Over the course of this past year. 10 months really. I have spent as much time as humanly possible reading. I have tried to absorb as much as humanly possible and have many notebooks and this blog as evidence of that fact.
I have read Escoffier, Girardet, the Roux Brothers, Bourdain, Marco Pierre White, Alice Waters, Thomas Keller, Michael Ruhlman and so many more. I have read MFK Fisher with delight and marveled at the ingenuity required to consider how to properly cook a wolf. But what has all this reading meant for my development?
Each time I pick up a book I read it with a sense of urgency equal to that of a student who knows that his teacher is about to die. With that urgency I have riffled through the various, wits, wisdoms and insights of the greats to both aid my journey and to illuminate my path. From each I have taken something significant and different.
But ultimately the question comes down to this; what makes a great chef great? I think that everyone in his or her chosen field asks this question. What makes a pitcher so capable of throwing? An artist so capable of capturing a moment in time? A writer, so on and so forth.
So I ask then; what does make a great chef great? I have asked this question before in the blog. How does Gordon Ramsay become Gordon Ramsay? Or Marco Pierre White? I think that in this age of instant gratification everyone buys into the belief that these people can achieve success, well, instantly. As such there is a over stylized and glamourized concept that people have with regard to them. But not me.
I have worked in the restaurant industry now for over ten months. Ten long, grueling, demanding and glorious months. I have learned more being in the restaurant than any book (or culinary school) could ever impart. And yet I am left with the question; what separates the wheat from the chaff? And ultimately I think what makes people in any given field great is; Drive, Passion, Talent, Desire and Dedication.
What makes Gordon Ramsay Gordon Ramsay is that he has worked tirelessly, everyday to BE Gordon Ramsay. The same is true of all the greats. I hope one day to be looked at not by the world at large, but by my customers, as a great chef. As a harbinger of culinary greatness that culminates in a wonderful experience, gastronomical and otherwise, that they can take with them for the rest of their lives.
The more I read, the more I come to understand, that the field that I have chosen is one that eats people alive. I come to see that I did not choose the field at all but rather that it chose me. And while today I am but an infant in the industry learning how to crawl and soon to walk, I am aware that you can’t really pick to be a great chef, YOU HAVE TO BECOME ONE. On a path that is clear but winding. That path is what has made all these Chefs great.
George Bernard Shaw once wrote; “Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness but it is greatness.” Think about that for a minute.
Are you dreaming big and inspired? WHY NOT?
A la prochaine
SDM
Showing posts with label MFK Fisher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MFK Fisher. Show all posts
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
MFK Fisher (file under Smoked Wolf?)
MFK Fisher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._F._K._Fisher ) is an absolutely brilliant writer. While reading her book “How to Cook a Wolf” I found myself considering things that I hadn’t before. It was written during World War II and offers dazzling insights into wartime mentality, what was on the tables and the triumph of will over shortage.
Her witty writing challenges the reader to consider the world. In my case, with an understanding of time and place but now also a culinary understanding that far exceeds where I was this time last year. Interspersed with her fabulous prose are recipes that any home cook can attempt. Some of which I myself intend to try.
I picked up “How to Cook a Wolf” to explore whether or not I liked MFK Fisher. As I walked through the book store I considered buying the anthology of most of her writings but was not sure that I would find her either compelling or informative. Much to my delight I have found in her a voice that I admire for its simplicity and yet deep and rich complexity. If such a dichotomy can be understood.
To illustrate this point I give you a few quotes;
“What the chefs would say now, if they could, can never be known. The young girls and men who ate grilled steak in their sport clothes at the Café de Paris are as much a secret as the Café de Paris itself. Ghosts of the great restaurants and their cooks may cry that lack of spirit and finesse betrayed the old as well as the unborn; ghosts of the young may answer that richness and subtlety were but a kind of phosphorescence on the decayed culture that Careme and Vatel and all the other masters left to them.”
“Of course there are many other ways to eat the flesh of animals than in its simplest states, raw or roasted or broiled or braised. According to some people, including the mournful ghosts of those masters who once ruled Paris kitchens and wrote letters to the Times, they are the only ways, since barbarians alone can stomach the sweet bloody savour of rare meat.”
“Why is it worse, in the end, to see an animal’s head cooked and prepared for our pleasure than a thigh or a tail or a rib? If we are going to live on other inhabitants of this world we must not bind ourselves with illogical prejudices, but savour to the fullest the beasts that we have killed.”
