An appropriate picture of the reflection of a wine glass stem, as I try to fight off the jet lag deal and time difference thing, as well as look back on the cruise to the Mediteranean. I said a couple of things during my demos that still resonate with me, and as I look to summarize the trip, they are still with me. "There are no bad olive oils, just badly made olive oil," and what this means is that as we travel, visit, learn, see, and taste first-hand what people grow and produce, a respect and appreciation is gained for what they do. To understand a town's cooking is to understand what they drink and cook with. By visiting the markets to what ingredients they cook with, you can understand why they do what they do and how they do it better. When people put their hearts and livelihoods into their olive oils, or for that matter their wines, how can that be bad stuff? We all have our preferences, likes and dislikes, but to just taste an olive oil, or wine, just by itself, and make judgement on whether it's good or not, which is something I used to do, somehow, will be no longer.
On risotto, I told everyone that I had never been to Italy before and had especially never eaten risotto there, having only eaten it in Hawaii and the states-----and so why would I be brave enough to make risotto on the cruise ship in the mediteranean for my demo? It would be sort of like an Italian coming to Hawaii and making me kalua pig or ochazuke. We had just gone to Croatia and had eaten a seafood risotto, which was very al dente. In fact, one of the local ladies said that maybe they had forgotten the bones in the rice. My deal is that everyone has their preferences. Since a lot of Asians grew up with either congee, jook, okayu, okai, or some form of over-cooked rice in a gruel or porridge fashion, that’s how we like it, on the softer side versus the al dente side. I proceeded to make my risotto the way I like it, which to me is not over-cooked. Since the majority of our group was from Hawaii and local, they all dug in and loved it. The point was to respect each other's culture and their likes and dislikes, but to cook it the way you like it. We might not like some of the stuff, but then others could say the same things about some of our crack seed and other foods we love, but they would not.