over gets shoved into the fridge. Great chefs and home cooks go to
the market and buy what’s beautiful and in season. Then—and
here’s the kicker—they display what they buy in baskets or bowls
so that this food not only serves to make their homes beautiful
(baskets full of radishes and turnips, bowls spilling over with
Meyer lemons), it serves as inspiration for cooking. Applying this
to your own life, keep a basket on your kitchen counter and fill it
with whatever you find at the market (purple potatoes, Bosc
pears, parsnips, and apples in winter; heirloom tomatoes, chilies,
squash, and corn in the summer), and use it to inspire what you
cook.03 If it looks good before you cook it, it will taste good after
you cook it.
So many times while I was writing this book, chefs would
assemble something that they were about to roast in the oven or
steam in a steamer and I’d say, “That already looks good.” It’s not
an accident. Food should look good at every stage, and if it doesn’t
look appetizing before you cook it, you may want to rethink what
you’re making.04 Use your internal timer.
Chefs were often amused as we cooked together because I’d
nervously remind them that they had something in the oven. I’d
fret when a timer wasn’t set. But all good chefs have a well-
developed sense of everything that is happening in the kitchen at