Cooking Philosophies

My Story

During the initial “stay at home” period of this pandemic, which is still active here in the Bay Area of California, I have been watching lots of cooking shows. From reality TV (Kitchen Nightmares), to Youtube (Pasta Grannies), from Facebook (Marion’s Kitchen) to documentaries (Flavorful Origins), to subscription services (MasterClass). All with the idea of learning about cooking from people who have made careers out of being Chefs or great home cooks.

I have collected nine philosophies these Chefs and Cooks have expressed, that I find inspiring. Hopefully, you will too.

1- Have Passion for Food + Cooking

It took nearly all my life to finally realize I was passionate about cooking. It is while cooking I finally found my creative outlet, I forget about my arthritic knees, forget my back hurts, or any other physical or emotional issue, as my focus and intention is on the food that I am creating.

When I think of food and cooking as a “passion”, I think of this strong emotion, reflecting an intense desire or enthusiasm. But also, to many it indicates a willingness to ”suffer” for what you love or love to do. In other words, I am willing to put in the volunteer time at Kitchen on Fire as an apprentice, receive low wages for the classes I do teach, and spend very long hours prepping-teaching-cleaning, all to better learn the craft.

Chef Thomas Keller

In MasterClass, Chef Thomas Keller (The Blue Apron) quotes a French Chef he met early in his career. He had worked at many of his mothers restaurants, and was thinking about his future when a Chef explained that “Cooks cook to nurture people”.

That comment sparked an epiphany, and Chef Keller realized he had a passion in him for cooking. But, to nurture people, he figured out, requires a certain level of awareness of what is around you, that in turn can inspire your cooking.

• By the way, he started his journey as a dishwasher, put in many hours to learn at culinary school and worked as an apprentice.

Chef Gordon Ramsay

In Kitchen Nightmares, Chef Gordon Ramsay clearly has a passion for good, clean cooking. In every episode I have seen so far, he speaks of passion for: fresh local ingredients, clean cooking, and serving good food to customers.

He clearly believes that without passion, a Chef cannot cook good food. The biggest critical question he asks Chefs on that show is, “have you given up, lost your passion for cooking?“ The second thing he highlights is that cleanliness of ones kitchen represents your personal approach to food and how much you care for those who eat your food.

• Chef Ramsay speaks of his early years, learning to cook, being paid low wages, barely getting by, but living for his passion.

Chef Alice Waters

In MasterClass, Chef Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) states she has a passion for good, clean, and fair ingredients, believing that these great ingredients almost cannot help but create great food. So she looks to her own gardens, open food markets, and local sources for the freshest, in season, ingredients for her dishes. She lets the food inspire her dishes, rather than the other way around.

Harvard Business Review quotes her about why she opened her restaurant: …after President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were shot, I just kind of dropped out. I wanted to do something I was passionate about and open a little restaurant and feed my friends the French food I’d fallen in love with when I went to Paris in the early ’60s. In trying to find that food I ended up on the doorstep of the local organic producers. I depended on them, became friends with them, celebrated them.

• As a result of her passion, despite not having formal Culinary education, she started two highly-impactful movements. First, she birthed a movement for fresh, local, in-season, and organic foods. Second, that same passion created the Edible Schoolyards movement. Both have had significant impacts on what we aspire to today.

2- Be Aware, Influenced + Evolve

I am open to all cuisines, I love the variety of flavors, textures, aromas, and feel of the foods from all over the world. I also enjoy trying new foods in restaurants or home kitchens, then trying to make the dishes. In fact, one of the complaints from my spouse is, “Can you please make the same dish sometimes? Why is it always something unexpected.”

How much of my cooking is influenced by imported cuisine and foods? Nearly all of it, because I was raised mainly in Germany, Japan, and the USA, with a German parent — so most of my food preferences comes from a European and Japanese palate. Because of my experiences as a young person, visiting and living in a variety of countries, I have a rather large palate (although I still do not like Nattō) and enjoy cooking where I can explore world-wide flavors.

• But I have to admit I do have a rather large hole —I am totally missing what younger Chefs consider vital, a knowledge of local, native American dishes. I would love to learn about foraging.

Chef Sean Sherman

Chef Sean Sherman (The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen) speaks about Native Foods as being a collection of edible plants that were and are all around us. Foraging the lands in America can bring to light a new appreciation for the foods native to our country, not imported from others; which most of our common-day foods are.

Native meats, fowl and fish include bison, turkeys, salmon and trout. Native plants include squash, acorns, and a variety of edible greens. It would be great to learn about these foods and how best to cook them.

• At the same time, it should be noted that in other countries, like the Yunan region of China, folks do forage for greens, saying they taste better than what they can get in the stores. I believe it is the more urban, modern living arrangements that have separated us from the land around us.

Chef Ashleigh Shanti

Chef Ashleigh Shanti (Benne on Eagle) expands our understanding of American and Southern cuisines. The NYT, in an article in which she is highlighted, writes Black cooks have historically seen their foods and techniques co-opted, getting little credit for their influence on America’s culinary traditions.

