It's not Cheech & Chong, but it's destiny to come around to circles again... and this is my 500th blog post or some ridiculous number, so 'Cheers!' everybody!
When we did our first Paradigm dinner the very first course was titled 'smoke & mirrors' (raw oysters with mignonette gelée smoked under glass on a mirror garde manger platter) and it was our way or poking fun of the gimmickery of the modern food movement... the type of gimmickery that allures many guests and media into one night stances and would later torment chefs like Achatz who seek constant new validity to the craft and make us question the raison d'être of modern food. Well, the process and freedom afforded by the new movement has broken down many doors of perception and birthed thousands of new techniques and ideas that will fill many cookbook pages in years to come once the dust settles. We want respect, but still desire to entertain... "like picturing Jesus in one of those tuxedo T-shirts that says, I want to be formal but I'm here to party." In the end, we will all be the better for it, simply because we stretched our brains and decided not to be content with the status quo.
Sure, we have been known for quite some time (even before modern water-bending trickery and Willy Wonka-vision) to be overly corny or cheesey with menu descriptions. We tend to entertain through whimsy as much as feed you something tasty. It's hard sometimes not to fall into the 'smoke & mirrors' trap of modern cuisine, but if Richard Blais can still present 'smoke under glass' like it's the next new thing and maintain a lucrative respected career on it, then we are allowed some leeway. Share the wealth.
I know it has been done in some form or another, but I've always wanted to put smoke bubbles on a dish. A sweet base of 100g water, 50g honey, 1.5g sucro provides a base with which to trap it... sweet sweet smoke. The only real catch here is using the Polyscience Smoking Gun of which I love and hate. I love what it can do, but hate that it's a gamble on whether it will work or not under crunch time. I still have my home-made model which I use at home to smoke meats before cooking.
So what gimmicky cheesey cool thing can be done with smoke bubbles... we'll find out on Friday night.