Dans la continuité de l’excellent projet Flying Babies, voici la suite et une nouvelle série de la photographe américaine Rachel Hulin. Une mise en scène amusante de son bébé Henry dans des positions en lévitation, comme en plein vol. A découvrir en images dans la suite de l’article.
Mastering a good egg on the ground or in the air
On the ground or in the air, properly cooked eggs present a challenge to be mastered. Helen Davey worked for many years as a Pan Am stewardess, and her account of a harrowing experience making fresh scrambled eggs for an entire plane yielded impressive yet hilarious results. The good news: the passengers claimed it was the best breakfast on a plane they had ever eaten. The bad news: while Davey was able to crack and cook 350 eggs, she later left the plane covered in the ones that splattered during the intense turbulence that hit while she was in the middle of her seemingly insurmountable task. Davey arrived home to find more of the spilt egg had even made its way into her bra.
In professional kitchens of the on-land variety, chefs have turned cooking eggs into precision maneuvers. Heston Blumenthal’s method for perfect poaching involves a fresh from the farm egg, a ceramic dinner plate in a pan of precisely heated water, a slotted spoon, and some careful finesse. Many 63° and 64° eggs cooked in sous vide water ovens have made their way onto the menus of everyone from Michael Voltaggio (63°) to Ludo Lefebvre (64°). Precision is key. In the world of Modernist Cuisine, Nathan Myhrvol’s egg techniques includes a Modernist Tea Egg with a liquid center and marbling created from beet juice. He also developed a new process for laser etching images onto an omelette (in the video the printing process reveals Jimmy Kimmel’s face).
With all of these precise preparation recommendations, how can a flight crew even attempt serve a properly cooked egg to a large number of people on a long haul flight?
Understanding the anatomy of an egg reveals some helpful hints. The Exploratorium in San Francisco encourages playful investigation of science, art, and human perception. Their Science of Cooking project explores how egg proteins change when they are beaten and mixed with other ingredients. Eggs that are mixed to be scrambled or prepared as an omelette have added cooking challenges, because the eggs have now “formed a network of interconnected proteins”. When eggs are cooked at high temperatures for too long, the whites can becomes rubbery. For eggs that are being served on a plane, the added the challenge of tight quarters in an airline kitchen and high altitudes, the goal of serving fluffy eggs becomes a near impossible task.
Only first-class cabins are equipped with enough kitchen space to store chilled eggs and crack them fresh for breakfast. For the rest of the plane, most egg dishes must be pre-made in catering units with special techniques to ensure the eggs remain creamy, like folding in bechamel sauce to the basic recipe once it’s been chilled. For a fresher alternative, some airline kitchens prepare fresh pasteurized liquid egg into cardboard cartons that are kept in chilled stwage in the first class galley. Despite careful methods of preparation, cooking scrambled eggs at 30,000 feet still poses a challenge, and cabin crew members are therefore trained to make fresh scrambled eggs under limited, unpredictable conditions. One technique involves a bain marie, created by putting two smaller foil containers into large foil tray filled with water. Fresh pasteurized mixed eggs and cream are poured into the smaller trays, carefully loaded into the oven, and mixed every three minutes, then hit with a dash of cream at the end, proving that creamy scrambled eggs with a fluffy consistency can be made even in the tiny galley of a plane.
15-year veteran Emma Ridgers talks to us about life as a British Airways cabin crew member
With a crisp white shirt, pressed navy blue suit, and red patterned tie placed just so, it’s always a high-flying day at work for British Airways‘ cabin crew. While the passengers watch the in-flight entertainment, read, and doze, the hard-working cabin crew members like Emma Ridgers do everything in their power to make the flight as safe and pleasant as possible for everyone on board.
I have always loved traveling and working with people and cultures from around the world. I am quite fascinated by that. I enjoy the fact that every day at work is different. It’s all really appealing, the whole package. British Airways is such a huge global airline. We have a really diverse customer base and you get lots of different situations on board. You can’t ever judge how the day is going to go, how the flight is going to go. It is challenging but that is also what keeps it interesting.
I’ve been flying for 15 years. Jet lag and sleep deprivation are the hardest part. You just have to work your way through it and find out how to make things work for you.
Anyone who travels knows that the food is a big part of the experience of flying. It is almost as important if not more important to some people as the in-flight entertainment. Generally the meals are prepared for us to cook and we add individual touches to them. We follow guides and have a lot of training with regards to the food. We get information from the chefs through training courses. I think recently people feel they were being served tasteless food on many airlines, so that is something the chefs have addressed with Height Cuisine. British Airways has taken the time to invest experience and money to try to improve our food onboard. It is definitely working.
We have been getting positive feedback from the passengers. People will say “That was a really nice meal,” which is a hard thing to achieve in the air. It’s been a big learning curve especially for the cabin crew.
We have a crew member on every flight who chooses to work in the galley, which means they are like the chef for the flight. Even though they haven’t made the food from scratch they are in charge of cooking it, presenting it, and telling the other crew members when it is ready to be served. Before takeoff, they are responsible for making certain everything is in order. We don’t want to have any disasters mid-flight like realizing that the butter wasn’t loaded. They take responsibility for seeing that the catering cases are loaded while the representative from the catering company is on board.
For Height Cuisine the way the food looks is as important as how it tastes. The airline has invested the time and gotten the experts to tell us what it is we need to do on board. We have added more garnishes and ingredients. For example, in the U.S. we get limes and on the flights from Asia different herbs. It’s going to look nicer and be fresher if we finish it on board. As much as possible, they give us the leeway to create.
