Hi guys! Since Zen has this new tasty FOOD category I decided to do this little write-up while I am enjoying a midnight snack as a result of insomnia.
To start with: not many people know that before I started my automotive career I used to worked for three years in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant. Not JUST any restaurant: its owner and chef was a world champion pizza baker with three European titles. Thanks to that guy I do not only speak some Italian, but I also always complain about other people’s pizzas. The reason why I’m saying this is to point out that I don’t only appreciate a well-built car, but also a well-prepared dish!
Have you ever heard of the expression “you are what you eat”?. In common sense, you would say “I eat healthy, therefore I am healthy” or “I eat fat, therefore I am fat”. (I am eating a tuna right now; does that make me a tuna?). Putting the traditional and funny aside, I want to introduce another view which you can relate to car people: their car is similar to the way they like their food served. This is ZEN cuisine – I mean Garage – after all, so let’s mix up olives with gearbox oil.
Burn Michelin Tyres, Earn Michelin Stars.
Wiki: The Michelin Guide (French: Guide Michelin [ɡid miʃ.lɛ̃]) is a series of annual guide books published by the French company Michelin for more than one hundred years. The term normally refers to the Michelin Red Guide, the oldest and best-known European hotel and restaurant reference guide, [1] which awards Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a star can have dramatic effects on the success of a restaurant. Michelin also publishes a series of general guides to countries.
There you have it, probably the best example of how an automotive brand relates to food, but let’s have a closer look at the frequent and mainstream customers (I am sorry, guests) and the dishes of the restaurants awarded with Michelin stars. Usually, the dishes are relatively small, but hell they look fancy. Forget about eating, you can go there just to put everything on Instagram and Facebook. Likes save not only lives, but help you to lose calories after all. You might even encounter such things as “molecular gastronomy”, which is a way to make your already divine dish even more superior. I mean come on, look at all those losers who have “just” a Veyron, because you have the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse Legend “Meo Constantini” Limited Edition.
Unfortunately, both “high-performance food” and “delicious cars” are also often used in ways that grind my gears. You aren’t getting my precious Instagram like for just showing off what you’re eating now, without mentioning its special features, nor am I impressed by your Ferrari 458 Italia’s ability to do a 7:32.92 lap around Nürburgring. Save the bragging for your trophy wife until you stop revving that poor piece of engineering like a ricer and start using it for what it resembles.
Cooked, not bought.
On the side of the field we have the group of people who pursue the “built, not bought” or better said “cooked, not bought” principle (we are talking about food here!). Having both eaten in various Michelin star-awarded restaurants all over the world and driven different super and hypercars, I must acknowledge that those things can never compete to way simpler pleasures in life emotion-wise. You should pay ten times more for a traditionally cooked egg by your girlfriend for a surprise breakfast, than Alain Ducasse is asking for an Egg Benedict as an entrée. Also, you probably remember that one time you saw this perfectly built car at a car meet and you just kept annoying its owner and creator with all kinds of questions because of your respect and admiration, even though you have never met the guy before.
I am done eating my tuna, so let me tell you more about how awesome it was. Get a slice of bread and toast it. Grab a clove of garlic, slice it in half and use the toasted piece of bread as a grater (keep rubbing the sliced clove of garlic against it.) Put some tuna on it and BAM: function over form.
I am looking forward to read about your automotive style of cooking in the comments!