Gotham Gal

Dinner, Heston Blumenthal

I love the simplicity of the name, Dinner.  The concept behind dinner is unique.  Blumenthal has taken recipes dating back from the 13th century to the 1800's from collected cookbooks and created a menu for 2012.  Not sure if he has changed anything but each selection on the menu is also given the date.  Brilliant idea.

The restaurant is located in the Mandarin Oriental.  A beautiful bright modern elegant room that overlooks Hyde Park.  The service is spectacular.  The food, of course, is prepared to perfection.

You enter through the glass wine cellar that is connected to the bar. 

Then you enter this bright spacious room.

We sat overlooking the park.  You begin with brown and white breads and salted butter. 

I would have liked to have gone with a few more people so we could have tried more dishes.  Fred had the Meat Fruit c. 13-15th century.  At first glance you think it is a mandarin orange but it is not.

It is a chicken liver parfait served with grilled bread.  Just spectacular and visually you can't beat it.

I had the Salamgundy, c. 1720.  This recipe came from the Cook's and Confectioner's Dictionary by John Nott.  Chicken oysters.  Chicken oysters are the small round pieces of meat that are at the end of a chicken thigh.  Some consider it to be the best part of the chicken.  Served with thin slices of salisfy, small round dollops of bone marrow & a horseradish cream.  Divine. 

For dinner we did something on the menu and the special of the day.  Black Food Pork Chop, c. 1820.  This is based on Careme's residency in London.  A perfectly cooked pan fried pork shop with spelt, ham hock & Robert sauce.  On top are small pieces of crunchy pork rinds.  Loved the crisp with the sauce.

I had the special although when I return I might go with a fish.  The dishes, not surprising since they are from other centuries, are heavy in flavor.  This dish is called Beef Royale, c. 1726 from James II when he lived in Westminster Abbey.  A huge short rib that had been scored and put in a charcoal controlled oven.  Then they put it in a suet for 3 days at 50 degrees.  Afterward, the meat is taken off the bone and served with tongue cubes, smoked shallots and an anchovy puree and red wine reduction that is made with capers and tarragon.  Smoked baby carrots and whipped root vegetables on the side. Rich and over the top.

For a side dish we had fries and buttered green beans.  Those fries were killer.  Light almost airy and super crispy.  Just how I love them. 

Dessert is ordered in advance.  The Tipsy Cake is a must, c. 1810 from the English cookery book by J.H. Walsh.  Small pieces of sweet bread baked in a cassoulet with loads of sweet butter.  A piece of pineapple on the side that is cooked in a spit fire.  Amazing.  The bread is like the best cinnamon roll in the world without the cinnamon.

We also tried the Brown Bread Ice Cream, c. 1830.  A New System of Domestic Cookery by Maria Eliza RUndell.  A salted butter caramel cream on the bottom and little pieces of crispy bread and pears surrounding that with a scoop of brown bread ice cream. 

Just to send us off happy they brought us each a small chocolate ganache infused with earl grey tea and a caraway seed shortbread stick on the side.  The shortbread stick was really dense and I loved the savory and sweet combo.

An incredible meal.  Everything was delicious.  Impeccable attention to detail.  We walked home, got up the next morning and grabbed a flight back to NYC. 

Entrepreneurs in London

Fred had a board meeting with Soundcloud in London so I tagged along and it gave me an opportunity to meet with a few people too.  Seeing people in their environment really is a great thing to do.  I am making a commitment to get to every company that I am involved with and meet the team.  

I started off the day having breakfast with Carmen Busquets.  Carmen has been involved in the luxury fashion business since she was twenty.  She is smart, saavy and an angel investor.  She has also launched her own companies, Couture Lab and Gift Lab.   She was the original investor in Net-A-Porter as she believed in what they were doing when very few did.  She totally understands that it takes time to build these businesses.  Carmen is really down to earth and if you spend some time on the web you realize, at least I did, that she is a huge player and has made some really smart investments. 

I met up with Fred at Tate London where we saw the Picasso exhibit.  The Tate London is where I had my "aha" moment about art in college.  I spent a semester abroad in London.  It was my first time outside the US.  I saw a Roy LIchtenstein exhibit and I fell in love with art.  This was an installaion at you walk downstairs to the Picasso show.  David Tremlett, Drawing for Free Thinking 2011.

