MCM cook book

red white & pure concept in Vivo City

TASTE a restaurant concept in Singapore. Another eventful month has slowly passed by. My long days working in the kitchen and office are sometimes monotone, and getting this baby up and running is much more of a challenge than anticipated. At first, I had a few difficult weeks trying to educate the house on the need for staff to fulfill the increasing media requests, and I finally got my foot in the door; we are now expanding into stage three. For any F&B business, this is the most vulnerable of moments when holding on to the original ideas but adjusting to the client demands and not being manipulated away from our mission statement. Although the reins to this concept are sturdy in my hands, the wagon is new, the wheels are untested, and the road is bumpy. I had some superior horses spanned before this car, but the interior lacks the plushness and comfort I ought to have when presenting this journey as pleasant.

My motivation is the private TCM classes I receive from herbalists and attending Sunrise School. 4 hours of school, 6 hours of test kitchen, 4 hours of project development, and staff training… I have no private time!

Top of all the menu writing, testing of products, cooking with unfamiliar herbs, extracting flavors, adjusting recipes, and foremost, training the staff, I am participating with TV crews, cooking shows, and many magazine layout photographers; all in all, a bit too much too fast. My personal life is reduced to sleeping little and regretting having a gym membership paid, of which I took advantage a lousy five times since working here in Singapore. I promise to change this from this week on forward and allow myself more time out and healthy curricular activities. I’m pale, thin, agitated, and desperate for a brain vacation. I need a break, seriously.

I re-started with the dusty project of the cooking book. The Modern Chinese Medicine Chefs Manual (MCM). It could be a five-part guide separated by the Buddhist and five TCM elements of Water, Metal, Fire, Wood, and Earth. The first chapter is dedicated to Metal; the color is white. The herbs and minerals introduced will be essential for treating and enhancing the Lungs. This first episode will be a resource and a perfect introduction to the magical world of cooking with TCMs. A reflection of how I experienced this adventure and a manual assisting anyone in need of food preparations, having to pay attention to eating foods that boost an immune deprived body, be it because of Cancer treatment or anything to do with ailing Lungs, addiction, post-op recovery, and pregnancy.

Incorporating TCM into meals enhances the immune system, preventing modern illness from controlling us. In an ideal world, we all become more re-familiarized with the natural powers available to us through TCMs before reaching readily available Western alternatives, which most certainly cause toxic side effects. America is soooo behind this concept; it’s frustrating trying to express my excitement with colleagues back home; they think I’m attending a course and being twisted…

I am visiting Burma and Bali in the coming weeks and hopefully even get to dive at both places. I miss being in the meditative calmness of the ocean belly, amazed about the beautiful world below us. Life is going on.

Let us all be strong, hold back our emotions, and send good energies for a swift release of 15 young souls innocently constricted into a political display of bullish attitudes and unnecessary power displays. The whole world seems to be going crazy. All this while nature is collapsing atop it. We are playing with fires we don’t understand. Global warming is real!

Enjoy the clippings of the cooking show,
Greetings
Raphael