siliconbobulon

I am of the opinion that the things you use everyday should be the best that you can afford. Especially the things that touch your body. I am talking about quality when I say best of course. Not best in any other meaning of the word best. When I moved to Japan I had a hand me down futon with hand me down linens. I don’t know how many times it had be handed down before it reached me. I didn’t really care. It was the middle of January and it was so cold that I used the foam mattress as a blanket. I probably slept like that for a year. Then I got a job and suddenly could pay all my bills and I even had money left over. So I started researching about all of the most basic things in my life. I got very minimalist about it. I started with water. very basic. What is the best water? What is the best way to get the best water forever? It turned out to be way more complicated than I expected.

I then moved on to sleeping. I researched mattresses first. It turns out that if you live in a climate like Osaka a coil spring mattress is the best. I tried every kind of mattress. Coil spring hands down. The kind with a pillow top, an adjustable one, are the best. Linen fitted sheets are the best. And when I say linen I am talking about hemp but if you can’t get hemp based linen get flax based linen. The kind with a lower thread count are better. In the winter time on top of the fitted linen sheet I use a rabbit fur blanket. If there is one thing I would recommend getting it is the rabbit fur blanket. After you have slept on one you will never be able to go back. Next comes the non-fitted flat sheet. They are useless, forget about them, I don’t use them and neither should you. Next comes the thin blanket. I use a microfiber one or a matted silk one. On top of that is the duvet. The duvet cover should also be linen. The duvet itself can be of two types depending on the climate you live in. The first type would be a standard thick duvet that can be used in winter and fall. The second type is a actually two duvets of equal thickness. You either use one or two in the duvet cover depending on the season. Whichever one you choose they should be over %90 goose down with a good baffle system. Pillows are a highly personal area. I will just say that I recommend silk pillow overs and buckwheat hull or feather pillows.

This is about $1000 of bedding altogether. It lasts about 10 years, possibly much longer, depending on vigilant you are about maintenance (washing, drying, airing, storage)

I was talking with Ben about restaurants and food trends especially in the bay area. It made me recall my idea about true price. Why do you pay a unit price for things that restaurants buy by weight? Red snapper is $40 a pound in the market today so why is it $12 on the menu every night?

There is a frozen yogurt place where you can put as much yogurt and toppings in a cup as you want. they weight it at the end and charge you. This is what I would like restaurants of the future to be like. Here is how the calculation would work. Overhead costs of the restaurant would be calculated per month. A profit margin would be decided. The market price of all ingredients would be track and their weights recorded. You divide the overhead cost by the number of item-transactions last month and distribute that evenly over the menu items. Then you add on the profit margin. What is displayed on the menu is the average weight and a price per gram.

There are some places that already operate this way. I’m thinking deli sandwiches where they weight the meat and cheese. In the future where we don’t have to carry cash ever again it just seems to make sense. Would you like the big steak or the small one? Less waste, less fraud, less highway robbery. A restaurant’s greatest trade secret would then become the number that they decide to plug in to “profit margin”. How greedy are you?

Being a teacher taught me a lot about professional cooking. If the audience doesn’t get it and isn’t following it will go horribly no matter how good the content is. If they get it and you lead them in properly the content only has to be good-enough and it will be a life changing experience for them. Stand up comedians would make great cooks in a counter based restaurant. I think my theory is proven by the number of “personality” type servers and cooks in diners as well as counter service restaurants like delis in New York.

http://www.rotfest.com/cheater.mp3

This book obviously had a big influence on me. In fact when I was looking for apartments I showed the real estate agent pictures from this book to give him an idea. It was only after looking at it for the first time in years that I realized.