Culinary Chef Quotes

All worries are less with wine.

First,” he said, coming behind me and placing his hands on the counter, just outside of mine, “choose your tomato.” He dipped his head so his mouth was at my ear. His breath was warm, tickling my skin. “Good. Now pick up the knife.” “Does the chef always stand this close?” I asked, not sure if I liked or feared the flutter his closeness caused inside me. “When he’s revealing culinary secrets, yes.

Hunger gives flavour to the food.

Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.

I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical chef or boobish owner.

Having a sous-chef with excellent cooking skills and a criminal mind is one of God's great gifts.

So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here.

And chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don't know what they want to eat.

Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance, as they say in the army - and I always, always want to be ready. Just like Bigfoot.

The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator, somebody with ideas of his own who is going to mess around with the chef's recipes and presentations. Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.

I'm not a purist. Coffee drinking minus cream and sugar is an acquired taste. I'm still not sure it isn't like telling chefs to dispense with spices in cooking.

The food that comes in Tuesday is fresh, the station prep is new, and the chef is well rested after a Sunday or a Monday off. It's the real start of the new week, when you've got the goodwill of the kitchen on your side. Fridays and Saturdays, the food is fresh, but it's busy, so the chef and cooks can't pay as much attention to your food as they — and you — might like.

Great food needed more than chefs; it needed gourmet diners.

But our goal, remember, is to feed around our table the people we love. We’re not chefs or restaurateurs or culinary school graduates, and we shouldn’t try to be. Make it the way the people you love want to eat it.

When aspiring chefs ask me for career advice, I offer a few tips: Cook every single day. Taste everything thoughtfully. Go to the farmers’ market and familiarize yourself with each season’s produce. Read everything Paula Wolfert, James Beard, Marcella Hazan, and Jane Grigson have written about food. Write a letter to your favorite restaurant professing your love and beg for an apprenticeship. Skip culinary school; spend a fraction of the cost of tuition traveling the world instead.

So you want to be a chef? You really, really, really want to be a chef? If you've been working in another line of business, have been accustomed to working eight-to-nine-hour days, weekends and evenings off, holidays with the family, regular sex with your significant other; if you are used to being treated with some modicum of dignity, spoken to and interacted with as a human being, seen as an equal — a sensitive, multidimensional entity with hopes, dreams, aspirations and opinions, the sort of qualities you'd expect of most working persons — then maybe you should reconsider what you'll be facing when you graduate from whatever six-month course put this nonsense in your head to start with.

A three-star Italian chef pal of mine was recently talking about why he — a proud Tuscan who makes his own pasta and sauces from scratch daily and runs one of the best restaurant kitchens in New York — would never be so foolish as to hire any Italians to cook on his line. He greatly prefers Ecuadorians, as many chefs do: 'The Italian guy? You screaming at him in the rush, "Where's that risotto?! Is that fucking risotto ready yet? Gimme that risotto!" . . . and the Italian . . . he's gonna give it to you . . . An Ecuadorian guy? He's gonna just turn his back . . . and stir the risotto and keep cooking it until it's done the way you showed him. That's what I want.

This same gag is used by pastry chefs to swirl chocolate or raspberry sauce through creme anglaise and allows them to charge you another three bucks a plate for two seconds of work that you could easily train a chimp to do. But.

There are divisions between a culinary chef and a dessert chef, also called a pastry chef. At Zomick's are specializations within the pastry chef field. Some pastry chefs specialize in baking breads, while others are master cake designers. Each field requires an exceptional level of creativity and attention to detail.

We are, after all, citizens of the world - a world filled with bacteria, some friendly, some not so friendly. Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonald's? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, Senor Tamale Stand Owner, Sushi-chef-san, Monsieur Bucket-head. What's that feathered game bird, hanging on the porch, getting riper by the day, the body nearly ready to drop off? I want some.

Sensuality is the real soul food.

This book is about street-level cooking and its practitioners. Line cooks are the heroes.

The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong.

As a cook, your station, and its condition, its state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system - and it is profoundly upsetting if another cook or, God forbid, a waiter - disturbs your precisely and carefully laid-out system.

Where Paris was once a magnet for literary minds, today it attracts a huge talent pool of international chefs. And that makes it a more interesting place to eat, even if it’s not what people are expecting.” — MEG ZIMBECK, FOOD WRITER AND FOUNDER OF PARIS BY MOUTH CULINARY TOURS

Cooking class? No. *This* is a culinary arts class. As in, this is about creativity, and heart, and science - an art form. And no artist begins a masterpiece without understanding their tools and their medium. Anyone can teach you how to cook; you can google that. If you want to learn how to make art, stay here" -Chef Ayden

What most people don't get about professional-level cooking is that it is not all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavours and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking - the real business of preparing the food you eat - is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way.

If you’re toasting walnuts, put a walnut in the corner of your cutting board. It really works, I’m telling you.

Food is about community. It’s about the earth and really taking care of the earth.

Be your dogs own personal chef!

You cook with your senses,” he said when someone did something stupid. “And one of those senses is common sense.

a monstrous, despotic, iron-fisted Frenchman who ruled his kitchen like President for Life Idi Amin, it was Chef Bernard.

If you take a shortcut now, you'll be taking them for the rest of your career.

Sensuality is the real food for the soul.

If you have a passion for food then it’s not only your life and your avocation but it’s also your vocation and maybe that’s the lunacy.

I haven't waited to be summoned for my big moment by a tap on the shoulder from a mysterious, benevolent stranger. It doesn't work that way where I'm from. You make your own opportunities where I'm from.

Southern food has been riding a long wave of popularity that has elevated cooking in Southern cities. But it has also led to a formulaic culinary canon laden with house-cured pork products, bespoke grits and lots of food served in Mason jars. The cooks who defined the style were mostly men in tourist-heavy towns like Atlanta, Nashville and Charleston, S.C. Chefs who didn’t cook like that risked losing business.

