f-US-ion

Never order something a waiter describes as: inventive. Conceived of Louisiana style cooking with Japanese cooking technique, wrapped in seaweed and served at NYLA (my first restaurant job in New York), guests would always ask how the Southern Sushi was and I wanted to reply..."You really have to ask?" Then I figured they must be tourists. True fusion should unite the flavours, cuisine, technique, and style of two or more cultures and give birth to a totally new distinct food group. What most frequently occurs and can be witnessed Asian/Mexican restaurants of New York, and frequently only means mashing together two cultures not collectively wrapping the traits like looping strands of spiraling dna into a delicious new recipe. Today my lunch consisted of flavours from Jamaica, the Mediterranean, and Northern California or France (depending on where you get your grapes.) How American's allowed McDonalds, bland and processed foods to become the country staple; shouldn't we actually become a melting pot of blending all of the worlds most delicious flavours into a new organic, seasonal, farm fresh American cuisine? meet today's scrumptious feast

At home I prepared white long grain rice with half water half coconut water (from a can) with peas (which is inspired by Jamaican flavors restaurant) and I added chickpeas and steamed green and yellow zucchini. I used my special pot with the place to steam veggies on the top while cooking my coconut rice, thus infusing the veggies with the savory smell. When I got to work they had leftover catering and gloriously I added yellow squash, grapes, quinoa with currents, arugula, and rosemary. I brought a few sheets of nori in tin foil on the side which I had broken into 1/4 the normal size by folding over twice. Next time I think I will put the nori on the bottom of the bowl, kind of like a gazing bowl, then it will soak up all the yummy flavours and be a salty succulent treat for the end. Not so good: The Florida's "natural" juice from our company friges ingredients are as follows: water, high fructose corn syrup, concentrated cranberry juice, ascorbic acid.