• The NYT is right, historically women and people of color have been hidden in our cuisines. We need to change that and evolve to represent our communities and changing populations. Importantly, black Chefs and Cooks are not limited to Southern American cuisine, they have a wealth of history, countries, and family to pull from in creating new dishes.

Chef Nan Bunyasaranand

Chef Nan Bunyasaranand, started cooking by working in restaurants from Bangkok to Berlin. Then attended the Culinary Institute of America, and did post-graduate work with Chef Keller. With such a wide experience, she is now cooking French-American foods, no doubt with Thai sesibilities.

• Chef Bunyasaranand is an example of how each of us can cross boundaries, can represent a variety of cultures and traditions in our foods, can combine and present new flavors and dishes. In a small world such as ours, there is no need to segregate cuisine, when we can learn from so many.

3- Use All Your Senses

Chef Alice Waters describes bringing all of our senses to choosing your ingredients. Does the fruit or veggie smell good? Does it taste fresh or alive? Does it sound right when thumped? Does it look vibrant? She advocates letting the food inspire you and your cooking.

When she cooks it is not a matter of choosing a recipe and then gathering ingredients. She reverses what everyone usually does. She starts by going to the market and finding what looks, smells, tastes, and feels good, and builds her recipes around those ingredients. Interestingly, this matches what the Native American Chefs advocate as well.

• I love when I can touch my food. I love the feel and smell of good looking food, from the red ripe tomato, to the vibrant lemon, to the soft green avocado. I enjoy the smell of fresh rosemary and oregano, or basil after being chopped. I love how broccoli turns a brighter color after blanching. I even appreciate the browning of fried breaded chicken. Cooking nirvana is when my senses are fully engaged.

Chef Olive Said

Chef Olive (Kitchen on Fire) always teaches students what something should sound like while frying or sautéing, what something should smell like when it is done, what it feels like when at the proper level of cooking, and what it should look like. He explains that in a busy kitchen, it is possible to multitask several dishes at a time, when you are fully attentive, using all the senses to gauge how the cooking is going.

4- Both Language + Words Matter

Other Chefs I have worked with have indicated, not quite as directly as I am stating it here, that for a restaurant to name a dish must take as much care as plating it. Words matter and labeling a dish well can lead to an order and customer anticipation for the dish. Or it can cause confusion once the dish is delivered, when what a menu says, is disconnected to what food is delivered.

To me we name cuisines because the food is often tied to the land, its history, its people, and its culture. We can travel to other lands, learn other countries language, history, and cuisine, but cannot fundamentally change their dishes and claim it is the same.

Chef Ramsay, also made clear in one TV segment that the name of a dish can have specific meaning. Irish Stew, for instance, comes from Ireland and uses Irish ingredients, like lamb but not buffalo meat. I took this to mean, that certain foods have cultural meanings and specific ingredients tied to that land, that can be updated or used to inspire other dishes, but cannot be named and fundamentally changed.

Chef Ramsey complained in his shows about, what I term “cute” dish names, that gave no indication of what the food would be. Or foods seemingly named after someone, and when he asked who the person was, finds out it was a gimmick. It seem to surprise him, as I do not believe he appreciates gimmicks in the menu or as names for dishes.

An American Chef

An unnamed, very typically American Chef, has taught me that words, volume, tone also matter when speaking with one another, especially in the high intensity of restaurant or cooking school.

From him I have learned that American English can be very imprecise to non-native speakers; so often I interpret what is being said one way, but it is intended to mean something different. Once he told me not to ”cut through the paper of the butter”, so I unwrapped the top of the paper and cut the butter. I was then loudly corrected for not following his instructions. What the Chef meant to say was, remove the butter completely from the paper wrapping so as to reused the paper whole. These misunderstandings can make teamwork in the kitchen difficult when a Chef throws out a command that ultimately is not understood.

• Important to both cooking schools and restaurants, is that students learn the cooking terms, and what those various cooking techniques mean. So the introductory classes generally cover the basic cooking techniques of braising, steaming, boiling, frying, grilling, baking, etc. The expectation is that when a cook comes into a restaurant, they know what each of the cooking methods are and understand what they entail, what tools are required, what textures and tastes the food will be like, etc. So learning the proper terms and techniques are critical to being able to follow recipies.

5- Respect the Whole Team + Place

Without respect for all the jobs in a kitchen, a restaurant cannot run well. Everyone has a part to play, for success everyone needs to understand their role and play it efficiently. Any kitchen run by a an unreasonable tyrant will loose staff, and have problems as demoralized people do not try hard.

Chef Ramsay, in all of his TV appearances, seems very clear that a well run kitchen starts with a clean kitchen; countertops, floors, pantries, fridges and freezers as well as the stove tops and ovens. An attention to these areas will help assure you are working in a clean place with quality foods. Respecting the team also means cleaning up your work station, keep a clean kitchen, and not expecting the night cleaners to clean up all of your mess.

