2024
Culinary performance in collaboration with Augustine Paredes,
supported by Le Cercle by Pernod Ricard, Art Dubai, and Art Salon (2024).
Presented at Guillame Huart’s residence as part of
the Art Salon programming, Art Dubai (2024).
In the soft of your sour,
In the quiet of your bitter,
I taste the smoke in my lungs.
The boiling of your veins
is the master of my tongue.
The fire in my body
is a flame to your heart.
On the ground, I lay naked
waiting for the sun to shed
its final skin, in the soft of your sour
I hear you call my name.
In the quiet of your bitter,
I taste the smoke in my lungs.
The boiling of your veins
is the master of my tongue.
The fire in my body
is a flame to your heart.
On the ground, I lay naked
waiting for the sun to shed
its final skin, in the soft of your sour
I hear you call my name.
Even in our departure from Dubai, we could now really see how over time, a liminal part of our lives became a permanent fixture. Although we arrived with specific flavors from our homelands, in Dubai, these distinctions are dismantled, and instead, overtime, a hybrid flavor alchemises, much like the human experience of making Dubai a home away from home.
In March 2024, I was also still navigating my own relationship with food after completing my culinary degree. The genocide in Gaza was ongoing, and any attempt to work with food felt both frivolous and completely unacceptable. Most of the menus I was developing were engulfed in grief and very conscious about locality and frugality.
When Augustine and I began to think of grief in the context of our migrant bodies, the violence we saw across the media, the flesh and bones of the humble chicken took centre stage. We saw every part of the chicken, from stripping its flesh, to using its bones to make a nutritious, golden broth as an analogy for our own journeys and this funeral we wanted to present.
Part of the brief was to also position Royal Salute’s whiskies as part of the partnership from Pernod Ricard with Art Dubai- and we both folded the flavor of whisky into every cooking process as well as presented it as a cocktail.
And soon, this symphony of melded flavors began to arise.
The dishes were complimented with a poetry recital by Augustine, and peppered across the table and space were our artworks, wilting flowers and objects from Guillame Huart’s residence.
THE MENU
Incense-Infused Black Lime Whisky Sour
Two potent scents and flavours that intoxicated us upon our arrival, and are ubiquitous to the UAE.
Featuring Royal Salute 21-Year-Old Signature Blend.
Foraged root vegetables with whisky-infused garlic aioli, olive soil, and cauliflower cream.
Foraging in the urban world can have different meanings; we forage in supermarkets, greenhouses, and farmers’ markets, and in a way, it feels like a journey. We were intentionally working with locally grown vegetables that carry weight in both our cultures; banana flowers, artichokes, kang kong, mushrooms, amongst many others. Each carrying a gnarly shape is violently plucked from the earth and feels biblical in their presence.
Masala Chai-Infused Whisky
The deep, muddy flavours of samovar tea with spices, a drink that holds all migrants to the UAE together.
Featuring Royal Salute 21-Year-Old Jodhpur Polo Edition.
Whisky-marinated pulled Chicken Adobo with Haleem, charcoal bone broth and spring greens.
We sought comfort in rice, chicken, and lentils. They are constant reminders of our symbiosis with land. To broth is a process of stripping a chicken down to only its bones and extracting a golden liquid from the bones. A death that is so poetic and
residual. By using parts of the chicken, we are honouring it and giving it its final funeral. Pouring it onto the Haleem rice porridge is ceremonious—blessing it with a deep black broth. As a final act of burial, we harvest spring greens and place them on top of the dish, like flowers on a tombstone.
Whisky-marinated pulled Chicken Adobo with Haleem, charcoal bone broth and spring greens.
Macapuno Halo-Halo Bowl With Kaju Barfi
Halo-halo translates to “mix-mix” in Filipino and in many ways is a dish of whimsey and resource. It is a layered trifle that is diverse in flavour, texture and colour. In the Philippines, Halo-halo is usually topped with leche flan, a dessert introduced during the Spanish colonization. In this iteration, we decided to replace leche flan with Kaju Barfi, a famous royal dessert from India. Of the ingredients is the flesh of the coconut, and the act of scraping away at it is another way of unlearning a colonized mind. It should also be noted that ‘Coconut’ is a derogatory term to describe those in our cultures of have been assimilated into mainstream Western cultures.
Quiet Violets
Ube Halaya “Gul Gapa” With Whisky-Infused Chutney
Gul Gapa is a mouthful so large, you are unable to speak. In a sense, it is a pacifier. It is typically served across the subcontinent as a street-side snack. Its balloon-like structure is thin and while it is a great vessel for holding different stuffings, it is very fragile- a moment too late and it bursts. The green chilli coriander chutney was invented in India as an alternative to drinking water when concerns over unsanitized water and waterborne diseases were prevalent.
Ube is claimed to originate in the Philippines, and during a famine in Bohol, the population was saved by this tuber and is considered to be a god-sent gift. The confluence of these two flavours reminds us of our saviours in times of natural and human disasters.