Menu Choices Equal Life Choices at the Zuckerberg - Chan Facebook Wedding

As you probably know by now Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan recently married after the public issuing of the company’s stock. 

And while many financiers are questioning the pre-release of background information to the major brokerage houses, what trend-watching members of the Hospitality Industry want to know is: What was served?

Because the wedding was initially announced as a celebration marking Chan’s graduation from medical school as a pediatrician, few pre-event details were available from either guests or vendors.

The 100 invited guests were startled, but delighted, on arrival to find that they were attending a wedding of Zuckerberg to a remarkable and very modern woman.

Chan, like Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs and an entrepreneur in her own right, and Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google’s Sergey Brin and a founder of 23andMe, a genetic testing firm, is a professional woman in her own right.

But fame (and fortune) hasn’t gone to the heads of these women. Their feet are firmly on the ground – no $600 Kim Kardashian style stiletto high heeled shoes for this bride. And Chan’s wedding menu choices reflects the same common sense and self-confidence that is the hallmark of these insightful women. 

Chan chose Asian and Hispanic foods from two nearby neighborhood restaurants that are personal favorites of both she and Marc Zuckerberg, Palo Alto Sol and Fuki Sushi.

And the Wedding Cake? Well, there was none as any such a delivery to their residence would have triggered a massive and much unwanted press presence.

Instead, the couple chose to share a chocolate mouse (no, not a computer ‘mouse’), but a chocolate mouse complete with a tail from L.A. Burdick, a fabulous pastry firm located in Cambridge MA. 

The mice were a reference to the couple’s first date at Harvard University, which is also located in Cambridge. 

This is a couple that will truly set many future trends (such as personal choices rather than merely fashionably pricy ones). Congratulations and the Best of Wishes! 

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2012

Thoughts from Steve Jobs’ Memorial Service that Relate to the Culinary World

This past Sunday Apple’s famed founder, Steve Jobs, was honored by those who shared the creativity world he skillfully crafted into a reality at an invitation only memorial service.

Tim Cook, who became Apple’s acting CEO in August when Jobs retired due to mounting health problems, gave the keynote address at Stanford University and remembered some of Job’s statements that remain to this day in his mind as a mirror of the man.

Because creativity is a universal quest, these statements also relate to our industry and the desire to create meaningful value, rather than merely matter or money.

Consider….

"Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple, but it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains."

What seasoned chef does not recognize the wisdom of these words? Over-spicing, over-producing can often be so easy as to be seductive so the degree that purpose and focus are lost.

Insightful simplicity often requires a strength of clarity as the louder winds of confusing clutter rumble by.  

"Technology alone is not enough. It's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities that yields us the result that makes our heart sing."  

One of the dangers of our profession is that technique and tools can separate us from an understanding that we do not ever create alone.  The outer form may differ – a chef creates from meat and flour, an Internet designer with screen and sound. Yet the desire to communicate, to connect is the same and mutual.

"If you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should just do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long, just figure out what's next."

A menu is an opportunity, not the definition of a career. To remain always the same, hanging onto what we call 'success,' is at best a limitation and a worst an early creative death while the body labors on in boredom and regret.

Creation is ultimately about learning through expression and experience.  Never fear to move on once the lesson to be learned has been learned.  Steve Jobs never did. Neither should we.

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011