olid gold.

I watch Top Chef, and a couple of the "cheftestants" are brothers well-versed in "molecular gastronomy" (the Voltaggio brothers). This basically means they use technologically advanced techniques to change the texture and temperature of food to challenge how eaters approach food. Wylie Dufresne is a popular chef of this school (his restaurant is wd~50). Another chef and restaurant of this ilk is Grant Achatz and Alinea. I see his recipes on the blog Alinea at Home, and it seems they always start with pureeing, straining, and turning a food into a gel with agar agar or some other thickening agent.

In addition to gels, there are also foams and airs. Sometimes a spice smoke is trapped over a dish with plastic wrap and then you cut the plastic with a knife to release the air (and the experience). This got me to thinking about the essence of things, and which is the purest form.

Gas, Liquid, Solid, Plasma?

Is the soul of popcorn the corn saturated steam? Is an herbal infusion distilled to an extract the best way to capture a spice? Is a diamond the purest expression of carbon?

In the movie Cold Souls, they extract the soul and store it in glass containers not dissimilar in shape and size to the vacuum tubes at a bank drive thru. Paul Giamatti's soul is the size, shape, and color of a chickpea.
*drop cap by Jessica Hische