you, I’m just a normal home cook—not a noteworthy chef
redefining the face of gastronomy—I notice things most cooks and
chefs do and take for granted. And I’ve distilled it all for you in
these pages.
I’ve cooked with chefs from a wide variety of cultural
backgrounds (French, Jamaican, and Chinese, to name a few), with
varying degrees of experience (from young chefs to chefs in their
sixties), and who cook for unusual reasons (like Brandon Pettit,
who gave up a career in music to make pizza).
Some of the chefs use old-fashioned cooking gear (food mills,
copper bowls); others use more futuristic devices (immersion
circulators, Cryovac sealers). Some chefs have ingredients
delivered to their restaurants; others grow the produce that they
use themselves. Some chefs work hard to make everything new
(carrots cooked in hay stock, corn soup with a coconut dome made
with liquid nitrogen); others work hard to properly execute and
improve upon classic dishes (potato gnocchi, pasta fagioli, chicken
liver mousse).
In all these cases, one thing is very clear: all of these cooks and
chefs who are so notable for their food are also notable for their
personalities. I was surprised to discover that it’s a strong sense of
self more than anything else that allows you to make extraordinary
food at home. To put it simply: if you make the food that you like
to eat, you’ll make food that others like to eat. You just have to
trust that the food that you like to eat is food worth eating.
To become a great cook, you have to tap into the part of you