Who's cooking your food anyway? What strange beasts lurk behind the kitchen doors? You see the chef: he's the guy without the hat, with the clipboard under his arm, maybe his name stitched in Tuscan blue on his starched white chef's coat next to those cotton Chinese buttons. But who's actually cooking your food? Are they young, ambitious culinary school grads, putting in their time on the line until they get their shot at the Big Job? Probably not. If the chef is anything like me, the cooks are a dysfunctional, mercenary lot, fringe-dwellers motivated by money, the peculiar lifestyle of cooking and grim pride. They're probably not even American.

like slicing bread, thick-skinned tomatoes and so on — but on your full line of vegetables, spuds, meat and even fish. My sous-chef uses his for just about everything. F. Dick makes a good one for about twenty-five bucks.

The story of your favorite foods is your culinary memoir, not a nameless collection of recipes. And that story will be part of the bigger story we all tell every time we turn on the gas and put on a pot to boil. It is the story of American food.

The tone of the repartee was familiar, as was the subject matter, a strangely comfortable background music to most of my waking hours over the last two decades or so - and I realised that, my God... I've been listening to the same conversation for twenty-five years!

Torture Cuisine by Stewart Stafford Kitchen death growls, Whipping that cream, Beating those eggs, Burning all the toast. Knifing diced cheese, Drawn, quartered ham, Straining tomato sauce, Crushed-down walnuts. Peeling potatoes naked, Then smashing them up, You say purée, I say mash, Turkey and chicken skewers. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

I don't know what you said to my chef," Rick's voice came from the doorway, "but he's now creating a dessert of some kind in your honor." She grinned. "Just so it's not Jellicoe Jell-O or something." "How charming were you?" "I just asked for a sandwich," she said, licking mayonnaise off her finger and turning a page, "and complimented him on his culinary skills. I'd heard somewhere that his coffee won an award.

To want to own a restaurant can be a strange and terrible affliction. What causes such a destructive urge in so many otherwise sensible people? Why would anyone who has worked hard, saved money, often been successful in other fields, want to pump their hard-earned cash down a hole that statistically, at least, will almost surely prove dry? Why venture into an industry with enormous fixed expenses (...), with a notoriously transient and unstable workforce, and highly perishable inventory of assets? The chances of ever seeing a return on your investment are about one in five. What insidious spongi-form bacteria so riddles the brains of men and women that they stand there on the tracks, watching the lights of the oncoming locomotive, knowing full well it will eventually run over them? After all these years in the business, I still don't know.

There is no chef without a homeland. To be a chef today is to center yourself in the traditions of your roots and use them to define your art and speak to any human being about who you are; your plate is your flag. Many of our most pungent memories are carried through food, just as connections to our ancestors are reaffirmed by cooking the dishes handed down to us. For some chefs, this bond is as easy as pointing to a Tuscan village or a Korean neighborhood, while others adopt the foods of culinary kinfolk outside their own background and use them to express their personal identity. Many take for granted their fast and easy connections to a food narrative that grounds them in a tradition, gives them a broad palette to explore, and affords them a genuine taste of eudaemonia, all of which is the holistic feeling of flourishing in life; and of course it is often blissfully apolitical.

once we wanted to make a cookie with a really concentrated flavor. So, we threw cookies into the dehydrator, and turned them into powder. This created a new building block for flavor. [Instead of the flour you would normally use in your dough,] you weigh the powdered cookies out as your starch in your normal cookie recipe. But this starch is now a carrier of flavor for the end product—so the resulting cookie now tastes more like it “should” than it would have just using regular flour.

back-scratching of liquor licenses, the netherworld of trash removal, linen, grease disposal. And with every dime you've got tied up in your new place, suddenly the drains in your prep kitchen are backing up with raw sewage, pushing hundreds of gallons of impacted crap into your dining room; your coke-addled chef just called that Asian waitress who's working her way through law school a chink, which ensures your presence in court for the next six months; your bartender is giving away the bar to under-age girls from Wantagh, any one of whom could then crash Daddy's Buick into a busload of divinity students, putting your liquor license in peril, to say the least; the Ansel System could go off, shutting down your kitchen in the middle of a ten-thousand-dollar night; there's the ongoing struggle with rodents and cockroaches, any one of which could crawl across the Tina Brown four-top in the middle of the dessert course; you just bought 10,000 dollars-worth of shrimp when the market was low, but the walk-in freezer just went on the fritz and naturally it's a holiday weekend, so good luck getting a service call in time; the dishwasher just walked out after arguing with the busboy, and they need glasses now on table seven; immigration is at the door for a surprise inspection of your kitchen's Green Cards; the produce guy wants a certified check or he's taking back the delivery; you didn't order enough napkins for the weekend — and is that the New York Times reviewer waiting for your hostess to stop flirting and notice her?

You are a shit chef!' he would bellow. 'I make two cook like you in the toilette each morning! You are deezgusting! A shoe-maker! You have destroyed my life!. . . You will never be a chef! You are a disgracel Look! Look at this merde . . . merde . . . merde!' At this point, Bernard would stick his fingers into the offending object and fling bits of it on the floor. 'You dare call this cuisine! This . . . this is grotesque! An abomination! You . . . you should kill yourself from shame!' I had to hand it to the

My favorite of all was still the place on Vermont, the French cafe, La Lyonnaise, that had given me the best onion soup on that night with George and my father. The two owners hailed from France, from Lyon, before the city had boomed into a culinary sibling of Paris. Inside, it had only a few tables, and the waiters served everything out of order, and it had a B rating in the window, and they usually sat me right by the swinging kitchen door, but I didn't care about any of it. There, I ordered chicken Dijon, or beef Bourguignon, or a simple green salad, or a pate sandwich, and when it came to the table, I melted into whatever arrived. I lavished in a forkful of spinach gratin on the side, at how delighted the chef had clearly been over the balance of spinach and cheese, like she was conducting a meeting of spinach and cheese, like a matchmaker who knew they would shortly fall in love. Sure, there were small distractions and preoccupations in it all, but I could find the food in there, the food was the center, and the person making the food was so connected with the food that I could really, for once, enjoy it.

