#kitchen circus

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Read on to see what Atina had to say about her cooking inspiration: Your last meal on Earth - what would it be? Wow, GREAT question. For my appetizer it would be a torchon de foie gras de canard made by my friend, Chef David Malbequi. His recipe is absolutely amazing and the foie just melts on your tongue. As a main course, I would want a perfectly cooked medium rare ribeye steak with a butter-grilled Caribbean spiny lobster, and braised brussels sprouts and yukon gold mashed potatoes with a ton of butter. For a dessert, I would want a simple but perfectly executed NY-style cheesecake from Juniors with a boysenberry sauce drizzled over the top. Hee hee!  Hope that's enough detail for you! :) There are a bunch of food-related travel shows right now. If you could host one, what / where would you focus? Ok, a two-part answer! One, No Reservations. Anthony Bourdain has gotten to go to some amazing places and sampled some amazing food. I love that I get to live vicariously through him. Two, Into The Drink. It's a travel, specifically SCUBA, show that features a lot of food. So, my real answer is I would focus everywhere there is great good, amazing experiences, and roads less traveled. What I would focus on are food, SCUBA, and making connections with and sharing experiences different people from different cultures. My ultimate dream job would be to have a SCUBA diving shop where I can follow my guests around underwater taking pictures for them (combining my love of photography with SCUBA) and have a small attached bar/restaurant where whatever I decide to cook that day, everyone eats.   What was the most challenging thing for you to learn as a cook? Fish. Most fish is delicate and very easy to overcook. I can't tell you how many pieces of salmon I've cooked too well-done accidentally and NOT eaten. The flavor was still good, but it was dry and, in my opinion, inedible. It's still something I'm practicing and I'm getting much better at it.  I'm also not very familiar with cooking duck. That's a skill I still need to learn as well. Have you ever pulled any food-related pranks? What happened? A couple when I was a kid. My cousins and I would put a duck or chicken head in each other's glasses at family banquets at Chinese restaurants. My favorite was dumping an entire bottle of soy sauce into my uncle's Coke. The look on his face was priceless! Of course, I wasn't his favorite for a couple of months after that. Walk us through the process of how you come up with new and creative dishes...  First, I just think of the different flavors that I like. I'll use my dessert as an example. I think I mentioned that my 3 favorite desserts to make are apple pie, flan and sweet potato pie. So, I wanted to incorporate all those flavors. Thankfully most of the ingredients from those three desserts are very appropriately seasonal (autumn) and they go well together. The spices used in the apple and sweet potato pies are the same (nutmeg, cinnamon) so I knew that I could play those together. I also know that texturally, flan and sweet potato pie have similarities in that they are both custards or at least custard like. I decided to use the salted pecan crust for a few reasons. First, I wanted something textural since the flan is smooth and creamy and the apple gelee is like jello. Second, and maybe most important, is that I love the play of salty and sweet.   Tonight, go home and take a regular milk chocolate Hershey bar and slightly melt the top by placing it over heat for about 2-3 seconds. Just until it begins to glisten and get the tiniest bit soft. Before it sets and re-hardens, sprinkle on just a little bit of sea salt. You will be amazed at how much better it is, and you're only using a Hershey's bar!   The trick is figuring out just how salty you should go and that really depends on how sweet the sweet potato mixture is as well as each individual palate. Some people like salt more than others. I also decided to brulee the top of the flan to give it more crunch and also make the presentation prettier. The apple gelee came about because I wanted something bright on the plate to break through the creamy richness of the custard. As far as the whipped cream, it's a classic combination for a sweet potato pie. I would love to try to make a calvados ice cream but in the competition I don't think we have access to an ice cream machine. I was thinking of making an cream anglais or sabayon, but both of those have a thick soup consistency and would be messy on the plate. But again, I had to tie in the apple, so I added calvados which is an apple brandy made in Normandy, France.