Chef Tom – Food Fusion and The Silk Road Ensemble

Not to be confused with CON-fusion. Some ultra-PC folks wax expert about cultural appropriation. Well, the one place where that construct has no business being, is in the kitchen. Every dish you cook has had multiple influences from multiple cultures. Even if I were relegated to only cooking white boy food from Northern California (eeew), there would be zero recipes that I could cook that hadn’t originated from someplace OTHER than my own neighborhood. Even my own neighborhood evolved from countless cultures other than my own.

Fusion is the result of natural evolution, IMHO. The world is one big magical soup. The parable of Stone Soup makes my point. Without the generous influence from the other cultures around us, life would be unbearably dull. 

Chef Tom – My Good Husband Dan

My good husband Dan’s birthday is April 1. I know, an April Fools baby. Explains a lot, really. I am counting on nine people being fully inoculated by then (three of us already are, including me), that we’re all on a sunny patio in lovely San Carlos drinking beautiful wine and eating multiple tasty courses over a four hour gathering. I’ve already started the menu.

Here are four highly recommended dishes (these are starters) from my foodiverse.

Thought I’d give you a taste.