Inarguably, a successful restaurant demands that you live on the premises for the first few years, working seventeen-hour days, with total involvement in every aspect of a complicated, cruel and very fickle trade. You must be fluent in not only Spanish but the Kabbala-like intricacies of health codes, tax law, fire department regulations, environmental protection laws, building code, occupational safety and health regs, fair hiring practices, zoning, insurance, the vagaries and back-alley back-scratching of liquor licenses, the netherworld of trash removal, linen, grease disposal. And with every dime you've got tied up in your new place, suddenly the drains in your prep kitchen are backing up with raw sewage, pushing hundreds of gallons of impacted crap into your dining room; your coke-addled chef just called that Asian waitress who's working her way through law school a chink, which ensures your presence in court for the next six months; your bartender is giving away the bar to under-age girls from Wantagh, any one of whom could then crash Daddy's Buick into a busload of divinity students, putting your liquor license in peril, to say the least; the Ansel System could go off, shutting down your kitchen in the middle of a ten-thousand-dollar night; there's the ongoing struggle with rodents and cockroaches, any one of which could crawl across the Tina Brown four-top in the middle of the dessert course; you just bought 10,000 dollars-worth of shrimp when the market was low, but the walk-in freezer just went on the fritz and naturally it's a holiday weekend, so good luck getting a service call in time; the dishwasher just walked out after arguing with the busboy, and they need glasses now on table seven; immigration is at the door for a surprise inspection of your kitchen's Green Cards; the produce guy wants a certified check or he's taking back the delivery; you didn't order enough napkins for the weekend — and is that the New York Times reviewer waiting for your hostess to stop flirting and notice her?

My passion for cooking grew as my mother taught me how to make her chewy cranberry bread, Dijon mustard vinaigrette, and Nantucket quahog chowder thickened with chopped clams, potatoes, and sweet onions. Then it reached new heights in college when I took a year off to study French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where I learned to master a mean spinach soufflé, make a perfect sauce Bordelaise, and craft authentic shiny chocolate-topped éclairs. When I was hired as the sous-chef at Le Potiron (The Pumpkin), a Parisian restaurant near Les Halles, I used my newfound skills to transform tough cuts of beef into tender stews, improvise with sweetbreads, and bake cakes from memory.

Today's American food culture is a contested landscape in search of values, new direction, and its own indigenous sense of rightness and self-worth. It's a culture looking toward ecology, the regional flow of seasons, and opportunities for new ways to invigorate and color the American palate. Our new foodies are concerned with health, sustainability, environmental integrity, social justice, and the push-pull between global and local economies. Our food world is a charged scene of culinary inquiry continually in search of ancestors, historic precedent, and novel ways to explore tradition while surging forward. The chefs and culinarians of twenty-first-century America have become hungry for an origin story all our own.

A sous-chef with dreams of her own restaurant empire may have mastered the art of classical French sauce making, but not yet have developed the signature cooking style she imagines as the cornerstone of her own chain of restaurants. She gauges her progress not only by whether she is moving toward her aspirations, but also by her improving skills. Our chef may not yet have the stature of Chef Auguste Escoffier or Emeril Lagasse, but she can remember a time when she could not name the five French mother sauces, let alone execute them. She's made progress. Appreciating the skills she has developed is a marker along the path toward her culinary aspirations. The sense of accomplishment that accompanies improved skills is one of the rewards we reap when we dedicate ourselves to mastery.

African red rice is a sacred plant to many of the people who still grow it. It is intimately associated with the ancestors; it was even used to start a revolution in colonial Senegal. According to my friend Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam, “a young, handicapped Jola woman named Aline Sitoe Diatta” had a vision during a drought from the Jola Supreme Being to return to the ancient rituals of their ancestors, and to abandon the broken Asian rice given to them by the French colonial authorities during World War II. It was not enough to grow and cultivate the rice; the Jola were to return to traditional forms of land management and respect for sacred woodlands. Aline Sitoe Diatta met her end in exile in Timbuktu, ultimately dying of starvation. Rice has a long history with culinary justice.

Sensuality is for you, not about you. It’s for you in a sense that you are allowed to indulge all of your senses and taste the goodness of this world and beyond. It’s also for you in a sense that you’re allowed to curate and express yourself in an authentic way (i.e. in the way you dress, communicate, live, love, play, etc.). However, sensuality is not ABOUT you, it’s about those to whom you were brought here to touch and inspire. It’s about the joy and pleasure you’re here to bring. You didn’t come here for yourself nor empty-handed, but you came here bearing special gifts. You were brought here to be a vessel of sensual innovation and a conveyor of heaven’s most deepest pleasures. Your passion is an indication of the sensual gift(s) you were endowed with before you made your grand entry into this world. Your divine mandate now is to exploit every sensual gift you have to the fullest whether it’s music, photography, boudoir or fashion modeling, etc. If you have a love for fashion, always dress impeccably well like my friend Kefilwe Mabote. If you have a love for good food and wine, create culinary experiences the world has never seen before like chef Heston Blumenthal whom I consider as one of the most eminent sensual innovators in the culinary field. Chef Heston has crafted the most sensually innovative culinary experience where each sense has been considered with unparalleled rigour. He believes that eating is a truly multi-sensory experience. This approach has not only led to innovative dishes like the famous bacon and egg ice cream, but also to playing sounds to diners through headphones, and dispersing evocative aromas with dry ice. Chef Heston is indeed a vessel of sensual innovation and a conveyor of heaven’s most deepest pleasures in his own right and field. So, what sensual gift(s) are you here to use? It doesn’t have to be a big thing. For instance, you may be a great home maker. That may be an area where you’re endowed with the most sensual innovative abilities than any other area in your life. You need to occupy and shine your light in that space, no matter how small it seems.

