The Challenge to be Better.

Every Chef gets the question at least once,…a month: What’s your favorite thing to cook? To the day, I’m always at a loss for words. Though I brandish my most diplomatic face and go into some suedo intellectual rant about not being pigeonholed, exploration, blah, blah, blah, beneath the veneer burns a few reciprocal questions: Would you dare ask a painter of his favorite one picture to paint? Or an architect his favorite one building to manifest. You see, while the technique is almost always applicable, the joy with any great artist is in rediscovering and challenging one’s ability to the beyond. But to earnestly answer the question, my favorite thing to cook, is food.

Sometimes something enters your life so profoundly and changes you forever: a child, a pet, a great bottle of wine. For me, it was the moment I realized the endless possibilities of food. Not only is it the skilled choreography that is bringing a culinary idea to life. Nor is it simply the melding of spices, products and protein to become a masterpiece of consumption. But too, it’s the universal ability that food has in bringing people together to love, express, share ideas, laugh and well, just be.

For the concept alone, I’ve navigated my way through Philadelphia’s 9th Street Italian Market, hurried shoppers bumping against me, us all in search of finest sea bass or scallops, salmon, duck or tuna. Years later, it was New York’s Chinatown that captivated me with it’s activity of fish sailing through the air (tossed by the markets men), buyers, barterers and early morning onlookers. Today, that very concept, even greater it’s lure and is akin to a melody wafting from a magic pipe, beckoning, imploring me to meticulously scour row upon row of the freshest produce at Los Angeles’ farmer’s markets.

And as I look beyond the movement of people, in search of exotic fruits, fine vegetables, pea tendrils and the like, there’s something else there that I keep an eye peeled for: inspiration!

I palm and smell the fruit, begging it to reveal to me what it would like to be- come. Or while bagging the sexiest of all of the chanterelles, I consider them at their finest hour, all dressed up in demi glace. And
with the same level of passion and angst I think about my diners and what it is I desire their experience to be. Before it happens, I imagine the emo- tion and, if all goes accordingly, the joy of each morsel— each well planned bite.

It goes without saying that one of favorite things about cooking is the crea- tivity. I love everything about it: the thoughtfulness and consideration, the inspiration, the ingredients and the smell of the menu coming together. But one aspect of this process that sometimes moves me to emotion is the chal- lenge to be better than the last dish.

Long before this became my thing or a career, I'd subscribed to the belief that your presentation should be the voice when there are no words. There’s such magnificence and care that’s shared when you’ve taken a specific amount of effort to pull something together. Whether it’s an extra arch of a brow, matching lingerie for the significant other, the perfect shade of red lipstick or a heel just high enough that he notices your sexy but still feels empowered to guide. For me, this attention to detail is found in the flavor and presentation of food: A grand symphony of piquancy placed with the deft hand of an art- ist. I would hope, that for whomever encounters my food or dines with me at a dinner party, you get the undeniable sense that this attention to detail means, in all of it’s simplicity, I care deeply about your ex- perience: and thus, about you.

It is there that I find the best me. In that place of thinking in fast forward about being better than the last time and always putting the client, the guest, my family and friends first, I find the best part of myself being claimed and shared. In that place of forward thinking, beyond what we are right now, I believe that we can all put forth our best selves. Because when all is said and done, what’s there on the plate, on that day, is the best that I’ve got!