Afterward we made our way over to Shoreditch for lunch and some meetings.  Our first meet and greet was with Editd.  We got to meet the team.  Fred got a overview of what Editd was doing.  I believe I invested in Editd well over a year ago.  Impressed with how far they have come.  They have listened to their market and made those changes accordingly.  Editd is key for any buyer, merchandiser, wholesaler or retailer.  They crawl the web and analyze comparison shopping, key trends from social to color. 

Then we had tea with Sally Broom of Tripbod.  Tripbod is a marketplace for original and unique travel agents around the globe.  I wrote about Sally awhile ago and have been following her journey since.  There are a few sites getting into this business but nobody has yet to figure it out.  My bet is behind Sally. 

Back to the hotel and off to drinks with Rohan Rajiv.  Rohan has been following and commenting on both mine and Freds blogs for awhile.  He interviewed me back in November.  Loved sitting down with him in person.  He is charming, super smart and incredibly curious.  Rohan has deemed himself our extended nephew.  Impressive young man.

A day of meeting and greeting with entrepreneurs in London.  I used Rohan's blogs heading on top of mine today because it captured the day. Can't beat it. 

Paola Innocenti, With and Within, Woman Entrepreneur

Paola has been a long time commenter on this blog straight out of Italy.  When she came to NYC awhile ago I had the pleasure of meeting her face to face.  She continues to comment and shoot me emails and ask questions mostly surrounding her start-up that she recently launched called With and Within.  With and Within is a global social network for women to enrich their lives by creating communities around similar ventures and adventures. 

Paola grew up in Florence and began traveling when she was quite young.  Her mother was an entrepreneur and back in the 60s, particularly in Italy, that was rare.  Her mother had a ceramic business that was well known in the US so she went back and forth often.  She was also a single mother as her parents got divorced when Paolo was young.

She stayed in Florence for college studying architecture.  Her first job out of school was teaching the history of the Renaissance gardens to students at the American school in Florence.  She had a close mentor who was much older than her, 58, who became very ill with cancer.  This woman was in charge of production development and sourcing for an importer of home/gift and tablewares.  Paola basically took over while her friend was slowly dying.  Once her friend passed the company asked Paolo to take over the job.  She said no because it wasn't her field but should would help them find someone.  Time passed and before she knew it she was not only donig the job but enjoying the job and making really good money. She stayed with it for about 3/4 years.

Since she had now herself been exposed to the American market, she started working with her mother who was servicing large clients such as Target, Crate and Barrel and Starbucks.  It was an entrepreneur family.  Her mother realized what a good negotiator Paola was and let her begin to take over the company.  What is interesting is at that time everything was made in Italy and literally over night, it was 1998, everything moved to China.  She told her Mom that she had to go to China because you have to go where the customer has gone.  Instead, Paola went.

In China she had to train the Chinese to create the same type of product as they had been making over in Italy.  There was a time when you could easily detect where ceramics were being made either Italy, China or Portugal.  She had to take her Moms style of Italian ceramics to China. 

Paola literally parked herself in the Dowyan province which is about two hours outside of Hong Kong.  A totally different world.  She felt like she was watching a revolution take place.  The streets were full of prostitutes and workers, that was it.  It was like a military compound.  People were living in the factories as they have come from the north to make money.  The first year she trained them to create an Italian product and the second year she began to sell it.  The people were very smart and skilled and they picked it up quickly.

The hardest part about selling the products was the distribution.  Bed, Bath and Beyond and Pottery Barn would have to figure out how to get the products into the country.  She knew the biggest distributor in the US and connected them together to make the shift more seamless.  This was way before bringing in articles from China was just every day stuff. 

She began to consult for many American companies going all over the place from Eastern Europe and other parts of China as their product development person.  Then the market shifted again.  The Chinese market became so skilled that the higher end market only wanted goods from Italy.  She shifted her sourcing structure and moved back to Italy.  It was then that she finally had a child.  She had complications because of medial malpractice and lost her first.  It was devastating and she was 40 years old.  She got pregnant again and had another child at 41 and 42.  After that she fired herself.

Mentally the movement between China and Italy was overwhelming and to lose a baby and finally became a mother at 41 was the perfect time to take a break.  She originally thought she would just take off a year but before she knew it one year turned into four. 

After four years she realized that she couldn't sit at home anymore, it was time to get a job again.  As much as she enjoyed being with the kids, Paola had such high expectations for herself that she was feeling lost.  She returned to the market that she knew but after the economy had dramatically changed, the job that she had before would pay her 25% less.  So here she was trying to re-eneter the market place with the opportunity to make 25% less and then travel to China for two months at a time.  It just didn't sound right. 