Cendrillon specialized in seafood, so we had four fish stations: one for poaching, one for roasting, one for sautéing, and one for sauce. I was the chef de partie for the latter two, which also included making our restaurant's signature soups. O'Shea planned his menu seasonally- depending on what was available at the market. It was fall, my favorite time of the year, bursting with all the savory ingredients I craved like a culinary hedonist, the ingredients that turned my light on. All those varieties of beautiful squashes and root vegetables- the explosion of colors, the ochre yellows, lush greens, vivid reds, and a kaleidoscope of oranges- were just a few of the ingredients that fueled my cooking fantasies. In the summer, on those hot cooking days and nights in New York with rivulets of thick sweat coating my forehead, I'd fantasize about what we'd create in the fall, closing my eyes and cooking in my head. Soon, the waitstaff would arrive to taste tonight's specials, which would be followed by our family meal. I eyed the board on the wall and licked my lips. The amuse-bouche consisted of a pan-seared foie gras served with caramelized pears; the entrée, a boar carpaccio with eggplant caviar, apples, and ginger; the two plats principaux, a cognac-flambéed seared sea scallop and shrimp plate served with deep-fried goat cheese and garnished with licorice-perfumed fennel leaves, which fell under my responsibility, and the chief's version of a beef Wellington served with a celeriac mash, baby carrots, and thin French green beans.

Everything is relative but there is a standard which must not be deviated from, especially with reference to the basic culinary preparations. A. Escoffier The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery

As the excesses of 'molecular gastronomy' have slowly faded away, like the smell of a particularly pungent fart, a breath of fresh culinary air has swept across the country. I've been passionately interested in food and drink for more than 30 years and writing about it for a decade. In my experience there has never been a more exciting time to eat out in this country.

To become an executive chef, you have to start at the bottom, learn the ropes, know the kitchen, and know the basics. Be okay with having someone constantly telling you what to do. Be a team player. Oh,

Something is simmering wildly throughout the American South. Every time I look around, I see bold new expressions of Southern cuisine waving a proud flag. Every time I look around, I see bold new expressions of Southern cuisine waving a proud flag. And this expression of food has captured people’s attention, because it is the story not only of Southern cuisine, but also of America’s identity. In my short time as a professional chef, I have seen the spotlight pass over every cuisine, from French to Italian to Japanese to Spanish, from nouvelle to comfort to molecular. However, what is happening now in the American South is not part of a trend: It is a culinary movement that is looking inward, not outward, for its inspiration. Every innovation that moves it forward also pulls along with it a memory of something in the past. As Faulkner famously said: "The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

Ramón Zambrano, founder of the SCI program here at Promise—which remains one of the most popular and well-regarded programs in the district—received a full ride to the Sullivan School of Culinary Arts, where he is preparing for a career as a chef. Trey Jackson graduated as the top-scoring senior in the district and now plays basketball at the D1 level, majoring in computer science.

are a lazy, undisciplined and, worst of all, high-maintenance lot, annoyingly opinionated, possessed of egos requiring constant stroking and tune-ups, and, as members of a privileged and wealthy population, unused to the kind of 'disrespect' a busy chef is inclined to dish out. No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American. The Ecuadorian, Mexican, Dominican and Salvadorian cooks I've worked with over the years make most CIA-educated white boys look like clumsy, sniveling little punks.

Hadley Beckett from Nashville, Tennessee, who had a Bachelor of Business Administration degree but had dropped out of culinary school. Lover of fried okra and hot chicken and sweet tea. Henceforth those things wouldn't be used against me as insults. Henceforth other chefs- of the too-big-for their-britches variety- wouldn't look down their noses at me for calling it powdered sugar rather than confectioners sugar.

Had the culinary schools welcomed me with open arms, I suspect a small part of me might have been horrified. It would have given me no pretext to leave.

Where great minds of science failed, Parisian foodie and confectioner Nicolas Appert prevailed. Appert was a “jack of all trades,” according to the Can Manufacturers Institute. He had traversed the gustatory universe as a candy maker, vintner, chef, brewer, pickle maker, and more. His exceptionally wide-ranging culinary wanderings gave him an advantage over scientists who focused on the science of preservation. “Having spent my days in the pantries, the breweries, store-houses, and cellars of Champagne, as well as in the shops, manufactories, and warehouses of confectioners, distillers, and grocers,” he wrote in the aptly titled Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years, “I have been able to avail myself, in my process, of a number of advantages, which the greater number of those persons have not possessed, who have devoted themselves to the art of preserving provisions.

Chefs have a particular system for accomplishing this daunting feat. It’s called mise en place, a culinary philosophy used in restaurants around the world. Developed in France starting in the late 1800s, mise en place is a step-by-step process for producing high-quality food efficiently. Chefs can never afford to stop the whole kitchen just so they can clean up. They learn to keep their workspace clean and organized in the flow of the meals they are preparing.

Global knives, a very good Japanese product which has — in addition to its many other fine qualities — the added attraction of looking really cool. Global makes a lot of knives in different sizes, so what do you need? One chefs knife. This should cut just about anything you might work with,

chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don’t know what they want to eat.

That chef was right: messy station equals messy mind.

Yeah, look at me.” He laughed bitterly. “I’m a line cook, Jake. If I’d gone to culinary school, I could be a chef, I could work in fine dining or open my own restaurant—

You see this?' he'd inquire, raising his palm so that the cook could see the bits of dirt and scraps sticking to his chef's palm, 'That's what the inside of your head looks like now'. Work clean!

