#42 - 24 February 2009 - "The Business of Cooking"

I cook and I teach.

Currently, I cook for clients and guests in private venues - homes with incredible kitchens and great wine cellars and large living spaces. I teach at The International Culinary School at The Art Institute of Colorado. Most recently, in the past year, I have taught introductory classes in Baking and Pastry, Skills, Cost Control, Cooking Concepts and Art Culinaire (weekly lectures, hands-on production and presentation of contemporary chefs in our society that have made a difference). In the past I have cooked for city and country restaurants, French-influenced bistros, large hotels, small inns, country clubs, culinary school restaurants, corporate cafeterias, private homes, in goat-dairy fields, in the mountains, at lakes and beaches, for catering companies and pizza houses and on, and on, and on. How many meals has it been since 1974...? I actually tried counting them years ago. However, it doesn't matter about the number. What matters is why do I cook? Once again, what is "The Need to Feed"...

Cooking is about emotions. It is the apotheosis of our basic need to eat and survive, of sharing our emotions and our passions. Cooking is a time-honored and timeless activity that we engage in for a variety of reasons. I've always wanted to get a response in everything I do. My time in the theatre was about the response from an audience; raucous laughter, thunderous applause, intimate exposure of our psyche, a cleansing cry, a tenuous gasp. These are all basic human emotions. Performing as an athlete was about the physical test of a game and its particular rules and the head-to-head combat against another person or team trained to compete at their own highest level. As a student it was much the same game - playing by a set of rules within a discipline to see how much I could understand and relate the teachings and studies of others who had come before me. When we cook we are connected to the past and exist in the moment. The interplay of other "teammates" within a theatre-like "stage" encompasses all that I find exciting and necessary for me to live my life to the fullest. Teaching all of this is a different battle...

I have cooked innumerable thousands of meals in dozens of venues with hundreds of other cooks and chefs. The days have rolled by and now I am one of the "old guard". My food is entrenched in the old vocabulary but exists in a contemporary venue and stretches into the cutting edge of our discipline. I cook to gain a response from the diner. Great food has a soul all its own. When it is right it empowers every response imaginable. Sometimes the innate simplicity is perfection. Often the intense preparation over days belies the result on a plate and the diner may not understand all that went into what has been placed before them. The tortured way that some food is shaped and reshaped into unknown forms is still craft - some appreciate that and others do not. That is one of the beautiful aspects of what we do. There are rules to be followed and rules to be broken.
There are venues of haute cuisine and joints for burgers and grinders. There are savory, sweet, umami, bitter and sour responses to what we do. Sometimes it is just a smile that we see in appreciation of our efforts. The exclamations of pure enjoyment can push us to new experimentations and brings us back to the kitchen in a forever of tomorrows.

The insanity of the kitchen can be an element of excitement or dismayal. I prefer the gracious attitudes of teamwork and discipline as opposed to the yells and screams of out-of-control restaurant demons. I've existed in both theatres and may even have displayed the actions of both...maybe. I get a wicked rush from cooking "La Grande Cuisine" to rock and roll music...Bruce Springsteen, Steve Winwood, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, etc. That is a dichotomy that I find is at the nature of my being - I love contrasting elements in life as in food; tastes, textures, colors and styles. Too often we do not see the responses of our guests - save for the events that are cooked in private homes or when a restaurant guest hunts down the chef and staff either by visiting the kitchen or beckoning them to their dining table. It is then, when you can see the smiles, hear the chatter, feel the love, and receive the ovation that all seems right in my world. That is my "Need to Feed..." Peace.

~R