She began to think about other women who were in the same position as her.  Women who wanted to use their brains, be good mothers and make money.  She was a single Mom too.  A friend of hers in Berlin said, why don't we put together a group of 4 women and do something.  Let's see if we can network together and just come up with something.  She began to think about women getting together, over a cup of virtual coffee, and socializing around their professional goals.  That is how WIth and Within started.

She was lucky to find a group of coders who lived in her town that happened to be some of the top coders in Italy.  They loved what she was doing and helped her create the site.  It was her background in architecture that helped her organize the wireframes.  It was her production background and skills of organization that really moved the idea forward.

Currently they are doing about 450,000 page views a month.  There are 4000 subscribers and the number continues to grow.  Most of the women on the site have done something before and are now trying to figure out the next thing.  Reorganizing your life after kids can be a tough process.  There are women who are VP's of large telecom companies on the site to women who have been collecting random items for years wondering what to do with that.  Women create professional groups around specific topics. 

In essence, she has built a linked in for where there are tools to promote your small business and get a mentor to help you, or a group.  Many women do not know how to monetize their soft skills and she is hoping through community, conversation and mentoring we can help each other figure it out.  The stories that Paola tells about many of the women who have had success with the site are inspiring.  The mother who loved cleaning and did it at her own home for 15 years and then took those skills and turned it into a business where she manages the cleaning staff of a castle in Umbria.  Another woman who has been collecting random teacups for years and has now built a store and site to sell her collectibles.  Her feeling is many women do not think what they do is worthwhile but it is and she is providing a space for them to realize how valuable they are.

I am impressed with Paolas get up and go.  She is driven and figuring it out as she goes along.  It is not easy to grow a community but so far, so good.  I am seeing a variety of singular women sites with different niches.  There is a place for many.  Paolas skills as an entrepreneur from the day she left college has allowed her to build on a set of skills that she was born with....pretty amazing at 45 to start on a brand new journey of building an internet start-up. 

 

Googa Mooga

I could start with the name.  There isn't a person that I know who wondered how could you call a festival Googa Mooga?  Also, nobody ever gets it right.  Mooga googa, or that googa thing or is it mooga mooga.  Anyway, enough on that name. This event was food and drink festival.  Think of a musical festival such as Bonaroo but instead food and wine are the primary focus.  Good idea if you can pull it off. 

The event was put on in Prospect Park.  They couldn't have been luckier weather-wise.  It was sunny, 77 and not a cloud in the sky which is probably why people stayed, hung out and there weren't any uprisings. 

The festival was divided into two sections.  The "free" area but you had to get a ticket to get in there which means they knew exactly how many people were attending.  Then there was the "extra mooga" side which cost $250 per ticket per day.  Yes, if you wanted to attend both days (saturday and sunday)it would be $500.  

In the "free" area there was a band shell and then food vendors galore including a beer and wine tasting pavilion and a coffee experience.  The place was packed and the lines for food could go anywhere from an hour or to an hour and a half.  The event lasted until 8pm and by 5pm most of the vendors had run out of food.  There were also a few bands playing at the end of the evening.  It was a beautiful day so my guess is most people got there, decided what the hell, here I am with my friends hanging, enjoying the weather, inside a park and I will just stand in this ridiculous line and buy some food...not so true on the other side.

In the "extra mooga" area there was food events over the course of the day including panels, some DJ's, music at night and food and drinks were free as part of your ticket price.  Unami burger had people waiting in line for over an hour plus at 2pm and they ran out of food at 330.  Not pretty for the people who had stood in line for the two bite burger. 

At Tertulia, where the line was also long but only lasted about 15 minutes, there was one paella pan with a woman literally using a tablespoon to scoop out some rice for your plate where you got 2 tablespoons of paella.

Colicchio & friends gave out a piece of meat with some corn.  They all treated it like a food tasting event which happen all over the city during the year for non-profit organizations but when you pay $250 to go to this event where not a dime is going to a non-profit organization, it isn't okay.  People were hungry and pissed.

Back at the boat house, the restaurant of the moment would bring out plates of food and people would swarm them and in seconds the food would be gone.  It was a tad barbaric.

Inside the Blue Ribbon fried chicken event there wasn't even a regulated line but a swarm of people attempting to shove each others way in to get a piece of fried chicken.