To me, nothing showed how much times had changed more than the disappearance of the charlotte au chocolat. (It still appeared at weddings and special events, but was no longer available on the regular menu.) This came about when my mother stopped baking the desserts herself and hired a procession of young pastry chefs. These pastry chefs had gone to culinary school, and apparently they didn't understand charlotte au chocolat. It was an old-fashioned dessert, whose beauty spoke for itself; it didn't need any frills. But the pastry chefs liked embellishing desserts with frills now: star-shaped cookies and chocolate cigarettes and spun sugar that looked like golden spiderwebs. Now, whenever I ordered dessert, I chose from clementine granita with red-wine-poached pears, almond cake trimmed with candied orange rind, or triple-crème cheesecakes, soft and dripping with huckleberry sauce. Charlotte au chocolat was gone.

Having only recently achieved my dream of becoming a chef, I disappeared into the wilderness, feeding on the expiring dreams of a succession of misguided souls — a hungry ghost, yearning for money, and drugs.

Saro, a chef, had always said he married an American, an African American woman, who had the culinary soul of an Italian. In his mind, I was Italian the way all people should be Italian: at the table. Which to him meant appreciating fresh food, forging memories and traditions while passing the bread and imbibing local wine.

That Thanksgiving has evolved over hundreds of years into a national holiday of eating is rather ironic given the quality of Thanksgiving food. Stuffing and roasting a twenty-pound turkey is, without a doubt, the worst possible way to enjoy a game bird. The whole notion of eating a game bird is to savor those subtleties of flavor that elude the domesticated hen. Partridge, pheasant, quail are all birds that can be prepared in various ways to delight the senses; but a corn-fed turkey that’s big enough to serve a gathering of ten or more is virtually impossible to cook with finesse. The breasts will inevitably become as dry as sawdust by the time the rest of the bird has finished cooking. Stuffing only exacerbates this problem by insulating the inner meat from the effects of heat, thus prolonging the damage. The intrinsic challenge of roasting a turkey has led to all manner of culinary abominations. Cooking the bird upside down, a preparation in which the skin becomes a pale, soggy mess. Spatchcocking, in which the bird is drawn and quartered like a heretic. Deep frying! (Heaven help us.) Give me an unstuffed four-pound chicken any day. Toss a slice of lemon, a sprig of rosemary, and a clove of garlic into the empty cavity, roast it at 425° for sixty minutes or until golden brown, and you will have a perfect dinner time and again. The limitations of choosing a twenty-pound turkey as the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal have only been compounded by the inexplicable tradition of having every member of the family contribute a dish. Relatives who should never be allowed to set foot in a kitchen are suddenly walking through your door with some sort of vegetable casserole in which the “secret ingredient” is mayonnaise. And when cousin Betsy arrives with such a mishap in hand, one can take no comfort from thoughts of the future, for once a single person politely compliments the dish, its presence at Thanksgiving will be deemed sacrosanct. Then not even the death of cousin Betsy can save you from it, because as soon as she’s in the grave, her daughter will proudly pick up the baton. Served at an inconvenient hour, prepared by such an army of chefs that half the dishes are overcooked, half are undercooked,

Did You Eat?" In a village quaint and bright, Lived a chef with great delight. Every morn, with break of day, He’d cook his meals, then he’d say “Did you eat?” His voice so clear, Echoed far and echoed near. Neighbors smiled, children played, In his care, their hearts were laid. One fine day, a stranger came, Hungry, tired, seeking fame. “Teach me, chef, your art so fine, I long to make my dishes shine.” With a nod and knowing glance, The chef began the culinary dance. “First, you learn to truly care, For food is love, you must declare.” Days turned weeks, the lessons flew, The stranger learned and friendships grew. But fame and glory filled his mind, Leaving care and love behind. He opened a place, grand and vast, But love for food, a thing of the past. “Did you eat?” He’d never ask, Focused solely on his task. Customers came, then soon they went, For something vital had been spent. Food was fine, but heart was cold, A lesson learned, a tale retold. Back he went, with heavy heart, To the chef who’d played his part. “Teach me now, what I have missed, For love and care, I have dismissed.” The chef then smiled, wise and kind, “To care for others, open your mind. The food you make, with love instill, And hearts you’ll nourish, a void you’ll fill.” “Did you eat?” He asked anew, And in that question, wisdom true. For food with love is more than treat, It’s a bond, a joy, a life complete. So here’s the tale, both light and deep, A lesson strong for all to keep. In every meal, in every greet, Ask with love, “Did you eat?

In a village quaint and bright, Lived a chef with great delight. Every morn, with break of day, He’d cook his meals, then he’d say “Did you eat?” His voice so clear, Echoed far and echoed near. Neighbors smiled, children played, In his care, their hearts were laid. One fine day, a stranger came, Hungry, tired, seeking fame. “Teach me, chef, your art so fine, I long to make my dishes shine.” With a nod and knowing glance, The chef began the culinary dance. “First, you learn to truly care, For food is love, you must declare.” Days turned weeks, the lessons flew, The stranger learned and friendships grew. But fame and glory filled his mind, Leaving care and love behind. He opened a place, grand and vast, But love for food, a thing of the past. “Did you eat?” He’d never ask, Focused solely on his task. DID YOU EAT? Customers came, then soon they went, For something vital had been spent. Food was fine, but heart was cold, A lesson learned, a tale retold. Back he went, with heavy heart, To the chef who’d played his part. “Teach me now, what I have missed, For love and care, I have dismissed.” The chef then smiled, wise and kind, “To care for others, open your mind. The food you make, with love instill, And hearts you’ll nourish, a void you’ll fill.” “Did you eat?” He asked anew, And in that question, wisdom true. For food with love is more than treat, It’s a bond, a joy, a life complete. So here’s the tale, both light and deep, A lesson strong for all to keep. In every meal, in every greet, Ask with love, “Did you eat?

