The Quest To Create

"ten minutes on a veal. order in: two bass one walu one terrine. how long on table seventeen? start plating in ninety seconds. less veg on this plate... let the fish be the star. fire table nine. slow down the salmon i need four minutes on that pick. pickup two foie. go on table seventeen."


To a professional chef this is the music of his day to day work. the kitchen is the stage, his cooks are the singers, the food is the star and he is the conductor. the time keeper. making sure that everyone is in sync to create a PERFECT experience for the audience. But what happens when perfection is not enough anymore? when the music loses its magic because "its been done before." more and more people are asking themselves "have i seen this done before" as opposed to "is this executed perfectly" the quest for the chef then shifts from the need to make perfect, to the need to make new. the quest to create.

"Make New Friends, Keep the Old"

A song me and my sister Christal used to sing went "make new friends, keep the old. one is silver and the other is gold"

I think that it is important to maintain this ideal in the world of food as well. In the creative mosh pit that the culinary industry is becoming, one MUST keep in mind the solid foundations that allowed them to get to the point that they can express themselves creatively. everything thing starts with technique. once technique is learned, then you can apply creativity. but first and foremost...you must, must, must have technique. in a world of hyper modern cooking appliances, and texture bending chemicals such as sodium alginate and methyl cellulose, it is easy to get sucked into the gimmick and lose appreciation for the flavor or the ingredient itself. when younger chefs ask me about how to use new age techniques i always ask them the same question "what is NaCl?" if they dont know then i tell them that they have no business learning new techniques if they dont have the basics down. when the cant even identify the proper chemical name for the most prominant ingredient in the kitchen. "Make new friends" (NaCl) "Keep the old" (salt)