over The Rainbow - Wizard of Oz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I

A butter and honey biscuit, whipped lemon cream-cheese, lime cream, sheep’s milk yogurt, guava, pineapple, strawberry, plum

 Almost twenty years ago, it seemed that some of the South and Central American countries were, from a musical perspective, stalled in the 80s. So I thought to myself, maybe everything here is delayed? Maybe this is part of the culture, where people are used to taking their time? And indeed, during my last trip to El Salvador, I constantly heard snippets of songs from the 90s. In the twenty years that passed since my first visit, the musical scene only advanced by one decade.  On the plate rests a honey flavored biscuit, topped with a lemony drops that melt over the 90s style fruit rainbow, like the troubles dwarfed by the calm of this paradise.

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Love Will Tear Us Apart -  Joy Division

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuuObGsB0No

Banoffee pie: crumble, chocolate ganache, coconut candy, a banana, caramel sauce Masala malabi, papaya and pistachio chutney

Routine dampens waves of love. The day to day creates an exhausting inertia that blurs our passions, to the point where we lose our urges and search for new love. The vegan banoffee pie was made for an India-themed event, during a period where I strived to deviate from the daily routine in the kitchen. I strayed from the routine until I started to miss it. All of a sudden I found myself scribbling blue blotches of glucose on the white plate. I was reminded what real passion was, the feeling that makes you want to create something new. Real passion always pursues you, and even when you are looking to rest or take a break, it rattles the silence and implores you to go out searching in the markets.

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Dance Me to the End of Love - Leonard Cohen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGorjBVag0I

A citrus tarte, cognac cream, berries, lime zest

In one of his interviews, Leonard Cohen reveals that the seemingly romantic Dance Me to the End of Love is in fact inspired by the Holocaust. In one of the camps, a string quartet was forced to play classical music as prisoners marched to their deaths. To him, however, it does not matter whether the listener understands the origin of the song, as long as it arouses feelings of love. Surrendering to our loved one, according to Cohen, is equivalent to coming to terms with the end as it nears. Therefor, it is of no consequence that newly wedded couples take their first dance to the golden notes of Leonard’s voice that the song was written about those taking their final steps.Just a few days before Leonard Cohen left this world, Charlie Megira from Beit Sha’an also passed away. The prince of fringe rock and roll. Despite the obvious disparity in their works and fame, in my heart they are buried side by side, sharing abounding emotion, relative humility, and absolute passion.

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Helpline Operator - The The

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQa2M1ip3J4

Red velvet cake coated in 70% Cacao Guanacha Chocolate with a white chocolate fudge filling

Whether we are believers or not, all of us yearn for something every once in a while. Something so strong that it blurs the line between desire and necessity. The nature of this desire can be realistic, outrageous, or in the twilight that lies in between the two.  Either way, all we want is too see someone on the other side nod in acceptance and grant our wish. Back when I thought everything was black and white, and devoid of paradox, I wondered about faith.  

In one of my conversations with my grandmother she told me of how when she was fourteen, she hid in a secrete basement that smelled of vodka, with only a few wooden boards separating her and a hoard of angry Germans. As the brawl took place just above her, a glass of water fell, and the water began to drip down between the boards. My grandmother prayed with all the strength in her secular heart that the men above wouldn’t hear the drops of water hitting the ground.

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Ong Ong - Blur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0qA38h9w3o

60% cacao chocolate peanut butter chantilly, strips of coconut in mixed-nut caramel, black sesame twill

Blur’s last album, The Magic Whip, with its perfect name, has given the band a current, simple and magnetic energy without forcing them to reinvent themselves. I came to know this album in the midst of the devouring mania of the city, which I have many times contemplated escaping. Ideally, to a place that’s completely different, with someone who I can rest with in a comfortable silence. A place where we can fly black kites and makes wishes in the shade of trees.

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Blush -  Wolf Alice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_QBC_pDkeU

Raspberries, mango flowers with apricot jam, vanilla lemongrass crème pâtissière, baby basil, blue macaroons and purple grape jelly

I stumbled upon Blush rather incidentally, during one of my wanderings on the internet. The lyrics captivated me, especially in how it reminded me of “coming out of the closet”, but the term’s classical sense. The unwritten laws are endless; we live in a society filled with charged silence and unaccommodating standards. To feel comfortable with one’s self is a long and enigmatic journey, a journey that never really ends. And then, one day, you wake up and realize that your deviations have become part of you, and you fail to understand why no one ever told you it was OK to be this way.

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Where Is My Mind - Maxence Cyrin  (The Pixies Piano Cover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NZdggNUvq0

Marbled tortellini filled with vanilla flavored ricotta, cherries in port wine, whipped heavy cream and ALPACO chocolate

 The Black Forest cake is a flamboyant cake of German origin that is hard to miss. This version takes an alternative, Indie twist. The cherries are tossed in port wine, the pasta is added into the mix, the whipped cream is unsweetened, and the grated dark chocolate is earthy like Parmesan. A well renowned classic takes on a completely altered form. The convolution of this classic feels like the reverse of Maxence Cyrin’s classical piano rendition of the Pixie’s masterpiece.

