Why Notice!
I’ve often heard from people who know me as a chef that they themselves have no aptitude for cooking. They might love food but struggle to cook without a recipe. This newsletter delves into what cooking is all about. It focuses on cooking as a creative pursuit and aims to inspire you to make imaginative food without a formula. It’s about freeing yourself from strict observance of measures and means and someone else’s road map. It’s about striking out on your own. As with a piece of writing that reflects an authentic voice or music played by ear, cooking is a process that can eventually come from within you. But how? Cooking comprises much more than assembling ingredients, heating, or seasoning them cold. Cooking is its own language that draws upon all the senses, the tasty hunch, and the stored knowledge of what you tried before that succeeded or fell short. It summons the memories of what you’ve eaten, recalls tastes and travels and tables and the moments when you were transported by food. Most of all, it is driven by the delighted interest you take in making food rather than what you feel obliged to cook. This way of cooking is not a speedy means to put dinner on the table. It’s about taking time and enjoying the process.
This newsletter is addressed as much to the interested novice as the professional chef. Beginning where you are demands no capabilities other than those you were born with—awareness and appetite. What you’ll find in this newsletter are ongoing examples of what captured my interest and fueled my imagination. It’s a look into how I go about this process of making food from scratch. You will also find a tab called Top Shelf, a lead into exceptional food and drink products—both my latest discoveries and lesser-known tried and true picks that stand apart from others in their category.
Notice! also documents inspiration drawn from my backyard garden where I have something to eat growing in every season. Cultivating a garden makes you wait for what is best, which is to say, what is most vibrant and brings with it a sense of reward and fulfillment. It’s a process with a beginning and a middle that ends on your plate. Wendell Berry said, “One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener’s own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race.” Waiting and watching food grow is a form of companionship. Where I intercede and where nature takes over is always surprising, sometimes disappointing, and constantly educational.
You may decide to try on some of the ideas you find in this newsletter. I intend to aid you in the process of thinking about food and what to do with it. You won’t find recipes in the standard format with cups and measures. Instead, you’ll find “blueprints” that provide a structure that you fill with your own creative process. Ultimately you will be most satisfied if you inhabit what you are doing. It starts with the simple act of noticing.