• But also a restaurant can be destroyed by a rude waiter, a drinking bartender, a poor cleaning crew, a missing dishwasher, a “I do not care” Chef. Everyone doing their jobs matter.

Kitchen on Fire Chef Lev

Chef Lev (Kitchen on Fire) has been consistent, that all workers in the kitchen must be respected for the work they do. This includes the dishwasher whose job can make or break a class, for we have limited dish and cook ware. If things are not cleaned and put back into their places, teaching cannot occur. Everyone in a kitchen has an important part to play, this is a team endeavor. (In a post coming up, I will detail all the jobs in a restaurant kitchen and what they do.)

6- Avoid Palate Fatigue, Mix it Up

Chef Keller warns of customers palate fatigue. He appeared to mean that once a dish is finished by a restaurant customer, he wants the eater to wish there was one more bite of that food. Rather than have so much on their plate, of the same food type, that their palate gets exhausted and they wish the dish was over.

On the other hand, Chef Ramsay speaks of keeping your own palate alive and your passion vibrant by experiencing new foods, new languages, and new cuisines. One way this has manifested itself, given todays shrinking world, is the intermingling of cuisines to create new and tasty dishes.

Chef Nina Compton

2013 Top Chef competitor Chef Nina Compton (Compère Lapin) speaks of learning various traditional European cooking, but she started out cooking Caribbean food with, and for her family. She has learned from and worked for various well known Chefs, all the while learning techniques, cuisines, and dishes to keep her cooking fresh. Her cooking reportedly melds flavors of St. Lucia, France, and Italy.

Chef Eileen Andrade

Chef Eileen Andrade (Finkle Table & Tap), is an example of a new Chef working to mix it all up by creating a gastropub experience with Latin America and Korean cuisine (Cuban bibimbap anyone?). I bet this is a great tasing restaurant to visit, just the idea is intriguing.

7- Cooking Utensils Include Hands

Chef Waters stated that she uses her hands constantly, to taste the food, feeling it to test freshness or doneness, tearing things apart, stripping herbs; she says she uses her hands more than a knife. Cooking this way provides lots of feedback about the food you are handling. This is a sesory engagement with your food as you are prepping or cooking.

For me, eating also includes my hands and is something I enjoy. A family Tagine where you can dip your bread into the stew, meza dishes so you can make your own plate, tacos that we can dish ourselves from great ingredients. This engagement with food makes it more approachable, friendly, and creates a welcoming environment for those round the table.

8- Cooking as Meditation

I find that when I am in the kitchen cooking, I temporarily forget that my arthritic knees hurt, I start to release tension in my shoulders, and I am focused on my task at hand. For that period of time, I am fully living in the moment with all my senses and attention on what I am doing. I believe that this is what Chefs and Cooks slip into when cooking, a meditative long lasting NOW.

Chef Olive always speaks about getting “zen” when he starts to prep. He takes a deep breath, stands using proper posture, lowers his shoulders, relaxes, and starts cutting. Doing this little exercise, helps reduce accidents and muscle fatigue when you have a long, physical day ahead.

Chef Waters seems to find cooking meditative too, but also inspiring and pleasurable; she does not define it as work. At home, it seems that each of her cookware has a story, and thus memories are raised, ingredients are alive and interactive with her senses. To me, it is almost a very romantic-warm, comfy feeling I get from her approach to home cooking.

Chef Keller finds pleasure in the cooking rituals and repetitive, everyday tasks. He seems to pay very detailed focus on the preparation of ingredients through tasting and plating. This focus on a moment of perfect imperfection seems very meditative, practiced, and seems to me that time is changed when he cooks, stress melts away.

9- Composting Is Part of Cooking

Chef Waters is a backyard gardener, and composts as a part of cooking. This does several things, it lets no food go to waste, it reduces landfill, it returns the food to nourish the land, and feeds the wildlife. But from what I could tell, she starts by not buying lots of food, and seems to purchase what she expects to eat over a couple of days.

Chef Olive has set up his cooking school so that composting is part of what all the students are taught. Additionally, when practicing knife skills, he will take the cut veggies and make a veggie broth so the students learn how to use all the food and not just throw them away or compost.

• My philosophy is that no food should go to waste, when so many go hungry.

Salutations

These are some of the philosophies from various Chefs I have learned from, be it on-line or in-person. Their philosophies have common principles and compliment each other in their details, and leads to good food for you and your loved one.

—Patty

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News: Some people, apparantly, are placing pickles in their glass of beer to make it taste “better”. I personally do not plan on testing this one out, but if you try it let me know what happens.

News: Starting 1 August, McDonalds will require all customers to wear a mask for service. Hopefully, they have plans for the “Karen + Kens” of the world.

News: Chipotle’s digital sales exploded 216% during the pandemic, as most restaurant customers prefer carryout, despite many restaurants reopening their dining rooms.