Music festivals work because you put a band up on a stage and 1000 people can circle around.  There is food to get but it isn't the highlight.  People paid $250 a piece to stand in line for a small tidbit of food if they had not run out.  The people who ran this event knew exactly how many people were coming each day because they the sold tickets.  The event was a shit show, to put it bluntly.   It was poorly produced and operated.  Each food vendor should have been told to prepare for the amount of people that were coming and put at least 10 people behind the booths just to serve and another 20 to cook.  They each had just a handful at best.  Jazzfest moves the people through because they have at least 20+ people working at each food vendor. 

For the people inside the "paid" area there should have been buckets of water bottles around.  There weren't even garbage people.  There were piles of empty plates on the picnic tables.  The lines for drinks were ridiculously long too.  Even when you left the festival, taking the Q back into the city took forever. Did anybody have a conversation with the transportation people of NYC and mention that they should not run the trains like a weekend schedule because of the throng of people coming to the festival?  BTW the cell service out there was terrible too.  The operators could have fixed that easily but alas, did not.  Maybe they were saving themselves for the nasty tweeting that would have gone on. 

Beautiful setting, good idea but beyond poorly executed.  I bought tickets for the whole family and my kids bolted after they got their unami burger.  I can't believe that I paid $250 a head for this.  A complete rip-off.  I am not the only person out there yesterday who wanted their money back.  The experience, considering the food amount, was worth about $50 at best.

Can't tell you about the other side but there is nothing fun about standing in line for an hour or more for food that you can get around the city.  It would have been more fun to do a walking tour of all these restaurants or even for $250 a head we could have rented a bus and gone door to door.  Lesson learned, I would have a hard time imaging that they are going to get people out there for year 2 particularly for the "extra mooga". . 

BTW, we left the show starving.  Went back to the city and sat down for dinner at Barbuto where they are always so obnoxious about getting a table.  Empty tables but it will be an hour wait.  Really?  Can you call me on my cell when the table becomes available?  Answer: no, but you can take a card and call us.  Funny enough, less than 5 minutes later we were sitting because they decided to fill the empty tables.  Seriously?  I will say the food is always good there these days and it wasn't a year ago. Does it make up for the snooty attitude when you walk in the door....questionable. 

Here are a few quotes I found this morning on line about Googa Mooga.  Pretty much confirms what I wrote.

» OrangeCrusher • Sat May 19, 2012 08:55 PM

They are refunding the VIP money as we speak.

Ran out of beer, ran out of food.

What a fucking shit show.

jtr210 • Sat May 19, 2012 08:58 PM

Super lame. They knew exactly how many people would be there.

This is from the Gurgling Cod who figured it out and wasn't even there just based on math.  Can the operators add?

Googa Mooga Math #googamooga

Via FOC The Lime Spider, some calculations W/R/T Googa Mooga: 

The organizers say 40,000 per day. Let's agree, generously, that peak will be 30,000. 

I think 35% will be at the concerts, and not on line for food at any given time, but to be polite, let's say 50% to make them feel like people came for the music. Also because it makes the math easier: 15,000 on line for food. 

75 vendors. 2 lines per vendor. 150 lines. 100 people per line. 

Cash transactions. Optimistically, 60 transactions per hour. That means each line will run about an hour and a half, for tasting portions or slightly larger. Even if there are twice as many lines, or half as many people, you're still looking at 45 minute waits.

Street thinkers call it Tight Math. For the sake of the people who are going, I hope these calculations (by someone w/ food festival experience) are off base. The Cod is Pro Prospect Park -- despite the restrictions on fishing. The Cod is a fan of many of the food vendors. Based on past experiences, not sure that putting all of these purveyors in the same place will lead to a better time than having them scattered around NYC.

All and all, a shit show. 

 

Dabbous, London

Dabbous sits on the corner of a street with wrap around white windows so you can't see in and a solid steel door that you enter.  The space is a combination of being raw and industrial yet there are wooden walls in random places.  The decor kind of gives you an idea of the restaurant.  Although the food is unique and flavorful and at times simply wow they are not sure what they want to be.  There are two options.  You can either do the tasting menu which they highly recommend or order a la carte but the dishes are so small you should really do the tasting.  So, why don't you just say we only do a tasting menu here and give the chef what he wants which is to create small plate sensations for you palette. 