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Pieces of What - MGMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5bOH_WL-Ts

Snow soufflé – white chocolate soufflé with lime

The snow soufflé recipe took me months to perfect. Originally, it was created with intention of being included in a line of products that I was working on, a project that was my baby. The soufflé was born to be at the forefront of a collection of white, sweet desserts.  But the project was terminated, despite my best efforts, before I had the chance to find that fleeting moment when airiness melts in your mouth in perfect harmony. Afterwards, when I had finished picking up the broken pieces of my project (and my heart), I returned to the kitchen to find that special moment, my special moment.

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Dedicated- Minimal Compact

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYjDtQ7myUA

Poppy financier, Kumquat Jam, Meringue, Salted caramelized macadamia nuts, dried rose petals and white chocolate sauce 

For over a year now, I’ve been wondering when I’ll get to plate an Israeli song. Minimal Compact joined forces last February for several epically sold-out performances that reignited my love for the band, and since then I’ll I’ve wanted to do is plate a song for them.  In a documentary about the group, Berry talks about how the name Minimal Compact was chosen because Samy thought it was homey, which gave me the thought of adding poppy to the dessert. Maybe because it was winter, or maybe because poppy reminds me of Europe, where one of the greatest bands in Israel’s history came to life. On top of every “console”, the tastes are combined into the image of a flower, because sometimes flowers are dedicated in complete silence, and other times in joyous sound.   Every band member has a slightly different design, both in appearance and in the ratios. On the stage, to the left, is Berry, right next to him is Portis, with Max behind and Samy in the front. On the right are Malka and her husband Colin, lead singer of the band “Wire”, who joined the band as a special guest in their final performances.

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When we two parted -  Afghan whigs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg7sWNKxu9I

Vegan Malabi made from almond milk, raspberry syrup, and roasted sea-salted peanut crumble

I don’t know how many people, probably more than I imagine, once had a special person in his or her life, someone close like a brother, who one day simply disappeared. He’s still in this world physically, but suddenly he became different. Sometimes, I see short flashbacks of who he used to be, but even these become sparse with time. As I fade into Greg Dully’s voice, I hear longing, A suffocating longing. It’s been twenty years since we’ve had an actual conversation…If only we could, even just for a second, go back to our childhood and catch up, or sit in silence, or even fight like we used to on the banks of the red syrup at the foot of the Malabi mountain range.

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Epic – Faith no more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_k5CSYKhg

Mille-feuille – layers of puff pastry and German Riesling crème pâtissière

Epic, by Mike Patton’s band, is an anthem for those who cannot accept the word NO. Eating without getting fat, Hercules with a diamond ring, a dream job, financial freedom, creating perfection, flying, high ceilings with a sea-view, five-way cross ventilation, batman. When I finished assembling the flaky sheets and the cream, I looked at the debauched Cremeschnitte, dusted with sugar, and wondered at length where the hell I should make the first cut.

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Abbey Road - The Beatles

Pralines filled with bittersweet English Breakfast Tea ganache crossing strips of homemade vanilla marzipan

 The first song that appeared on Food Play, before I even knew that Food Play would come to life, was the epic Strawberry Fields Forever. I made green and red macaroons, and as I filled the rows of macaroons with strawberry cream, the song started to play in my head. This is how it all started, I made desserts and thought of songs. Abbey Road, an album that is very close to my heart, was the first work that inspired me to visualize the dish in my head before the actual plating. Every Beatle has different shell and a bittersweet chocolate ganache filling, with a hint of English Breakfast Tea. John, the enlightened one, is made of white chocolate. Ringo is milk chocolate, simple yet precise, with a pinch of black pepper that hits you like the slow crescendo of a beating drum. Paul is elegant dark chocolate, with a drop of caramel chocolate for extravagance. And George, the talented soul, is coated in pristine and authentic 70% chocolate.

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Save Me - Aimee Mann

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c48vs4lwgc

Health-nut cookies: oats, spelt, rye, poppy, ginger, an assortment of nuts, almonds, maple, agave syrup, vanilla, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon

The masterpiece film Magnolia is accompanied by a soundtrack composed by Mann that depicts the complexity of the longing to be saved that exists in every one us. When I had just landed in NYC, I had sky-high dreams about mega-kitchens, endless ingredients and turbo-paced services.  Then, alone in my room with Mann’s soundtrack in the background,  I found myself in a desperate reality, inexperienced, with no clue to how to begin. My new roommate heard the song playing from her room, knocked on my door, and in her West Coast accent told me she was just heading out for an art opening where Mann is supposed to perform, and…oh yeah, there is room for a plus one on the list.

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The Less I Know The Better / Tame Impala

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzrzS1Ag_g

Currents, the creative brainchild of Kevin Parker, is one of the most talked about albums this year. The music video for the song “The Less I Know the Better” drew me in with its exuberant pop imagery. Pop culture, an all-pervading entity that hasn’t spared culinary industry, has brought to our sugarcoated world a beauty and defiant colorfulness, accompanied by obscene nutritional motifs that most of us would prefer not to ingest. Some of the festive and poppy food is made from synthetic materials, but is nevertheless advertised and sold under a veil of healthiness. Consumption requires you to turn a blind eye. The cake, shaped like and made of bananas, appears “healthy”, and is a symbol of Andy Warhol’s pop art. It is wrapped in a black fondant, and slathered with a white chocolate glaze rich with food coloring, as an ode to the perfectly colored medley in the Australian band’s video.