JJ, as a professional chef, defends the ground on which he stands. “ When we were promoting the cuisine of the Cecil, I got into a little argument with one sister. I said our cuisine is the celebration of the food of slaves. She winced. ‘ How can you celebrate the slaves?’ No, I’m not celebrating slavery, I’m celebrating how they survived, and you have to know the source and what happens when people from that background met incoming migrants from Asia. But that’s the part I really need to know. I never made it to the slave castle and that’s why I need to get back. I’m going to learn more about our cooking, the way our ancestral grandmothers cooked because at the end of the day, your goal as a chef is you want to cook like your grandmother.

Cannabis-infused cuisine isn't merely a trend; it's a culinary revolution. Chefs and food enthusiasts are harnessing the diverse properties of this plant to create dishes that tantalize the palate while offering potential health benefits.

Embrace Efficiency, Elevate Flavor: Smart Kitchen Tools for Culinary Adventurers The kitchen, once a realm of necessity, has morphed into a playground of possibility. Gone are the days of clunky appliances and tedious prep work. Enter the age of the smart kitchen tool, a revolution that whispers efficiency and shouts culinary liberation. For the modern gastronome, these tech-infused gadgets are not mere conveniences, but allies in crafting delectable adventures, freeing us to savor the journey as much as the destination. Imagine mornings when your smart coffee maker greets you with the perfect brew, prepped by the whispers of your phone while you dream. Your fridge, stocked like a digital oracle, suggests recipes based on its ever-evolving inventory, and even automatically orders groceries you've run low on. The multi-cooker, your multitasking superhero, whips up a gourmet chili while you conquer emails, and by dinnertime, your smart oven roasts a succulent chicken to golden perfection, its progress monitored remotely as you sip a glass of wine. But efficiency is merely the prologue. Smart kitchen tools unlock a pandora's box of culinary precision. Smart scales, meticulous to the milligram, banish recipe guesswork and ensure perfect balance in every dish. Food processors and blenders, armed with pre-programmed settings and self-cleaning prowess, transform tedious chopping into a mere blip on the culinary radar. And for the aspiring chef, a sous vide machine becomes a magic wand, coaxing impossible tenderness from the toughest cuts of meat. Yet, technology alone is not the recipe for culinary bliss. For those who yearn to paint with flavors, smart kitchen tools are the brushes on their canvas. A connected recipe platform becomes your digital sous chef, guiding you through each step with expert instructions and voice-activated ease. Spice racks, infused with artificial intelligence, suggest unexpected pairings, urging you to venture beyond the familiar. And for the ultimate expression of your inner master chef, a custom knife, forged from heirloom steel and lovingly honed, becomes an extension of your hand, slicing through ingredients with laser focus and lyrical grace. But amidst the symphony of gadgets and apps, let us not forget the heart of the kitchen: the human touch. Smart tools are not meant to replace our intuition but to augment it. They free us from the drudgery, allowing us to focus on the artistry, the love, the joy of creation. Imagine kneading dough, the rhythm of your hands mirroring the gentle whirring of a smart bread machine, then shaping a loaf that holds the warmth of both technology and your own spirit. Or picture yourself plating a dish, using smart portion scales for precision but garnishing with edible flowers chosen simply because they spark joy. This, my friends, is the symphony of the smart kitchen: a harmonious blend of tech and humanity, where efficiency becomes the brushstroke that illuminates the vibrant canvas of culinary passion. Of course, every adventure, even one fueled by smart tools, has its caveats. Interoperability between gadgets can be a tangled web, and data privacy concerns linger like unwanted guests. But these challenges are mere bumps on the culinary road, hurdles to be overcome by informed choices and responsible data management. After all, we wouldn't embark on a mountain trek without checking the weather, would we? So, embrace the smart kitchen, dear foodies! Let technology be your sous chef, your precision tool, your culinary muse. But never forget the magic of your own hands, the wisdom of your palate, and the joy of a meal shared with loved ones. For in the end, it's not about the gadgets, but the memories we create around them, the stories whispered over simmering pots, and the laughter echoing through a kitchen filled with the aroma of possibility.

There is something difficult to describe about how different you feel working under someone who doesn’t have too many other places he’d rather be, who wants you to do well, who is genuinely excited about imparting information, who loves cooking and assumes the same about you, who watches every move you make—not to nail you for an error, but to be sure you’re doing it the best possible way—and who is having a truly good time doing it all. It’s like being given permission to succeed, and you operate fueled by a low, constant ebullience.

What I’d just seen was a philosophy of life in action. Two guys—two kids—who one day decided they would be excellent; who disciplined themselves, learned everything they could, practiced aggressively, and moved their thinking onto a whole other plane.

You can accomplish anything, anything at all, if you set your mind to it. One must adopt a can-do-anything attitude. You were a professional. You didn't say no, not ever. You didn't complain. You didn't get tired. And you showed up, no matter what. You got there. Nothing but nothing kept you from reaching that kitchen. Also, you accepted the implicit obligation of excellence. Every effort would be your absolute best. Otherwise it was simply not worth doing. At the same time, you accepted that your best was never your best and never could be because you could always work faster, cleaner, more efficiently. Many of the changes a formal culinary education wrought were in one's attitude, a kind of tougher-than-thou stance. I'm tougher than you, faster than you, better than you. I'm a chef. I work in inhuman conditions, and I like it that way. I don't have to sleep every day if there's work to be done now, you get the work done. Only got a couple hours' sleep last night, and you've got eighteen more hours of work ahead of you. Good. You like that. You're a chef. You can sleep later.

