Sometimes Simple is Best
In cooking (and in life) sometimes the best route is the simplest. You don’t need to prepare an extravagant dish that goes over the top and (often) falls flat. Instead, a dish with minimal ingredients and prepared with a simple garnish can work. Simple isn’t boring, but it has to have excellent. Do one thing and do it extremely well, and this can take you far.

Stick With What You Know
While it’s good to learn and grow, there is a time and a place to try new things. In a challenge (or when you have company coming over), it’s a good idea to still with what you are comfortable with. You might want to branch out a little, but keep the general technique and style that has worked well for you. Don’t abandon it simply because it’s “old hat.”

Cook for Your Audience
You can say you’re a good cook, but if the people you are cooking for don’t enjoy eating your stuff, are you really a good cook? This came across loud and clear during the “Top Chef Masters” challenges. During one challenge, the chefs had to cook for some Girl Scouts. The chef that one got high marks because he not only made his food delicious but also fun. The girls loved it, and he won the challenge.

Admit Your Mistakes
On “Top Chef,” there are certain challenges where a chef will completely mess up a meal. The most embarrassing part of watching is having that same chef deny that he or she made a mistake later in front of the judges. This same thing holds true in real life cooking. Not everything you make will be fabulous. But that’s okay. Owning up to your mistakes is all part of the process.

Image: sxc.hu.

Post from: Blisstree

Things I Learned From Top Chef

Notes on Cooking
by Lauren Braun Costello

Here are all the essential things that we used to either learn from our mothers (or possibly in school during home ec class), but that just aren’t necessarily passed on anymore.

Author Lauren Braun Costello say that “A recipe is like a road map.  A road map shows you where to go and how to get there, but does not teach you how to drive.”  The “how to drive” part is what this clever book covers, the knowledge that will help you to think like a chef.

Some of the advice is practical (such as add butter to a cold pan, oil to a hot pan, and why) and some is philosophical.  Here’s my favorite so far:

Embrace the mundane.
Do not bemoan the pedestrian tasks.  Find pleasure in peeling a carrot, steaming rice, searing a steak, prepping, cleaning.  Your reward is in the work, not around it.

Cooking is not about convenience, but the pleasure earned through creation and in giveing pleasure to others.  Shortcuts are tempting, even necessary from time to time.  But it you rely on pre-cut vegetables, pre-marinated meats, and canned sauces, you are not cooking.  You are assembling.

I don’t want to be an assembler.  I want to be a cook.

Post from: Blisstree

Book review: Notes on Cooking