The Reason

When Shelle asked me why I didn’t interact much at last Sunday’s barbecue and I answered that I was just doing my job and getting the food ready, it may have sounded odd.

I can’t even hope to be in the same class, but in his new book “Les Halles Cookbook“, Anthony Bourdain sums it up so very well in the final paragraphs of the introductory chapter:

Hopefully it’s love for the people you’re cooking for, because the greatest and most memorable meals are as much about who you ate with as well as what you ate. But love for what you’re doing, and for the ingredients you’re doing it with, will more than suffice. I suggested once to a maniacal barbecue professional chef that cooking well was not a profession, it was a calling. He laughed and went further: “It’s an illness.” I knew just what he meant. You must like cooking for other people, even is you neither know nor like them. You must enjoy the fact that you are nourishing them, pleasing them, giving the best you’ve got.

You must ultimately respect your ingredients, however lowly they might be. Just as you must respect your guests, however witless and unappreciative they might be. Ultimately, you are cooking for yourself.

Hear, hear!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 29th, 2005 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.