This is my first attempt at cooking from Christina Tosi‘s 2nd cookbook Milk Bar Life. Her collection of recipes are creative, such as Crock-Pot Cake, Eggs In Purgatory and Fruity-Pebble Meringues with Passion Fruit Curd. The Jerk Chicken recipe was fast and simple—blend the ingredients, marinate the chicken in the blend, and bake. The result was tasty with some heat, sweetness and salty mix. I marinated the chicken for about 18 hours to fully absorb the blended mixture and moisten the meat. Next time, I need to prepare better veggies.

To those unfamiliar with Tosi, she is the mastermind behind Milk Bar’s dessert program, which is the sister company of David Chang‘s Momofuku restaurant empire. Tosi has recently won the prestigious James Beard award for Outstanding Pastry Chef. Some of her celebrated creations include Compost Cookie (“packed with pretzels, potato chips, coffee, oats, butterscotch and chocolate chips, this cookie strikes the perfect balance between salty & sweet”), Crack Pie (“toasted oat crust, gooey butter cake meets chess pie”), and Cereal Milk (“made with milk, cornflakes, brown sugar and a pinch of salt. it’s like the milk at the bottom of a bowl of cornflakes”). Definitely invitingly savory; however, they don’t have “West Coast of Canada” presence where I can try them out. I need to visit Toronto or NYC that.

On the other hand, superstar chef Chang, noted for his bad-boy attitude, has taken the culinary world by storm—adding 2 Michelin Stars to his name and also recipient of Time 100 Most Influential People, 2010. Chang’s take on cooking is edgy and likes to break traditional rules. His cooking, including mannerisms, can be seen on Netflix’s PBS program The Mind of a Chef, where I first discovered him last year.