When local artmaker Fritz Haeg asked Hot Knives to be part of his upcoming book launch, we just figured we’d do our quasi-catering thang (which entails setting the bar low with the whole ‘we’re bloggers, not caterers’ vibe and then bombing guests with insane food). Fritz had other ideas.
Known for throwing nutso art salons for years in his L.A. geodesic dome, Fritz has strong feelings about parties feeling spontaneous, not too planned, and more about DIY domesticity than any showy displays.
That basically ruled out just doing sneak attack appetizers with witty names.
Other ideas came and went — what about a bahn mi bar, or garden-to-table cooking on site, or maybe even serve-your-own dessert cones with fresh melons instead of ice cream… but nothing felt right. (Not to mention, the art institute hosting the book launch needed a health permit approved and county health inspectors insisted on us bleaching the melons.)
We had to wrestle with a new quandary: how can food be art? And more importantly how could our eaters be engaged with the grub without letting health inspectors bleach our fruits.
So we seized on doing something experiential and process-based. Instructional, educational and open for discussion, without sucking the fun out of the cooking. We learned to pickle! Pickling was perfect because its domestic, it gives home cooks new crayons to play with, and there’s plenty of lactic acid science facts to rattle off. Oh yeah, and we have enviable vinegar hook-ups.
Plus it gave us the excuse to dabble more in the dark arts of preservation, which we’d only flirted with before. Indeed, for the last month both our kitchens have been slippery with weird vinegars, funky from fermentation experiments and stocked full of giant daikon radishes. We learned a lot.
But before we give away the secret tips an proportions we found worked best, suffice it to say that the process took time. We chronicled the basics in the above video. In a few days, we’ll let you know how the Hot Knives Pickle Lecture Series went over with the art types.
my grandma used to use a stone to weigh down the kimchee when she pickled them. but tht’s w/ narrow necked jars.