Truth is, I am not a fan of the tasting menu unless I am seriously in the mood.  By the time dinner rolls around, I really want to have something substantial and Dabbous is not substantial but more of a sensory pleasure.  Knowing that they were seriously pushing the tasting, we opted to share 3 appetizers and two mains and two desserts.  BTW, in the downstairs there is a bar with so many cocktail options that the bartender down there must be on the same wavelength as the chef. 

For a starter, besides a small bowl of green oiives, they bring out a hot paperbag with a few slices of warm bread in it with tiny pieces of nuts and raisins in it.  Cute but not really.

Jersey royals St. George mushrooms & broad beans in warm buttermilk.  When they placed the bowl down I thought it was a chunky mustard with greens on top.  Wrong.  A rich milk broth with small pieces of mushrooms and large pieces of potatoes in it.  An interesting mushroom soup. 

Peas with mint.  The tastes here were awesome including the room temperature soup with the ice really lit up your mouth.  Mint ice, opened peas in a pod and a light cream of peas with just a hint of mint. 

This was the killer.  In a egg shell is a coddled free range hen egg mixed with pieces of woodland mushrooms and smoked butter.  Rich, gooey, intense and you really want to make sure you have licked the egg clean. 

For the main courses we had two.  A huge white plate and then on one small edge sits a piece of charred salmon over a mixture of marjoram, muscatel sliced grapes and almonds.  Nothing spectacular and personally not a huge fan of fresh marjoram.

A large piece of barbecued Iberco pork.  I couldn't really taste the bbq part but was underneath it was lick the plate tasting good.  Crushed peanuts with spicy rich sauce.  On the side were turnip greens and an apple vinegar.  It was all about the peanut sauce.

For dessert we had a cheese plate.  A nice mixture of cheese with a roasted apple on the side.

Chocolate ganache with a basil cream and sheeps milk ice cream.  Chocolate and basil really work.  Some of the basil was almost like a sweet pesto and other pieces were dried.  Nice.

All and all, we were in an out in a little over an hour.  Those small plates and the way they bring them out gives you no chance to enjoy and savor your food.  Do what the chef really wants to do.  Create either a 7 or 10 course tasting meny and no other options.  Enjoy the night, savor the flavors and know what you are in for.  To pretend to offer two options is silly and if you want to create your own, which is what we did, then the restaurant should play along.  Divide each thing we ordered in two and slow down the pace and the elegance of the meal because there is no doubt there is talent in that kitchen.  

 

Pollen Street Social

One of the most fun things about traveling is figuring out where to eat.  London obviously has tons of places to go so I had to narrow it down.  Not easy.  Pollen Street Social is one that made the list and I have to say, what a call. 

The restaurant has a nice mellow vibe with different bar areas, comfortable leather seating and great lighting.  The chef, is Jason Atheron.  The food is pretty much perfect.  Everything is just delicious, well balanced and a combination of just the right amount. Love the lights over the bar.

You begin with a small group of tastes.  Olives, ginger mayo, crispy pork rind and another dip.  Like a bar snack.

For our appetizers ( we split everything ) we began with cauliflower & squid with clear roasted squid juice and herbs.  Outrageous.  Small pieces of squid that have the consistency of corn kernels with a few pieces of cauliflower and black squid ink crunchy nuggets sitting in a rich aromatic broth.  Seriously divine.

The next was crab.  In between thinly sliced pieces of Asian pear sits a light crab salad that is mixed with crab vinaigrette.  This sits over tiny dots of a sweet and sour cauliflower creme.  Quite nice.

For dinner we split too.  One of the best fish dishes.  Roasted sea bass and the skin was soft and caramelized.  Everything else was from the celeraic root from a crumble to a roasted piece and then topped with a light truffle sauce.  Just awesome.

I am a sucker for duck.  A sliced of duck breast and a confit duck leg and for the sides a jam made of clementines and mandarin oranges, a roasted jerusalem artichoke and broccolini on top.  Just about perfect.

In between they gave us a small cold mixture that was almost like pudding with pineapple, passion fruit and a few other fruits.  A nice touch and different. 

Dessert chef is not as good.  Puff pastry with a roasted apple and calvados sauce.

All and all, a treat. I think what we loved is the simplicity of the dishes yet they are full of flavor yet subtle and not in your face see what i made.  If I lived in London, I'd be there often.

Pay attention to your money

There was an article in the Herald Tribune called "In marriage, the unseen bottom line" by Katrin Bennhold.  For all women, an article absolutely worth reading.  She writes about how many women, actually most, really don't pay attention their joint finances once they get married yet they certainly took care of their finances when they were single.  They are happy to put a small amount of money that their husband might not know about so they can treat themselves to a pair of killer shoes but don't really know the interest rate on their mortage. 

