I came to where I am today by searching deep within myself to determine what was real and what was the proverbial sheaf. I had longed for years to be doing something honest, something real, something that brought me joy and at least helped to create a personal sense of worth. Food became my answer. It had for a long time been the way that I entertained guests and though I had always been told how good I was I did not believe that I was good enough to be a “professional.”
While my personal odyssey began on January 18th of 2008, this year, it had in reality begun long ago. Now that journey has changed. As I have learned more about what it means to be a chef and more importantly (at least seemingly) what it means to be a good cook.
I have read a mountain of materials this year. Many of them speak of the food service industry and its adherents. However, one of the reasons that I came to become a professional cook is because I believed that there was an inherent honesty in it. The bigger the mountain became that I read the more I came to understand (as I have written about) that I am in fact in the service of food and not the food service industry.
What does that expression mean? In the service of food? Does it mean the same to me that it will for you? I’m not sure but herein lies my belief as to my own relationship with food and how I believe I am in its service.
Now I have never had offal. However in my readings of the past eight months I have come across tales of it repeatedly. I have also heard (and have now tasted) about pig trotters and other parts of animals that most people cringe at their mere reference. Anthony Bourdain always talks about the measure of a cook being able to use these parts in such a way to create a meal which is both appealing and delicious. Thomas Keller’s role model, mentor and friend Roland Henin, taught Keller about offal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offal), how to prepare it, etc. These two examples demonstrate how a great cook and chef are in the service of food and not the food service industry.
You see when I hear the food service industry I conjure up images of suit wearing, board room executives, who are contemplating the best way to get chickens to market as a McChicken or in KFC buckets. I too consider the monster chains of so called casual dining such as T.G.I.F. or The Cheesecake Factory. These to me represent the food service industry. The fast served, cookie cutter, same in Minneapolis as in back woods Alabama. However, what I seek to do, what I am in the process of doing, what I hold dear is that I am in the service of food.
How can I demonstrate this to you so that you will see where I am coming from? Well, over the course of the next few years, armed with hundreds of posts, thousands of recipes and countless hours of blood, sweat and tears in the kitchen I know that I will be able to demonstrate clearly that I am in the service of food. That I can take an apple and make it taste like an apple and have t be appealing to you. Or that I can take offal and cook it to perfection so that you somehow believe that what you are eating is the most expensive part of an animal.
I have grown considerably in the past eight months and a lot of beliefs I had before I entered the kitchen have been blown out of the water while others have been most beautifully and wondrously confirmed.
In the service of food I aim to be better tomorrow than I am today. I seek to learn new things, to experience new ways, to find the subtle and sometimes non apparent truth that is inherent in each and every ingredient. AND I seek to do it with a smile on both my face and my soul. For that is what this journey is for me. A betterment. Not just of myself but also of the world we live in.
Anthony Bourdain speaking about offal once said; “Chefs who work with offal, says Bourdain, "are generally giving you all they got." Not so with the 10,000th order of steak frites or steamed lobster.”
Are you dreaming big and inspired?
A la prochaine
SDM
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