A guy gets contemplative around his birthday, ya know?
Anyway, it's a quiet, cloudy day one the eve of my 33rd birthday, and I'm feeling good about things in general, which is not a regular state for me on or around birthdays. It's been a year of movement, extremes, corners turned, but a positive one on balance, no question.
The other day I stopped by HQ, my old job, to say hello to the people I once worked with and still consider friends. The nearly two years I spent at HQ were responsible for a few of the better and worse moments of my life, but being there in the office again, it all felt completely foreign.
Entering into the culinary arts has definitely changed the way I look at earning a living. Yes, in the sense that I want to work in a kitchen, at least for a while, furious and hot as it is, but also in that I have an honest opportunity, finally, that marries the best parts of my analytical and creative minds. Not to overburden anyone with gooey poetic shit - Food is architecture, food is music, food is science, and all of it must coalesce at a precise moment. Luck, intuition and practiced skill.
I've said it before: this cooking draws me just the way playing music does, and it seems to require the same mind set.
A year ago I was just concocting this plan to go to culinary school, struggling with ideas about the future. Now my anxieties about the future involve more pleasant worries like what kind of a menu I want to offer up at my own restaurant. American comfort food? Rustic French bistro fare? South American? Spanish? A fusion of them all? Who knows?
This is not to say I'm overlooking the obstacles immediately in front of me. There's always money and management looming. There's always resume building, getting the right gig at the right restaurant during my externship - one that allows me greater options down the road. All of these things and their execution are part of the equation at hand, but at the same time so much easier to grasp rationally. There's a definitive line I draw from my station as student to my future that I never allowed myself the luxury of previously.
I'm not the best or most imaginative cook in my class. I am one of them, but not the best. I don't have a desire to reinvent California Cuisine or be the next Charlie Trotter or be on TV. I don't opearte on some hell-bent conviction for being the second coming. I am in it for one plate. One plate that is perfect or as perfect as I can present. A plate of balanced flavors that are completely new, or just my own rendition of a favorite. A plate that my family influenced or my friends influenced, or that reminds me of something or someone.
That said, I am competitive. And more than a bit cocky. And irritable around the stove at times. Thankfully, this is a profession that rubber stamps such behavior as healthy and positive.
Anyway, happy birthday to me.
Anyway, it's a quiet, cloudy day one the eve of my 33rd birthday, and I'm feeling good about things in general, which is not a regular state for me on or around birthdays. It's been a year of movement, extremes, corners turned, but a positive one on balance, no question.
The other day I stopped by HQ, my old job, to say hello to the people I once worked with and still consider friends. The nearly two years I spent at HQ were responsible for a few of the better and worse moments of my life, but being there in the office again, it all felt completely foreign.
Entering into the culinary arts has definitely changed the way I look at earning a living. Yes, in the sense that I want to work in a kitchen, at least for a while, furious and hot as it is, but also in that I have an honest opportunity, finally, that marries the best parts of my analytical and creative minds. Not to overburden anyone with gooey poetic shit - Food is architecture, food is music, food is science, and all of it must coalesce at a precise moment. Luck, intuition and practiced skill.
I've said it before: this cooking draws me just the way playing music does, and it seems to require the same mind set.
A year ago I was just concocting this plan to go to culinary school, struggling with ideas about the future. Now my anxieties about the future involve more pleasant worries like what kind of a menu I want to offer up at my own restaurant. American comfort food? Rustic French bistro fare? South American? Spanish? A fusion of them all? Who knows?
This is not to say I'm overlooking the obstacles immediately in front of me. There's always money and management looming. There's always resume building, getting the right gig at the right restaurant during my externship - one that allows me greater options down the road. All of these things and their execution are part of the equation at hand, but at the same time so much easier to grasp rationally. There's a definitive line I draw from my station as student to my future that I never allowed myself the luxury of previously.
I'm not the best or most imaginative cook in my class. I am one of them, but not the best. I don't have a desire to reinvent California Cuisine or be the next Charlie Trotter or be on TV. I don't opearte on some hell-bent conviction for being the second coming. I am in it for one plate. One plate that is perfect or as perfect as I can present. A plate of balanced flavors that are completely new, or just my own rendition of a favorite. A plate that my family influenced or my friends influenced, or that reminds me of something or someone.
That said, I am competitive. And more than a bit cocky. And irritable around the stove at times. Thankfully, this is a profession that rubber stamps such behavior as healthy and positive.
Anyway, happy birthday to me.