Here is the thing, unless you have an underlying desire to add up numbers most people, particularly women, find their finances boring even though they understand them.  I get it but at the end of the day if you don't pay attention to your finances then you don't know how your money is being spent and in essence you don't control your life. 

When my parents got divorced, my Mom rose to the occasion of dealing with the finances.  She had no choice but she made it very clear to me that I should always know where the cash is and where it is going.  It might not be fun but it is essential.  My guess and again and this is just a guess because I have seen it first hand particularly when I lived in the suburbs is that when women make a choice to stop working for awhile to raise the kids, they don't feel they are entitled to their love of hand bags and shoes because they aren't working.  BTW, that is utter bullshit because as I used to say to people when they asked me what I did when I wasn't working and my kids were young, I'd answer either "Superhero or something that I don't get paid for". So many women them hide what they purchase instead of being honest that we are 50/50 and I need to have these things on occasion.  How are we going to make it work so it works for the both of us just because I got off the train for awhile doesn't mean I shouldn't get my fair share of the salary.   

I've talked about this before.  Fred and I have pooled our finances from day one because we had so little when we began our careers post-college.  When I came home one day with a pair of shoes that were just so out of his realm, he freaked.  I get it.  He grew up with 3 boys in an Army house and had no idea that Jewish women needed to fill certain needs more often than most.  We sat down and we planned a budget.  He had one and I had one so neither of us cared what either of us bought as long as we stayed on budget.  It was heaven.  Every time I brought home something I loved, he loved it too because he knew I'd never go off budget. 

Bennhold writes that women control 70% of the consumer spending worldwide.  Wow.  Yet, we only account for 1/10th of the voting power on the worlds key interest rates and run only 18% of the Fortune 500 companies.  Those statistics alone should make all of us pay more attention to the money.  As she says, the family is the best place to start. I couldn't agree more.

Understanding money, budgets and finances is the best way to be in control of your destiny be it in the house or running a corporation.  It puts us in control of our life.  Agreed, it can be so boring but honestly isn't exercise too.  We exercise because we know we should and it makes us feel and look better.  We should feel the same way about our money...that means "our" if you are married. 

If you are at a total loss, then follow Dailyworth.  That is one of the reason I invested in Dailyworth, it teachies women to think about their finances every day.  A little shot in the arm makes you think intelligently about how to spend your money, how to invest your money and how to save your money everyday. 

It might not always be exciting but I know where the money is in our house and I know where it is spent and although I might not be the one balancing the check book or physically paying the bills, I know exactly what is going out and in...and that makes me feel empowered and I wouldn't want it any other way.  BTW, I am still on a budget and it still works. 

Back to London

Going back to a city that you know is like visiting an old friend.  Fred and I are in London for a few days this week. There is no rush to see anything.  We know where to go.  We lived her for four weeks a few summers ago and walking the streets feels like my old stomping grounds. 

We got in this morning and were exhausted.  The hardest part about coming here is the flight really isn't that long but the time change is 5 hours so just about when you are ready to fall asleep, you land.  It is wet, cold and rainy which is a bit of a bummer since NYC has finally become relatively warm. 

Once we had breakfast and freshened up we hit the street.  First stop was BStore.  I have been watching and shopping at this store for years.  The guys behind it are so nice and they do a lot of private label and work with Opening Ceremony.  They have moved to a two story location near Liberty of London. 

Afterward we stopped in Philips de Pury.  I had seen these vessels by Pia Wustenberg and was determined to find them what I got to London.  Phiips has a small shop here that carries artisan work.  Little did I know that there was also a small shop like this in NYC but the one in London is bigger and most of the work is sourced here.  The guy who runs it works with universities/colleges and alike to steamlike many of the newer artists into the art world.  Makes sense.  Not sure why there isn't more of that connection in NYC.  I ended up with one of the vessels not featured here.

I also got this piece which is a standing vase. 

The other piece is one of these bowls.  All very cool works.

We headed over the Tate Modern.  I have never been a fan of this museum but now it appears that they only do curated installations of artists which makes more sense.  I didn't like how you wandered through the place for their permanent works.  Before going in had lunch at the Tate cafe and I won't bore you with the pictures.  It ain't Danny Meyer.  Then we saw the Yayoi Kusama show.  Thank god for our kids because it was Jessica who told us we must see this exhibit.  Amazing.  I knew nothing about this artist before hand and shame on me.  Beyond talented and watching her work evolve over the course of her life, so far, is incredible.  I am just going to show each piece by room that I took a photo of.  The one above from the 40/50's

Then this continues into the 50's.

