A delicious failure. This could be the title of my autobiography rather than the title of my dinner. There’s just something so tragicomic about it, no? If my life was full of exquisite meals yet devoid of the true tenets of success, I suppose I would be ok- who needs a white picket fence and neighbor’s named the Joneses anyway?

However I won’t be satisfied in my career if I only make food that tastes good. It has to be well-executed renditions of my original vision, too. I’d rather eat a terrible meal that is interesting than a delicious one that is boring. I know that pot roast and corn-on-the-cob have an undeniably-visceral appeal, but I’m confident I can make them passably 10 times out of 10. Instead, I would prefer to invent rather than to simply reproduce. Which is why I tackle some of the meals I tackle.

They start as inklings and get jotted into the notes section of the iPhone. A recent note read “foie gras. Peanut butter. Consider grape jelly from champagne grapes. Cupcake gone mad!!!. PBJ hot dog with foie gras.” The results of this stream-of-consciousness have yet to hit the plate because the idea isn’t fully congealed. Kind of like the demi-glace that ruined the dish I’m about to describe. Read more

So I shove quail eggs into ravioli with extreme regularity. Sue me. Eating yolk ravioli is like having sex with a chubster- you don’t want to admit you do it all the time, but it’s so blubberingly good you can’t resist. Imagine wrapping yourself in warm pockets of pork belly, closing your eyes, and just BEING an orgasm. Remember that Caribbean masseuse who moonlights as a wet nurse and calls you “babygirl” as she rubs you down with aloe dripped straight from the leaf? Eating these ravioli is like tucking yourself into her embrace and testing the motorboat waters in her sticky, shuddering bosom. If you have a hot, fat feeling right now and your eyelids are drooping under the heady weight of pleasure, congratulations- you know one tenth of the extreme satisfaction of yolk ravioli-eating. Read more

I have been staring at the images of this dish for three days attempting to come up with a cohesive explanation for why my mind works the way it does. This is how it happened- I hope you enjoy your stroll through the moldy catacombs of my mental avenues.  Come, let’s take a journey through the process of recipe development. Read more