Marc Escobosa

Marc & how we know each other

Our first meting was an object lesson for me in keeping yourself open to what the universe has to offer when you are expecting a different path. In the case of Marc, I had met his business partner Vic and was incredibly impressed and excited by our meeting and hired his firm to do work for my new startup Arena and my vision was that Vic himself would be doing most of it. Of course when it was time for our kickoff meeting, he sent Marc along instead of himself. I felt a bit "bait and switched" and was like "dude, why did you send me this hack to work with?" Little did I know then that Marc would emerge as one most extraordinary designers (perhaps *the" most) I have ever had fortune of working with. From our working relationship a treasured friendship emerged and I am a better person for having known him. For those who don't know Marc, if you ever bump into him he will be the guy with as warm a human spirit as you will ever encounter and likely will be telling some story about the time he bottled Grappa in in the nebulous region of Italy with the progenitor of the libation himself....or some such thing :-)

What we chatted about

The pain of being a wedding photographer. Neither of us are schooled as such, but Marc had just finished shooting one and still had a few scars from it (thought I think he kinda knocked it out of the park). Part of the dinner came about as Marc had borrowed some camera gear from me for the shoot, so I think he mostly was putting up with my cooking as a thank you for the loan. As is always the case with Marc, lots of ground was covered, as we touched on x, y an z. We even explored the latest movement in my new venture. More on that later.

What we cooked up

This was all about Italian -  a simple pasta and salad was what we sauced up. Easy to do and friendly and warm, with a few basic ingredients that performed just fine on their own.

Pasta ala Simple

Ingredients

• Simple Pasta
• Some chili peppers (i had some from an old pizza gig, worked great)
• Roasted Red Peppers
• Garlic

Method

1. Boil the pasta up.
2. Put some oil in a pan with the garlic (thin slices) and stir it up to just before brown.  Add the chili pepers and soon afte the red peppers (just to warm them really).  Time this so it finishes when the pasta does.
3. Dump the pasta into the pan with the mixture we just brewed and stir it up.

Arugula & Pear Salad

Ingredients

• Arugula
• Pears (all about a bit of sweetness)
• Parmesan Cheese
  
• Home brew dressing (a little lemon, oil, salt and pepper)

Method

1. Put the Arugula in a mixing bowl
2. Cut up the pears to dice (marc points out this is the size of dice :-
3. Mix up about 2/3 oil to 1/3 lemon and emulsify it up silly
   

What I learned

• Turns out that corn based pasta is not the top choice for such a dish. While feel better to know about it for my gluten free friends, one would otherwise be best with standard fare here. A bit "globally" in its incarnation.
• Use a big pot for boiling up the pasta. I can't say I fully understand the why, but Marc says it lets the pasta breath or some such thing and that is good for it and the starch and what not. Marc is usually right about such things, so I would go with it.
• Something about need sweet and sour in a dish.
• Turns out that in Italian cooking, it is all about feel and flow.  The informal trumps the formal.  I like that!