This period is amazing.  Everything turned into white polka dots.  The piece is also very layered with the paint which is hard to see from the picture.

How wild is this?

The lone boat was an intallation she had done in the 70s with Warhol and Donald Judd.

She then took the polka dots to another later.  Very pop artish.

The polka dot room. 

Then WOW.  Almost looks like it would glow under a black light.

This is the last room which is glowing.  I took a pic of Fred and me.  Kusama has also written a handful of books.  Loved this show.

Back to the room for some serious rest and relaxation before going out for dinner. 

 

Some new consumer products...

I have seen a handful of new food companies over the last couple of weeks.  I see them and always wonder, is this going to be in every pantry one day?  Not so sure what the answer is but they are all work checking out.

The first one is Quinn Popcorn.  I am a huge popcorn girl.  I am pretty sure that in high school I lived on popcorn, twizzlers and big red gum.  What I like about this product is a bunch of things.  First and foremost, it is healthy.  Most microwave popcorn is full of chemicals that you shouldn't be consuming particularly when you are pregnant.  Hence, the name of this product is called Quinn, after the husband and wife behind the products first child.  Her doctor told her to stop eating all the microwave popcorn she was consuming when she got pregnant because it wasn't good for her.  This product takes good.  I also like the different flavors that are little more "gourmet" such as Parmesan and Rosemary, Maple Syrup and Sea Salt, Lemon and Sea Salt.  They are currently selling to Whole Foods in the Boston area and on Amazon. 

The second company is Cisse.  Chocolate runs through every product.  It is also healthy and not full of any chemicals.  Delicious baking mixes to make chocolate chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chocolate chip muffins, chocolate cake and chocolate chocolate chip brownies.  They also are selling individual and boxed hot chocolate mixes.  Easy to make and tastes like you made them from scratch.  Well, you basically did but the dry ingredients just come pre-measured in a beautiful box from Cisse.

Last is Empire Mayonaisse.  There has been a bunch of buzz around Empire Mayonaisse.  The product line is deep as they continue to try new flavors each week.  The packaging is great and the taste is unique.  Really good on anything with the flavoring that can take your dish or sandwich to a new level.  Not sure how big the audience is here but you can buy them at their store in Brooklyn, online or out at Smorgasburg on the weekends. 

I admit, I definitely like opening up my pantry and seeing all the latest food products that are popping up all over the place.  There is a groundswell for new products that contain traceable elements in their products so that you know you are eating something that hasn't been pumped up with chemicals to insure a longer shelf life. Healthier products made from local passionate foodies.

 

Indu Subaiya, Health 2.0, Woman Entrepreneur

Sometimes it just takes time or the right turn to find your sweet spot.  I have heard from countless people who journeyed to the tech start-up communities of SF and NYC that for the first time ever they knew they had found their people.  Indu Is definitely one of those people and her education through medical school kept her focused on disrupting the medical industry which is in need of massive change. 

Indu spent her earlier years growing up in Bangor before her family moved to Long Island NY where she went to high school.  She went off to Cornell University for undergraduate as a biology major with the thought that she would always be in medicine.  A typical statistic, Indian American family that admires doctors and tells their kids that they should become a doctor.  In high school, she ran the debate club, wrote for the newspaper and was an organizer of a variety of events.  A total self-starter over achiever with the goal always being medical school.  After graduating Cornell, she continues onward as expected to Stonybrook Medical School. 

It wasn't that Indu didn't love medical school but by her fourth year she knew that being a doctor wasn't what she really wanted to do. She thought that perhaps she could be a psychologist or a neurologist but Indu really felt that you had to get up every morning and be passionate about what you are doing and the passion wasn't there.  The structure and culture of the medical world for an extravert like Indu didn't fit.  You can't be a rebellious doctor. Her peers and professors were amazed that she had no desire for a residency and wanted her career to go in a different direction.  How could you not be a doctor?  Her father was so concerned he told her that at least she could always drive a taxi.  Funny enough, everyone else was so worried about her decision to change the direction of her life except for Indu. 

