Eating like renaissance bog wigs, consuming like Medici lors, driving a market like fifteenth century elites. This is the status of our existence. It is an odd state to be in but we have to think about it occasionally. Not to self-flagellate, but rather to take stock of the directions in which the human experiment has taken us. Went out last night with a coleague and N. Visited this Vancouver Indian fusion restaurant, a description which in itself is misleading, as there was nothing specifically Indian in the food other than the Pakoras. Still the story lies in the nature of the experience. It lies in the economy of food of which we became but a part of last night. A beautiful space was arranged for the clientele, nice combination of falling faded blue plaster, exposed brick, wood beams, and modern clear cut shaped defining the bar.
All this beautifully arranged and constructed by some interior designer who probably makes money doing restaurants, setting trends and following trends at the same time. Then of course there is almost no reason to talk of the supply line that goes in kleeping a restaurant going, the ordering of food and drinks, the trucks moving around cities and the planes around the world, to strategically position more or less scarce goods on spots convenient for pick up by local consumers. So let us leave the banality of logistics aside, this careful dance of movement and timing on a global scale and let us move to the food.

What are we to make of the cook who spends his time developing new tastes? What are we to make of the R&D that goes behind my culinary experience? What of the investement of time and money in generating the new, the exciting, the pretty and elegant perishable pile of food that I will consume in a manner of minutes? What will the philosopher say of our hedonistic devotion to the new, the sensorily promiscious? What is beauty? What lies behind our pursuit of the exciting in food and beverage? And above all, how amazing that this experience is shared by a large percentage of our society, and yet it remains a mystery for the billions of the people outside our world. No, this is not a guilt tripping exposé. This is just about questions. N noted that we are all Medici's now, how true and untrue.