Word: okura
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...factual. But it is the character of Okura, a Japanese officer steeped in samurai values, that gives the novel real soul. Alisjahbana hits a rich seam of tragedy in Okura's battle to reconcile defeat with honor. Only by rejecting the samurai tradition of seppuku, or ritual suicide, can Okura see a future in his shattered country. Dearest to Alisjahbana's heart, of course, is Indonesia's independence, declared in the language he codified. But his depiction of Okura - as a metaphor for Japan's rebirth in a new, humanist world - is evidence of a magnanimous and rare sensibility among...
Marchan, working from detailed instructions, ladles chicken stock and heaps of butter into a hot sauté pan and waits as the tomato sauce heats under a cheese melter, with Okura and Matz hovering like anxious trainers at the edge of a boxing ring. "You don't have to go so fast," Okura says, giving him a calming pat on the shoulders. He and Matz then shift gears. Instead of having him blanch the pasta, they want Marchan to finish cooking it in the sauté pan and then assemble the layers. His lasagna looks messier than the chef's version. Okura...
When Overton or one of the R&D chefs has a new idea in mind, Okura usually begins in his cookbook library, consulting cooking bibles such as Escoffier and Larousse Gastronomique and masters ranging from Julia Child and James Beard to Thomas Keller and Wolfgang Puck. "If David suggests something from Thailand or Argentina or Costa Rica," Okura says, he will talk to chefs with that expertise. "We will get to the core of any cuisine, any culture." Okura and his chefs may experiment with abandon, but they have a deep appreciation for the rules they're breaking...
When the restaurant introduced the Vietnamese summer roll--translucent sheets of rice paper filled with julienned vegetables and shrimp--Okura had to make several compromises. Instead of making them to order, Cheesecake prep cooks make them in advance every day, so he found shrimp that hold up in cold storage. A true summer roll would have mint, but that strong flavor turns off some people. "We had to make a hard decision as to whether or not we were going to stay that close to the traditional concept," he says. Okura left out the mint, and the shrimp aren...
...that we won't put on there," he says. By keeping the door open to Asia, Latin America and Africa, he created a menu as inclusive as America itself. Today Americans' increasingly sophisticated tastes are posing a new challenge. "You can't just slip things by anymore," Okura says. They can watch the secrets of four-star chefs on TV, and they may know firsthand what "authentic" tastes like. Forget critics or consultants. The only people who can push the Cheesecake Factory to turn up the spice, turn down the butter or give the anchovies another look are the people...