During her fourth year rotation in ICU, she would do searches on health care jobs in California.  She found a consulting company that focused on biotech life sciences in the Bay area and gave them a call.  After graduating medical school, she got on a plane and found herself in a complete life shift working in the Bay area.  It was 2000.  The boutique consulting firm was helping biotech companies get to market.  It was an incredible experience because of the broad exposure it gave Indu.  She was able to be involved with several stages of growth and the life cycle of these companies. Indu felt as if she was in her elemement.  She loved the community, she went to every conference, she embraced the culture.  She was able to wear several hats and get her chops wet running a division that focused on the pharmaceutial industry and clinical patient outcomes.  The radical notion that you can get information from patients on how they feel after taking certain drugs and the impact of that.  She is still passionate about that topic today. 

She decided that in order to really be an expert in what she was doing, she should go get an MBA as she thought that understanding the business side was important to her success.  She took a 3 year degree so she could work during the day and go to school at night.  It was exhausting.  After two years she decided to jump ship at the medical consulting company and spent the third year working for a hedge fund with a focus on health.  It was a great decision to get a MBA and learn about the biz side but working in the hedge fund industry was not.  The hours were insane and it was primarily a male industry.  She got to see that mindset and that was enough. 

She took a breather and got married and then took a few months off.  Indu had a meeting with a guy who had been a client of both the consulting and hedge fund firm and told him that she was thinking of starting up her own company.  He said, go on your honeymoon and when you come back, let's talk. I will be your first client.

She came back and told him about she needed someone to help her think about product and design.  After years of consulting she really wanted to build something.  She had left medical school, gone to get a MBA and in her heart she knew that she wanted to be an entrepreneur.  She had been incubating an idea for what she thought was web 2.0 meets health-care. 

The flexibility on how we communicate and share information with ourselves should be able to make the leap to communicating with your doctor.  She wanted to bring tech to the medical community through a software program with an easy user interface.  It was 2006 and Indu goes to a health community meet-up in the Bay area to see if anyone else is thinking about what she is thinking about.  She meets Matthew Holt who has been writing a blog about the health care industry.  He knew about health-care and she knew about running a business.  He was writing policy wonky stuff and they got to talking about and formed a connection.  Many conversations later they decide to do a small conference called Health 2.0 and the company was born. 

It wasn't what she expected, as is it ever?  At the time she was also working as a Venture partner working with a medical records start-up that connected doctors to their patients including running her consultancy firm.  So between her consulting contacts, the venture arm and the idea for Health 2.0, they were able to get Yahoo, Google and Webmed to talk at the conference.  The two of them knew nothing about putting together an event.  They were writing the script every day.  They decided to charge $1000 a head and before they knew it they had 500 people who had signed up and then they had a wait list.

Indu still remembers the first day of the conference.  Walking into the rooms and having an Israeli medical entrepreneur come over to her and say I am so excited that other people are interested in these topics around health-care.  Two months later they opened a bank account, created a LLC and she continued to consul for a few months before making the leap to be a full time entrepreneur.  The heart and soul of her business is the conferences.  Currently they put on conferences around the globe where on average 1500 people attend from Berlin to China to India to Paris. 

The other divisions of her company are in incubators around developers.  The Fed gives them money to stimulate health IT mandates in the country.  For instance, the Government has decided that we need to find a solution for tele-medicine in rural Virginia and they work on making that match.  Through a grant they have created an incubator arm, for companies to create health-care solutions.  This creates economies, jobs and companies.  The other division is focused on market intelligence as they are tracking over 1500 companies that fall into the web 2.0 space.  The criteria is health tech companies that are using or building software that is adaptable for the medical community, it must be user friendly and they must use data to make intelligent smart decisions. 

Indu might have been one of the first to jump from medical school into the tech world but she might have started a trend.  She currently mentors many others who have decided to take her track.  Talking with Indu is inspiring because she is working in an area that is going to undergo significant change in the next decade.  It has to.  Having smart people like her involved in educating people around the globe by creating conferences where conversations can take place and ideas form is a start.  Yet having an arm where companies are seeded so they can begin to form and grow is essential for change. It is like the tag line of Health 2.0, the innovation community. 

She has a one year old child and is learning about the balance between motherhood and being an entrepreneur.  The company is virtual as she lives in LA and Matt lives in SF.  As Indu says, what ended up happening in her career is serendipity but at the end of the day you have to trust you gut and she did. Worse comes to worse Indu can always fall back on driving a taxi but I am pretty damn sure that won't be necessary.