Connection without Capture, also in the kitchen
Viridian's design principle, applied to food.
Connection without Capture — connection without capture — is the design principle of House of Viridian. It applies to privacy (iRecord), to art trade (Viridian Art), to change processes (Statecraft). But it applies just as much in the kitchen.
The meal box industry is Capture disguised as Connection. HelloFresh, Marley Spoon — they connect you with food, but take away something crucial: the ability to think about what you make yourself. You don't learn to cook from a meal box. You learn to follow an instruction card.
That's the difference. A cookbook says: here's a technique, make of it what you will. A meal box says: here are precisely measured ingredients, follow the steps, do not deviate. The first is empowerment. The second is a subscription.
The same goes for diet programs. Weight Watchers makes money from membership. As soon as you stop, you fall back. The system is designed to need you. That's Capture.
Connection without Capture in the kitchen means: I teach you how to draw stock so that you never need a cube again. I teach you to recognize seasonal vegetables so that you don't need an app to do it for you. I'll teach you the basics of flavor — salty, sour, fatty, bitter, umami — so you can cook without a recipe.
The goal is to make yourself redundant. That is commercially difficult and humanly fair. It is what a good teacher does: enable the student to move on without him.
Move over. But soon you will continue alone.