A War for Wonder or my essay for the culinary institute of america.
I want to transform food.
I take pleasure in the wonder of transformation. Whether it is the properly sliced onion or garnish, or the long and slow process of braising meat (normally deemed tough and inedible) that becomes succulent and beautiful. The change that any food takes, going from form to form, through processes of manipulation and technique. What starts as basic, though not lacking in its own primal allure, can morph into anything the mind can imagine, and the hands can accomplish.
Of course, one can not operate rudderless for long - and when I read The French Laundry Cookbook for the first time, I was awestruck. I can acutely remember the day. What cooking was for me, and what I wanted to do with it, changed instantly. Here in a used bookstore sat a cookbook that to me resembled the Monolith, and inside was the kind of knowledge I had been craving. What I saw before me was an expansive panorama of sensory indulgences on par with nothing I had seen prior.
I did not know any of the techniques described in its pages, nor how to plate food in that manner, but I knew this was different and important. My career goals went from distant and vague to trying to actualize and realize being a chef of that caliber. I picked up a knife, and I got serious about learning how to cook.
It helped me formulate what I want out of my career path. I want to create, challenge, inspire, and I want to master the fundamental tradition of cooking above all. Thomas Keller may not be the reason I cook now, but he is the reason I started looking at cooking as a profession and a craft. He turned what may have become resignation into the desire to learn and grow as a cook.
When I look at anything now, I relate back to this experience and I want to create that same joy, that same beauty. It is why I want to be a chef. It is why I want to have my own restaurant, where I can take years of skill and experience, and ply my craft at the highest level I can. It is why I am so completely in love with the craft of cooking. It is why I smile when service starts and I drop in to that fugue like rhythm when the dupe printer starts humming.
The passion and the dedication that drives me to become a chef is mirrored in the transformative nature of cooking itself.
I take pleasure in the wonder of transformation. Whether it is the properly sliced onion or garnish, or the long and slow process of braising meat (normally deemed tough and inedible) that becomes succulent and beautiful. The change that any food takes, going from form to form, through processes of manipulation and technique. What starts as basic, though not lacking in its own primal allure, can morph into anything the mind can imagine, and the hands can accomplish.
Of course, one can not operate rudderless for long - and when I read The French Laundry Cookbook for the first time, I was awestruck. I can acutely remember the day. What cooking was for me, and what I wanted to do with it, changed instantly. Here in a used bookstore sat a cookbook that to me resembled the Monolith, and inside was the kind of knowledge I had been craving. What I saw before me was an expansive panorama of sensory indulgences on par with nothing I had seen prior.
I did not know any of the techniques described in its pages, nor how to plate food in that manner, but I knew this was different and important. My career goals went from distant and vague to trying to actualize and realize being a chef of that caliber. I picked up a knife, and I got serious about learning how to cook.
It helped me formulate what I want out of my career path. I want to create, challenge, inspire, and I want to master the fundamental tradition of cooking above all. Thomas Keller may not be the reason I cook now, but he is the reason I started looking at cooking as a profession and a craft. He turned what may have become resignation into the desire to learn and grow as a cook.
When I look at anything now, I relate back to this experience and I want to create that same joy, that same beauty. It is why I want to be a chef. It is why I want to have my own restaurant, where I can take years of skill and experience, and ply my craft at the highest level I can. It is why I am so completely in love with the craft of cooking. It is why I smile when service starts and I drop in to that fugue like rhythm when the dupe printer starts humming.
The passion and the dedication that drives me to become a chef is mirrored in the transformative nature of cooking itself.