Chefs strived to entertain guests with their culinary feats, creating such whimsical concoctions as the mythical creature the “cockatryce,” a combination of capon legs and the body of a suckling pig. Robert May, the author of The Accomplisht Cook, amused diners by baking deer-shaped baked dough filled with red wine so it appeared to “bleed” when pierced. He also built a table-size battlefield with dough battleships and tiny dough cannons ignited by real gunpowder and even provided the ladies with eggshells filled with scented water to be thrown on the floor to dispel the scent of the gunpowder. Ring, bells, aloud; burn, bonfires, clear and bright, To entertain great England’s lawful king. KING HENRY VI, PART II, 5.1

It is also clear that structural racism is beating down the black chef. It started with segregation; black chefs in the South were either poorly paid shadow figures (often women) working for all-white establishments, or were locked into their own neighborhoods in Jim Crow. Nashville Hot Chicken wasn't a pan-Nashville dish; it was locked behind the walls of racial separation. Now gentrification, denial of loans to open brick-and-mortar restaurants, and lack of community support are the demons - economic stability utilizing our cultural capital is at stake.

Between culinary school, a year and a half of apprentice stages all over the world in amazing restaurants, ten years as the personal chef of talk show phenom Maria De Costa, and six years as Patrick's culinary slave, I am nothing if not efficient in the kitchen. I grab eggs, butter, chives, a packet of prosciutto, my favorite nonstick skillet. I crack four eggs, whip them quickly with a bit of cold water, and then use my Microplane grater to grate a flurry of butter into them. I heat my pan, add just a tiny bit more butter to coat the bottom, and let it sizzle while I slice two generous slices off the rustic sourdough loaf I have on the counter and drop them in the toaster. I dump the eggs in the pan, stirring constantly over medium-low heat, making sure they cook slowly and stay in fluffy curds. The toast pops, and I put them on a plate, give them a schmear of butter, and lay two whisper-thin slices of prosciutto on top. The eggs are ready, set perfectly; dry but still soft and succulent, and I slide them out of the pan on top of the toast, and quickly mince some chives to confetti on top. A sprinkle of gray fleur de sel sea salt, a quick grinding of grains of paradise, my favorite African pepper, and I hand the plate to Patrick, who rises from the loveseat to receive it, grabs a fork from the rack on my counter, and heads out of my kitchen toward the dining room. Dumpling followed him, tail wagging, like a small furry acolyte.

be used for grilling and poaching, that’s a tremendous advantage. If a student understands sautéing—I mean there are

the coffee had splashed over the rim of the cup and into

To say that Bittersweet Café was her happy place was perhaps an understatement. In the last two years, Rachel had left behind her high-pressure executive chef job and Melody her dead-end position in a chain bakery, then decided to open their dream restaurant together. The way all the details had come together was downright magical; nowhere in Denver's history had a functional café and bakery materialized in under four months. But Ana had no doubt there had been a healthy measure of divine intervention in the situation. She could feel it in the mood and the atmosphere of this place. Light, welcoming, refreshing. It was no wonder they'd quickly developed a devoted following. They were already in the middle of plans to take over the vacant space in the strip mall beside them and expand to meet their ever-growing demand. Ana couldn't be prouder. If she were truthful, she was also a little jealous. She might be good at her job, and she was certainly well paid, but there was an allure to the idea of working with her best friends, being surrounded by delicious food and baked goods. Too bad she had absolutely no culinary talent. Her mom had made sure she could cook rice properly and prepare Filipino dishes like adobong manok and kaldereta, but her skills stopped there. Considering the fat and calorie content of those foods, she'd left her childhood meals behind in favor of an endless stream of grilled chicken or fish over salad.

9 Flags is a multi-cuisine café bistro that introduces a blend of flavours that will tickle your palate. Homemade marinades and sauces drizzled and sizzled on dishes, that will take you on a journey around the world. Perfect flavours blended by hand from the best culinary chefs, an experience you all must try. We see our plates as a canvas with fresh garnish used and the play with textures will keep you mesmerized. 9 Flags will give you a dining experience you will never want to miss.

when the chef starts thinking he's an artist rather than a craftsman.

cantaloupe should have a strong cantaloupe smell. It too should feel heavy, and its “belly button” should be smooth, inverted, and round. The webbing should be raised and distinct, dry, with very little green. A honeydew should feel waxy and tacky, with a little give where it was cut. Tomatoes contain three acids: malic, glutamic, and citric. Dark tomatoes are high in acid; yellow or light tomatoes are lower.

Except for the coconut cake (filled with Meyer lemon curd and glazed with brown sugar), most of the desserts she made for Walter were not her best or most original, but they were exemplars of their kind: portly, solid-citizen desserts, puddings of rice, bread, and noodles-sweets that the Pilgrims and other humble immigrants who had scraped together their prototypes would have bartered in a Mayflower minute for Greenie's blood-orange mousse, pear ice cream, or tiny white-chocolate eclairs. Walter had also commissioned a deep-dish apple pie, a strawberry marble cheesecake, and a layer cake he asked her to create exclusively for him. "Everybody expects one of those, you know, death-by-chocolate things on a menu like mine, but what I want is massacre by chocolate, execution by chocolate- firing squad by chocolate!" he told her. So that very night, after tucking George in bed, Greenie had returned to the kitchen where she made her living, in a basement two blocks from her home, and stayed up till morning to birth a four-layer cake so dense and muscular that even Walter, who could have benched a Shetland pony, dared not lift it with a single hand. It was the sort of dessert that appalled Greenie on principle, but it also embodied a kind of uberprosperity, a transgressive joy, flaunting the potential heft of butter, that Protean substance as wondrous and essential to a pastry chef as fire had been to early man. Walter christened the cake Apocalypse Now; Greenie held her tongue. By itself, this creation doubled the amount of cocoa she ordered from her supplier every month. After it was on his menu for a week, Walter bet her a lobster dinner that before the year was out, Gourmet would request the recipe, putting both of them on a wider culinary map.

