Food can be incredible when it exceeds our past experiences (our expectations) or when it reminds us of a past experience (nostalgia). By itself, exceeding expectations is a function of better ingredients and technique. It will be much harder to exceed the expectations of someone who has dined at many fine restaurants compared to a person with limited experience. Nostalgia, on the other hand, is based on food-related memories from which the diner can draw upon. So whether or not you've eaten at the world’s best restaurants, it’s likely that you have special food memories that mean more to you than solely the food itself.

So suppose you’re cooking for someone who’s dined at many great restaurants. In order to create food that your guest will consider incredible, it’s intuitive to think that you’ll have to cook at a level that rivals the best food she's ever had - not an easy task. But if you’re able to tap into your guest’s memories and make a dish that’s special to her, your food will mean much more, and she might even find it incredible! (Well, well..I suppose I am using a lot of she's here, so that should tell mammoths about the plot. *lolz!!*)

Now, there's a catch here, however. The inherent risk in cooking with nostalgia is if your guests(well, I mean...any one for that matter :P) don’t get it. For instance, if I were to visit some road side dhaba and have a spaghetti at some Italian Resorante, I’d probably just think it was interesting and strange because I’ve never had the dish elsewhere before, nor do I have any memories associated with the dish. So in order for a dish to appeal a wider audience, it’s important that the food actually tastes good, with or without nostalgia.

Being somewhat of a food geek, I thought I’d take a stab at quantifying nostalgia as it relates to deliciousness. While this isn't really meant to be a formula for plugging in actual numbers, it shows the extent to which nostalgia can influence delicious food. It’s also important to note that you can have negative associations with foods – so no matter how good the ingredients and technique are, you could still dislike a dish because of the unwanted memories you associate with it.

And, tadaan! here I come with a brand new formula which for the temporal reference would be termed as the "Foodalgia Priciple" (Yup, a combo of Food and Nostalgia)

D = (I*T)^N+1

where:
D = deliciousness (higher is better)
I = ingredients (0 < I < ∞)
T = technique (0 < T < ∞)
N = nostalgia (-∞ < N < ∞)

Finally to sum it all up. If molecular gastronomy is loosely defined as the science of deliciousness, then perhaps cooking with nostalgia or more generally, cognitive gastronomy can be thought of as the psychology of deliciousness. Within cognitive gastronomy, we could also consider other factors such as how a person’s mood and state of mind affects their enjoyment of food.Lolz!!

Recently, I’ve started to wonder why pigeons bob their heads in such a violent manner when they walk. This habit seems like it consumes a lot of calories… don’t they need every bit of energy in order to fly? I don’t understand why natural selection hasn’t bred pigeons that walk without bobbing their heads. Wouldn’t they be more efficient and therefore more fit?

Here are some hypotheses I’m toying with to explain this behavior:

1. Maybe this actually is the most efficient way for pigeons to walk. Perhaps they’re counterbalancing themselves the way a cat does with its tail.

   But, if pigeons bob their heads when they’re standing still, this hypothesis wouldn’t explain why they do that. I haven’t been able to watch pigeons standing still long enough to see if they continue to bob their heads, though. (And even if they do, I guess it could be an instinct that’s only useful when they’re walking, but it’s too ingrained for them to stop when they’re just standing around…)

2. Because they’re not predators, pigeons’ eyes are set far apart on their heads. This gives them a wide field of view which helps them to see approaching hawks. As a side effect, their binocular vision is quite narrow (anyone know how narrow?). This means that both of their eyes can only focus on objects directly in front of them. Objects that are slightly off to the side can only be viewed by one eye, impairing depth perception.

   I was standing on the sidewalk one day watching a pigeon bob its head when I decided to close one eye and see how my depth perception was affected. I still had to focus my eye’s lens to see an object clearly, so my depth perception wasn’t completely gone, but it was greatly diminished. Then I tried to mimic the pigeon. If I bobbed my head towards the object and then away, I got a better sense of how far away that object was. Closer objects appeared to get bigger when I bobbed towards them, while objects farther away didn’t.

   (Now that I think about it, I probably looked a little odd doing that…)

   Anyway, maybe pigeons are compensating for their poor binocular vision in a similar manner. Their quick motions could be an attempt to gauge the distance to the nearest scrap of food so they can accurately peck at it.

Does anyone have a better idea?

I have a tendency to get attached to my beliefs, because in a very real sense they’re the only possessions that can’t be taken from me. I’ve poured countless hours of effort into them, whether I derived the belief independently or found them in another person’s writings. I find it easier to be an intellectual parasite in this sense, because independently deriving beliefs is much harder. But some beliefs can’t be easily falsified, so critically examining them is often just as difficult as independently discovering them. Either way, the prospect of abandoning any of my beliefs is painful because it involves admitting I was wrong. I always find that difficult; the shame of admitting my mistake and the difficulty of re-aligning my worldview pose serious challenges.

I’ve come to see my beliefs as priceless glass sculptures; I instinctively treasure them but shouldn’t hold them so close that they’ll hurt me if and when they shatter. As a result, I’m suspicious of all my beliefs to varying degrees. I hug beliefs in lower, less doubtful levels closer to my chest, but only after examining them carefully for cracks. Beliefs in higher, more doubtful levels remain at arms’ length in case they shatter.

This strategy helps to avoid pain, but I suspect it also makes me more intellectually… nimble. Less attachment to any particular belief makes it possible for me to change my position with greater ease when new evidence is uncovered. If new evidence is never forthcoming, that’s either because I completely understand the universe (which is a “problem” I’d really like to have) or because I’m ignoring evidence that I simply don’t want to see.

I can’t conclusively tell the difference between those two possibilities, which terrifies me…

Whomever coined the phrase “slept like a baby” must have never had any kids. In fact, I’m pretty sure that person was never a kid themselves and is in fact some type of alien. I’m pretty sure this is gonna be part of my agenda in my second term of education(erm! thats my PG!).

Actually, my baby nephew (now a year old!) does pretty well sleeping. Much better than my sister at that age*hehe*. Still, I would hardly call the way a baby sleeps anything but a fragile situation, just one floor squeak, or big sister scream, or ant landing on a bed of feathers away from awake baby time.

It’s even more amazing to me the process involved in getting a baby to sleep. I’m convinced they are all different. Our first ate to sleep. Always. It was the only thing other than a half hour car ride that would get her to sleep. The boy is different. He eats to sleep, but sometimes as soon as he’s put in the crib he wakes up. Then Daddy gets his time for action.

In the past week or so, I’ve found my nephew wrangling touch. I’ve been able to rock him to sleep. It’s silly, but it makes me feel good that I’m able to contribute a bit to our rest. There’s nothing worse than a wide awake baby at 4:00 AM when you have to wake up at 6:30. Every tick of that clock is a tick you aren’t going to be able to use for sleep. Very rough.

Well, I hear the guy now. I may have to work my magic. In conclusion: guy who coined the phrase “slept like a baby” is an alien, and I am awesome.