Sunday, December 9, 2012

Don't take cooking too seriously

That is my advice for today. Don't take cooking too seriously. Unless it's your livelihood, or you have a specific dietary need. I just read here (page 15) one chef who said he doesn't do fusion food, since fusion is confusion. I saw one of my favorite celebrity chefs has his website taglined "for those who take cooking seriously."

Ok. I can see that, much like you must learn grammar and structure before you go writing novels filled with run-on sentences and crazy comma usage, or take figure drawing before heading off into the abstract, you should probably have some basic ground rules for cooking.

But just as important is a sense of adventure, and a readiness to experience food that, y'know what? Might not be perfect. For instance, if you took cooking too seriously, could you see this photo of a fig dessert:

... and think, "holy cow! Someone should put a buffalo chicken salad in a filo cup! Or some sesame chicken, I bet that would be really good!" (note: this fig dessert is in itself a little wild in that it pairs something called 'napping sauce' with blue cheese chunks.) Inspiration baby. I am not a person who feels it is important to work my whole life to make the "perfect" whatever.

(orig. photo of Crissy Cat here)

'Course then you can always go to the opposite extreme. Doc Oz (I won't get into my feelings for him and his show right now; needless to say it would be a bit like asking the Goatmaiden how she feels about sheep...) just sparked some controversy by writing what I feel was a bit of a hamfisted article against organic food in Time magazine. I don't think you should take food too seriously, but you need to take is somewhat seriously.