Culinary arts. I'm one of those crazy people who dream of being a chef one day.

Home Economics & Civics What ever happened to the two courses that were cornerstone programs of public education? For one, convenience foods made learning how to cook seem irrelevant. Home Economics was also gender driven and seemed to stratify women, even though most well paid chefs are men. Also, being considered a dead-end high school program, in a world that promotes continuing education, it has waned in popularity. With both partners in a marriage working, out of necessity or choice, career-minded couples would rather go to a restaurant or simply micro-burn a frozen pre-prepared food packet. Almost anybody that enjoys the preparation of food can make a career of it by going to a specialty school such as the Culinary Institute of America along the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York. Also, many colleges now have programs that are directed to those that are interested in cooking as a career. However, what about those that are looking to other career paths but still have a need to effectively run a household? Who among us is still concerned with this mundane but necessary avocation that so many of us are involved with? Public Schools should be aware that the basic requirements to being successful in life include how to balance and budget a checking and a savings account. We should all be able to prepare a wholesome, nutritious and delicious meal, make a bed and clean up behind one’s self, not to mention taking care of children that may become a part of the family structure. Now, note that this has absolutely nothing to do with politics and is something that members of all parties can use. Civics is different and is deeply involved in politics and how our government works. However, it doesn’t pick sides…. What it does do is teach young people the basics of our democracy. Teaching how our Country developed out of the fires of a revolution, fought out of necessity because of the imposing tyranny of the British Crown is central. How our “Founding Fathers” formed this union with checks and balances, allowing us to live free, is imperative. Unfortunately not enough young people are sufficiently aware of the sacrifices made, so that we can all live free. During the 1930’s, most people understood and believed it was important that we live in and preserve our democracy. People then understood what Patrick Henry meant when in 1776 he proclaimed “Give me liberty or give me death.” During the 1940’s, we fought a great war against Fascist dictatorships. A total of sixty million people were killed during that war, which amounted to 3% of everyone on the planet. If someone tells us that there is not enough money in the budget, or that Civic courses are not necessary or important, they are effectively undermining our Democracy. Having been born during the great Depression of the 1930’s, and having lived and lost family during World War II, I understand the importance of having Civics taught in our schools. Our country and our way of life are all too valuable to be squandered because of ignorance. Over 90 million eligible voters didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election. This means that 40% of our fellow citizens failed to exercise their right to vote! Perhaps they didn’t understand their duty or how vital their vote is. Perhaps it’s time to reinvigorate what it means to be a patriotic citizen. It’s definitely time to reinstitute some of the basic courses that teach our children how our American way of life works. Or do we have to relive history again?

When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.” And: “Good cooking is no mystery. You don’t need years of culinary training, or rare and costly foodstuffs, or an encyclopedic knowledge of world cuisines. You need only your own five senses.

book Culinary Artistry, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page provide

The following morning dawned clear and cool, and the chef decided to send me to the Rialto to buy pears and Gorgonzola. It was a culinary test, and I was ready. I'd accompanied him on other shopping trips when he instructed me on how to judge pears by scent and color and touch. They must be bought at the absolute peak of ripeness, with no hint of green or bruising. They must be firm, though not hard, and well perfumed, ready to be eaten the same day but overripe the next. The cheese must be dolce, not picante, because it would be served with the pears for dessert. The ripeness of Gorgonzola is more forgiving than pears. Already veined with a pungent mold, it will last a good while, although even molded cheeses have their limits.

I started with a wedge of triple-cream cheese because that seemed like a rich and elegant base that would need little embellishment. I cut a large slice of cheese and stripped off the skin, leaving only the voluptuous center, which I set into a clean bowl. I had noticed that wine went into the best dishes, so I added enough claret to thin the cheese to a mixable consistency. As I beat it together, I watched the pure white turn a murky shade of rose, and the sharp smell of wine overpowered the milky fragrance of cheese. Although such a dramatic change in color and aroma was unexpected, I decided it was not a fatal blow to the plan. The chef had once said that the cornerstones of culinary art were butter and garlic, so I cheerfully whipped in a knob of softened butter and pressed a large clove of garlic. I whisked it all until it was smooth, tested it with a fingertip, and judged it to be not bad. But not bad wasn't good enough for a grand gesture. I stood before the brick oven and pondered what might elevate this concoction from an oddly flavored cheese to something that would make the chef raise his eyebrows with appreciation. The brick oven reminded me of Enrico, who often bragged that his lightly sweetened breads and confections were everyone's favorite. He once said, "Meals are only an excuse to get to the dessert." I wasn't sure that was true, but I had noticed that people usually greeted the dessert course with smiles, even though they had already eaten their fill. Confections always found favor, and so I poured a golden stream of honey into my mélange. After it was well blended, it was rather pretty- smooth and thick, luscious looking, like pudding or custard.

All this is necessary for the sake of that one special woman... ... to whom I will devote the whole of my cooking." "...?" "The First Seat on the Totsuki Institue's Council of Ten... the chef who holds that position is one of the most important people to the future of the culinary world... right?" Ah. For all his annoyance earlier, he looks like he can't feel insulated at that. "Now, who do you think the most important woman is in the culinary world?" "Hm?" "I'm sure you could make a case for many different ladies, but to me there's only one choice... The heir to the Nakiri Family- a family that has commanded the Totsuki Institute for generations... ... and bearer of the Divine Tongue itself... ... Dean Erina Nakiri! If I'm going to make the greatest woman of the culinary world mine... ... then I have to be the greatest man- otherwise I won't be worthy of her. Don't you agree?" "What?! Um! Then you're saying..." "Erina Nakiri... ... will be my bride." "WHAT?!" "I'm just gearing up to start my courtship now, though.