Generally about four of five hours into the flight on a long haul flight once the passengers have everything they need then we have an opportunity to sit down and eat. We eat in shifts. On an aircraft people are awake and asleep at different times so there is always a constant flow of passengers coming through the galley.
On a recent flight I had a business class meal that was a steak with roasted potatoes and vegetables and it was utterly gorgeous. The meat was tender and it had loads of flavor, which is hard to do especially with meats. I also have a weak spot for desserts. They make a really lovely sticky toffee pudding. It is so sinful.
I know what you’re thinking – NO WAY! But hypothetically, this idea is pretty cool. The Flying Bike concept uses a complex combination of advanced lightweight structural elements and high-precision propulsion and stabilization technology to give lift to the rider for brief periods of time; 5 minutes or so to be exact. You might not be able to weave in and out of traffic, but you might be able to fly over it!
Designer: Technodat, Evektor and Duratec
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(Flying Bike… ‘Nuff Said! was originally posted on Yanko Design)
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British Airways imbibes
Good news for British Airways flyers looking to unwind in the sky: wine is complimentary in every class of all flights.
Andrew Sparrow of Bibendum Wine runs the department after cutting his teeth for 30 years on the British Airways team. “While working cabin crew on long-haul flights,” he says,” people would always make comments about the wine.” During numerous layovers around the world, Sparrow often found himself visiting wine regions from Napa Valley, California to Stellenbosch, South Africa. After years of field experience across the globe, he went on to get a diploma from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust.
When it comes to choosing wines for British Airways’ First Class cabin, Sparrow considers several factors from trends in the marketplace to the effects of high altitude on taste. “In a pressurized airline cabin you don’t taste as effectively as you do at ground level,” he says. “There are a number of conditions that affect the way you taste. The most important one is the way that you dehydrate. I think anyone on a long haul flight will notice that at the beginning of the flight they are tasting a lot more efficiently that they are towards the end.” Thus wines are carefully chosen to work with body chemistry in changing environments. That said, Sparrow keeps three styles on every British Airways wine list—the prestige Champagne, a claret or red Bordeaux and a white Burgundy. “The Champagne at the moment is Laurent-Perrier Grand Siecle,” he says. When it comes to the carefully selected Claret, Sparrow has taken an unconventional tack by advance-purchasing. “We buy the wines four to six years ahead of their being used,” he says, “so the wine can mature in the bottle and be drinking beautifully by the time we serve it.”
Sparrow’s selections are naturally destination-driven. “If you were on a North American flight,” he points out, “the wine you would have right now is the Merry Edwards Sauvignon Blanc, and the red is a Freestone Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.” Working with the intuition gained from such close study of the drinking public, Sparrow also lets us in on somewhat of a secret when it comes to rounding out the list—what Sparrow and his team call the ABC, or “anything but Chardonnay or Cabernet.” The intuitive precaution, says Sparrow, presents the “opportunity to look for wines that are slightly unusual.” Popular varietals range from Sancerre and Sauvignon Blanc to Fume and Riesling. Complimentary wine is also served in the Economy class. In the Economy cabin complimentary Sauvignon Blanc is served in quart bottles. On British Airways, wine plays an important role in the Height Cuisine program and Sparrow notes that they spend significantly more than other airlines with this general-cabin amenity.
Working on a wine list that’s as dynamic as the travelers it serves has made Sparrow an expert when it comes to international imbibing habits and inspired him to seek out some of the world’s most satisfying, exciting and trend-setting wines. Put simply, says Sparrow, “It’s a fabulous job.”
Bidet-style, warm-water toilets take to the skies on ANA and JAL
Dimming windows, exotic lightweight materials, improved fuel economy, mood-setting dynamic LED lights, massive overhead storage—there is no shortage of impressive amenities aboard Boeing’s long-awaited 787. Perhaps our favorite innovation to round out the offerings on the new plane (it made its debut on the 777-300ER) comes courtesy of Japanese carriers All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines: bidet-style washlets. The toilets in these business class washrooms shoot streams of warm, aerated water to keep flying derrières happy from Tokyo to London.
While washlets are frequently seen on Japanese toilets and are increasingly popular in homes and high-end hotels around the world, the 787 is one of the first commercial planes capable of implementing them. Four functions (back, soft, bidet and stop) are accessible on a knee-side panel for the washlets, which were collaboratively designed between Toto, Boeing and Jamco. Due to water restrictions, the cleaning operation can only be run twice for each use—hopefully adequate to satisfy airborne bottoms. Once finished, the lid closes automatically; both airlines also offer motion-controlled faucets. ANA’s restroom features a window, while JAL decks out theirs with a full-length mirror.
Take a closer look at JAL’s 787 in panoramic HD virtual tour.
Focus sur cette étonnante série de la photographe Rachel Hulin, avec une mise en scène de son bébé dans des positions en lévitation. Une déclinaison dans divers lieux à domicile et à l’extérieur. Un concept à découvrir en images sur son portfolio et dans la suite de l’article.
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Sur une musique de Tom Quick, “Flying People in New York City” est une vidéo créant l’illusion d’hommes volant dans New-York alors que ce sont en réalité des engins télécommandés avec l’apparence humaine. Une astuce visuelle réussie utilisée pour Chronicles.
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Découverte de “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” une vidéo d’animation vantant l’apport de la lecture. Cette création de William Joyce et de Brandon Oldenburg a déjà gagné plusieurs prix et est nominé aux Oscars 2012. A découvrir en HD dans la suite.
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Sense of Flying est une vidéo sur Espen Fadnes nommé le “World’s Fastest Flying Human Being” en 2010. Ce film produit par Stavfel Produktion et Goovinn revient sur la préparation mentale d’un saut et les appréhensions. Très intéressant, le résultat est à découvrir à la suite.
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