salt etc.

i’m still awake; i’m still happy

some people go to college and meet someone and graduate and get a job with benefits and they only work 40 or 50 hours a week. they marry that person from college and procreate in a responsible fashion. they play golf on the weekends and coach their kids’ baseball teams. they save money and go to disney world. they have pizza night; they host sleep overs. they go out for easter brunch and their christmases are always pleasant, never rushed. they plan for their children’s college funds. they have nice, unblemished arms and don’t drink too much. they are in bed at a reasonable time each night. they get to see games and read books and watch letterman before they go to bed. they have gym memberships, but still have a pooch from the surfeit they have created. they have well-trained dogs; golden retrievers who shed as an assumed sign of their affection. they go camping and play badminton. they eat grilled cheese and tomato soup as a snack on cold days because it’s cute. 

i am not one of these people. 

i am a person who makes sure that these people eat well.

this is not my misfortune, as some of these people might assume.

this is my pleasure.

gastro paper re: alfalfa deregulation

In today’s culinary world, it is critical that professionals respond to their guests’ growing desire for local, organic, and sustainable products. With last week’s approval of unmoderated cultivation of genetically modified (GMO) alfalfa, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has just made that responsibility much more difficult. Overarching organics standards restrict GMOs. Alfalfa is a huge food source for America’s cattle, so the result could be a dearth of organic beef and dairy. The GMO alfalfa is synthetically designed to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup produced by Monsanto, the same company that has engineered the GMO alfalfa. Several options for scaled back regulation were on the table, but the USDA instead chose the route of no oversight at all in the planting of the GMO crop. For the consumer, it means a lack of product. Being unable to find organic milk or beef is a frustration borne out of an inability to purchase products in line with one’s health and moral concerns. For the professional chef, on the other hand, this is a major blow to his ability to bring in customers who have these widely held interests. Anytime a chef is unable to procure ingredients that are desired by his guests, he loses money. In this case, he also loses prestige previously buttressed by his ability to provide continuity with lifestyle choices of his “organivore” customers. Our government makes many choices about our food, and all we can hope is that those choices are made to protect us from foods that are likely to cause us harm. In this case, there is probably no defensible claim that unregulated GMO alfalfa is actually a good thing for the consumer, and this brings in another important responsibility of the contemporary professional chef: advocacy. As culinary professionals, we have purchasing and educational powers. We have the ability to spend our establishments’ dollars where we choose, and we have the responsibility to explain to our customers why we choose to spend our money with certain vendors over others. This is a case where, as organic beef and dairy become more scarce and therefore more expensive, we have to explain to our customers not only why our prices go up, but also how we are fighting to make a difference through our purchasing power. We need not preach, but as professionals in this industry, we are connected to food sourcing every day. We are more knowledgeable about the issues that face our foodsystems than most of the general population, so we must work to spread the word that we all have something to give to the cause of safe and good food. 

i needed to write something

i like facts. tidbits of information. i’m a fact hoarder. i’m not sure when i’ll need to use them, but i’ll keep them around all the same. what i’m still trying to figure out is if i’m smart. how creative am i? can i translate pure knowledge into constructive action? these are the facts that i really want to know. in today’s culinary world, the line between dinosaur and visionary can be quite thin. techniques and ingredients that were hot last year are old news today. one reason the proliferation of knowledge in this industry is incredibly rapid is because someone else’s innovation is not trademarked and can be appropriated within hours of learning of the new item. this is an industry rife with plagiarism. i’m not talking about cooks reinterpreting classical cuisine. i’m talking about chef x and bistro x in name your city, usa looking up an item on le bernardin’s menu and trying to replicate it—and for way cheaper. it happens, and it’s a hollow victory that is won on the coattails of another person, so i’m asking myself every day: do i have what it takes to be competitively creative in this industry?

it’s an important question for me. there are probably tons of students at cia who are ready, willing, and excited about doing classical american and french cooking. i’m happy about that. i want to eat that food, but i don’t necessarily want to cook it day in and day out. i’m here because i’m trying to see something new. i want to be around creation, not replication. i’m fascinated by the birth of art. chef thomas keller tells that story of his legendary “oyster and pearls” dish in the french laundry cookbook. he was in the grocery store and saw tapioca pearls, and a-ha!, the ball was rolling on a signature dish from the man who is the godfather of the contemporary american culinary scene. how do we recognize inspiration? how do we harness it?

i don’t know the answers to these questions, but i’m making progress: i’m asking the questions. i recognize my ignorance. i’m seeking out the people who know, who have made themselves incubators of genius and maestros of the abstract. every day these people find new ways to turn the old into the new, the intangible into the edible. they see the grandiose where the rest see the mundane. this takes a focused open-mindedness, a curiosity. maybe my greed for facts is a vanity, but my curiosity is a virtue. my desire to create and to see beauty is affirmative. an intellect guided by hubris is always smothered by a curiosity guided by humility.