Tale of Two Raws

The process of selecting a special for the week is no easy task. It requires inspiration, ingenuity, intuition and a leap of faith. This weeks Around the World in 3 Scoops is a perfect example of how all of those factors came into play.

First, in this case Joan, but sometimes I put my two cents in, scourged the many many raw food books looking for inspiration. [We were generously gifted a ton of books from someone who knew someone who was going out of the bookstore business, and we are grateful every day for these gifts].

This week Joan found four things to experiment with, which she made, with some modifications for testing. We have a wonderful helper who is with us at the kitchen most days, she is also an excellent tester with a keen pallet and an uncanny sense for what people might like. I  have a friend who is not hesitant to say what she feels, as well as several customers we occasionally use as testers.

So we sat our testers down and served them the Around the World special with the Balinese Soup, and waited. If the comments had not been positive, we would have asked what about the dish they didn’t like including, the taste, texture, after taste, presentation, total look of the meal, and we would note anything relevant which came up in the conversation.

The testers immediate response was first surprise (at the unusual tastes) then yum. We liked this response, so we decided to run the meal and soup as this weeks Special and Featured Item. If the response had been unfavorable, we might have asked what they would have liked to see different, how the taste could be altered (like more or less salt), or any suggestions they might have. Or if it was un-salvageable we would toss the recipe into the circular file - or wastebasket. And the process would start all over again.

What is the most fascinating aspect of testing is how the same food effects everyone differntly. It is mind blowing to me how Joan will hate something I love and visa versa. We have given up trying to perdict what our cousomers will like, and cultivated the philsophy; “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.