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Books Table of Contents:
Counter Intelligence is interested in kitchens
for the home. Here are some reviews of books that we found useful.
biographies
of chefs |food itself | urban planning
and architecture | society and communication |
economics and business | design
| future technology | current
technology | innovation, creativity and creation
| cookbooks | kitchen design
| video
Talks about Franey's life growing
up in France, and his move to the States. A fun, light read, particularly
about his experiences at the World's Fair in New York. Slow in parts,
but his description of being the first jeep in to liberate his old village
in France as a member of the US Army is very moving. Another nice, easy read. Story of
the New York Times restaurant critic growing up. Definately mixed writing:
a bit choppy, but good beach reading.
Subject: worthwhile readWhen we were in Chicago, Dave Behringer gave us a copy of "The
Making of
a Chef, by Michael Ruhlman. I've just finished reading it, and it's
worthwhile. Basically worth it for insite into the making of a
professional chef.
I think it'd be interesting to talk to the CIA - if we do so, whoever's
doing the talking should read this as an intro so we know where we're
coming from.
It's interesting, tho. On one hand, one of our barely-hidden social
agendas is to get more people into the kitchen and cooking. I'm not
sure what the big plan of the CIA is: is their mission to train
restaurant chefs? is their mission to promote good food? My gut
feeling is that either way they'd be very interested in the counter: i
think it's got huge possibiltieis for such things.
The CIA/profession chef system doesn't scale well to the average
kitchen
and societally to the average cook. We know the times we're looking at
dealing with, and someone who wants to cook in eight minutes isn't going
to be making roux. I'd love to talk to them about that question.
A few numbers in there: restaurant association of america says 15
billion dinners & 24 billion lunches. 275M americans means 55 dinners
per person per year, ie once a week, and 87 lunches. Now, I've also
heard from a GE Appliances guy say that 57% of restaurant meals are
eaten in the home: thus yr average american eats out once a week and
orders in once a week? I guess that means the other twelve dinners are
ours.
- They make noises about a website called digital chef: it's the
standard stuff we're used to by now. It says saute something, you click
on saute and it tells you how. I've got foo and bar, what can I make
with foo and bar.
- US food service industray $312bn. That doesn't come from restaurants,
that's old people's homes and hospitals and colleges and stuff. One of
the chefs mentions rise in home meal replacement (HMR), also elderly
homes.
A rather lovely look at the relationship between food, culture, life,
society and everything. A collection of essays. Good beach reading.
Fabulous cynical fictional look at the world of advertising and food.
Protagonist Jane is invited to produce a corporate-sponsored documentary
on the use of meat in America for Japanese television. Cross back and forth
to Japanese housewife Akiko, whose husband works on the Japanese side of
the deal. Hilarious, pretty biting and reasonably unpleasant - honest? -
about the meat industry. Hard to find, but Retallack's piece is the classic work on the influence
of music on plant growth. Written in far from a scientifcally orthodox
manner, it nevertheless documents some seemingly pretty convincing results
- namely, that plants like classical music, like East Indian music even
more, and hate acid rock. Good basic guide to hydroponics and everything you need to know about
them. A classic on off-the-grid, environmentally aware living. Earthships, grey water recycling. My interest is primarily in thinking about how many of these currently extreme practices will become part of everyday life. A pretty realist and cynical look
at the development of 'Edge Cities': suburban development. The chapter
on mall design is fascinating, and has some interesting implications for
online shopping and ecommerce design. Now acknowledged as a classic of
urban planning writing, Jacobs questions and critiques the American city
with its lack of a high street and absence of third spaces. Very human
approach, very readable and still relevant. The first chapter tells you
how countries should be defined, with lots of small reigons defined by
shared cultures and attitudes. The last chapter tells you to furnish your
rooms with trinkets and pictures from your life. In between, there's everything
from the importance of corner grocery stores, how to use columns and beams
to build, town government, and what size windows should be and why. Keep
it next to your desk and dip in at random and change how you think about
the places you live, work and play.It fits in really well with a lot of the stuff I've been talking
about
with Stop & Shop, Philips and Kraft. It's kind of nice when you
come at a
conclusion from a technological and humanistic point of view and then
see
an economic and managerial justification for the same direction.
Essentially, from a HBS-esque management perspective, it justifies
the
'South of the Border' scenario, the third-space work we've been discussing
with Stop & Shop (like Haj in a big ol' white hat?), the whole integrated
systems vision. Good to see.
Credit where credit's due: this was recommended by Nancy Gecas
from Kraft.
Thank you very much.
Someone remind me to put up a book list on the CI site. God knows
I've
read enough of the things over the last few weeks while my knee's been
healing.
These books are brought to you by Amazon.com in conjunction with MIT's Improv Theatre troupe, Roadkill Buffet. In this way, Counter Intelligence is supporting creativity and the arts.