Fisher through her eloquence has caused me (as well as my experience in the last eight months) to look at food differently. And I appreciate her for that. You should too. Go out and get any book by MFK Fisher today as you will come to see that there is much more to food than the utter simplicity of putting it on a plate in front of you. There are other, more worldly considerations, that you must at the very least consider as someone who lives in this time of gross excess.
Voltaire once said; “Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”
Dreaming? Inspired? BIG?
A la prochaine
SDM
Her witty writing challenges the reader to consider the world. In my case, with an understanding of time and place but now also a culinary understanding that far exceeds where I was this time last year. Interspersed with her fabulous prose are recipes that any home cook can attempt. Some of which I myself intend to try.
I picked up “How to Cook a Wolf” to explore whether or not I liked MFK Fisher. As I walked through the book store I considered buying the anthology of most of her writings but was not sure that I would find her either compelling or informative. Much to my delight I have found in her a voice that I admire for its simplicity and yet deep and rich complexity. If such a dichotomy can be understood.
To illustrate this point I give you a few quotes;
“What the chefs would say now, if they could, can never be known. The young girls and men who ate grilled steak in their sport clothes at the Café de Paris are as much a secret as the Café de Paris itself. Ghosts of the great restaurants and their cooks may cry that lack of spirit and finesse betrayed the old as well as the unborn; ghosts of the young may answer that richness and subtlety were but a kind of phosphorescence on the decayed culture that Careme and Vatel and all the other masters left to them.”
“Of course there are many other ways to eat the flesh of animals than in its simplest states, raw or roasted or broiled or braised. According to some people, including the mournful ghosts of those masters who once ruled Paris kitchens and wrote letters to the Times, they are the only ways, since barbarians alone can stomach the sweet bloody savour of rare meat.”
“Why is it worse, in the end, to see an animal’s head cooked and prepared for our pleasure than a thigh or a tail or a rib? If we are going to live on other inhabitants of this world we must not bind ourselves with illogical prejudices, but savour to the fullest the beasts that we have killed.”
Fisher through her eloquence has caused me (as well as my experience in the last eight months) to look at food differently. And I appreciate her for that. You should too. Go out and get any book by MFK Fisher today as you will come to see that there is much more to food than the utter simplicity of putting it on a plate in front of you. There are other, more worldly considerations, that you must at the very least consider as someone who lives in this time of gross excess.
Voltaire once said; “Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”
Dreaming? Inspired? BIG?
A la prochaine
SDM
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Books I’m reading (file under more detail coming my day off)
Thomas McNamee’s brilliant “Alice Waters and Chez Panisse”. For those of you who don’t know Alice Waters is a true marvel. Widely considered the mother of California Cuisine and one of the greatest Chefs to every live. I strongly recommend this book for anyone who loves food. I plan to write more about Alice and Chez Panisse on my next day off because her approach to food and her philosophy are not far from my own.
I also just picked up MFK Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf.” Fisher is one of the best food writers to ever live and only three pages in I can understand why she is regarded that way. She captured my mind with the following line; “Now, when the hideous necessity of the war machine takes steel and cotton and humanity, our own private personal secret mechanism must be stronger, for selfish comfort as well as for the good of the ideals we believe we believe in.” I look forward to writing more on my day off with regard to MFK Fisher and her dalliances in GREATNESS.
Finally, due to be “shut down” or “shot down” early as the case were I also just bought Anthony Bourdain’s “The Nasty Bits.”
I will regal you all with more on these and so many other topics as soon as my time allows. Monday I think but who knows in this topsy turvy world of becoming a great cook.
I will leave you with another thought from Fisher; “It seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones that can be, must be, changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces.”
Dream Big, inspired and hold fast to what you know is true within your own self. For only you know the power of that truth and what it represents not just to you but also to the world at large.
A la prochaine
SDM
I also just picked up MFK Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf.” Fisher is one of the best food writers to ever live and only three pages in I can understand why she is regarded that way. She captured my mind with the following line; “Now, when the hideous necessity of the war machine takes steel and cotton and humanity, our own private personal secret mechanism must be stronger, for selfish comfort as well as for the good of the ideals we believe we believe in.” I look forward to writing more on my day off with regard to MFK Fisher and her dalliances in GREATNESS.
Finally, due to be “shut down” or “shot down” early as the case were I also just bought Anthony Bourdain’s “The Nasty Bits.”
I will regal you all with more on these and so many other topics as soon as my time allows. Monday I think but who knows in this topsy turvy world of becoming a great cook.
I will leave you with another thought from Fisher; “It seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones that can be, must be, changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces.”
Dream Big, inspired and hold fast to what you know is true within your own self. For only you know the power of that truth and what it represents not just to you but also to the world at large.
A la prochaine
SDM
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