Everybody thinks they have a killer recipe - but it takes a lot more than a single dish to start a restaurant.That said, for people who have their heart set on bringing their unique sauce or chocolate or tortilla to mouths around the community, an incubator kitchen allows them to dip their toe in the food prep waters to see if they have what it takes.In many ways, the incubator model is changing the culture of restaurant ownership, while bringing a diversity of flavors to community tables.Material culture contributor Gianofer Fields explores how sharing the very materials required to make food, changes our relationship with it. She speaks with Chef Adam Haen, manager of FEED Kitchen on Madison's Northside.
FEED, which stands for food enterprise, economic, development, offers a state-certified food preparation space as well as business support.Haen says the model helps small business entrepreneurs, like food cart owners.These boards made in Los Angeles by woodworkers Ryan Silverman and Eileen O'Dea will stop you in your tracks. End grain, in walnut or fumed oak, they're eminently useful but beautiful enough that you'll want to keep them out on the counter. Note too: Made of reclaimed and repurposed wood or else sustainably harvested North American hardwoods.Most of the tools we use in the kitchen have at best a kind of prosaic beauty. It takes a subtle eye to appreciate the flex and curve of a well-made whisk, for example. And those kitchen towels you use for mopping up spills and filtering stock? Do they even have a color?
But there are some kitchen items that deserve closer inspection. Here are a dozen gifts that, although perfectly functional, have been elevated to something closer to art.Handmade in Colombia, this black clay soup pot is natural and unglazed. Use it on the stove top or in the oven, or even the microwave. The pot keeps such an even heat that it cooks beans to a velvety texture. Soups seem to gain flavor too. And it is handsome enough to bring straight from the stove or oven to the table.This large cutting board made of edge-grain American black walnut is a thing of beauty, handmade by artist and designer Jose Regueiro in his Michigan studio. It's 14 by 22 inches and 2? inches thick, and it lies flat and won't shift. An heirloom cutting board.