Recently I’ve been watching Chef’s Table, as the name sugests it is about chefs, with each episode being a short documentary about a single chef’s history, the restaurants in which they are working and why they are cooking as they are. It is hands down one of the best shows I’ve seen.

Dan Barber, the chef featured in the second episode, was the one that most resonated with me; the restaurants he owns revolve around the concept of farm to table, cooking the ingredients as close as posible to the source, all local and sustainable. He states the impact farming practices have on the flavour or the food and the integrity of the land. Most of the things that he said throughout the episode are things that Michael Pollan noted in The omnivore’s dilemma, and seeing a chef doing his best to live up to his convictions is an incredible thing to behold

Other stories that I felt more close to me were the ones of both Francis Mallmann (Argentina) and Alex Atala (Brazil), both started their careers cooking french food, and both tell that in a point of their career a french told them that their food wasn’t french food, they could get the taste and the technique and everything else right but the soul of the food would never be french. That was a point of inflexion that made them realize the importance of the cultural background of the cook in the food that they prepare, all cuisines should be appreciated but the one that one grew up with should be exhalted, as it is an integral part of who one is.

The importance of cultural influence in how people percieve different flavours is captured beautifully by Alex Atala, when comparing the taste of caviar and tucupi (the juice of manioc flour), after expressing that the first time he tasted them he didn’t know if he liked those flavours, he says: “But if caviar is fancy, and tucupi is not fancy, it’s just because someone told me. There’s a cultural interpretations of flavors.”

After each episode I feel more interested in the food and the ingredients that I haven’t experienced here in Venezuela, this show has been more successfull at making me feel a little bit more Venezuelan that any other thing in my life.

[video] Why Facebook just paid \$400m for GIFs

An explaination of the motivations that facebook could have had to buy Giphy, this video also raises some privacy concerns that come from that acquisition.

[video] Enjoy the Cyberpunk Dystopia of Proprietary Software!

Luke Smith ranting about how through proprietary software you are exposed whatever the company that creates that software wants to do, using the current contact tracing feature of iOS as an example. Not everything is bad though, as free software is a valid alternative, you shouldn’t let proprietary software companies take advantage of you because “that’s the way things are” because they aren’t.

[music] [youtube] [bandcamp] Calusa Eisenhower : リー地区 // Cape Coral Jazz Club 1958

“Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream”.

An album constructed upon samples of Allan Watts. Allan’s voice has something that just works in music, the knowledge he shares with the world, his ideas, everything sounds so mystic yet so real and applicable to daily life. Hearing an album made around his voice is something I never heard before, I didn’t know I needed it until I heard it.

The album is short, with only 20 minutes it could have been a single song, but either having it as background music or listening what Allan has to say is a delightful experience.