Part of what I do all day in this office is read. A lot. I read something, which leads me to something else, and then I decide that I need to become an expert in some arcane field of research so I ask my grad student friends to order books through the inter-library loan for me, and then I read more and more and more.
I suddenly understand why it takes some people twenty years to finish their Ph.D.s I mean, I couldn't possibly write even a sentence on how people learn and become proficient in a skill without first consulting The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (only 899 pages), right? (If you're curious, that's the paper on which Malcolm Gladwell based his 10,000 hour rule.) Shoot me now.
Anyway, in all of this reading, I'm coming across some really lovely thoughts on food and cooking. I've been recording them on sheets of butcher paper I've hung on the walls and stuck to my desktop, but I keep wanting to share them with you, and also to type them up and have them somewhere so I can refer to them. So I think I'm going to start posting them here from time to time.
I hope they inspire and teach you as they have done for me.
Recipes do not make food taste good; people do.
--Judy Rodgers, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
Experience is a good predictor of how you'll need to season and adjust food, but it is no substitute for vigilant tasting. --Judy Rodgers, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
This is not a manual of cookery, but a book about enjoying food....Anyone who loves to eat, can soon learn to cook well.
--Jane Grigson, Good Things
No amount of cooking skill in the kitchen can produce a fine meal on the table, unless it is preceded by selective skill in the market.
--Roy Andries de Groot, Feasts for All Seasons
p.s. I actually only have to read two short chapters in the big book. I'm not that insane.
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