Chefs are artists too

This past Saturday, with my 33rd birthday looming ahead, I started to reminisce on the past year, my accomplishments, new experiences I had, and my cooking. I attempted to do this while sitting in the spa waiting to be called for a beautification procedure. Unfortunately, I was only able to do it for a few minutes when in walked this woman, who apparently wasn’t feeling as reflective. She sneezed and then every two minutes “honked” into her Kleenex. Now I use the word “honk” because I have never heard this sound (or thought it was possible) come from a woman. I could not wait to be called into my appointment. The last thing I was thinking about before her honking tirade began was a movie had seen the night before: Julie & Julia. It was about a young married woman named Julie who sets out to cook all of the recipes in Julia Child’s cookbook: Mastering The Art of French Cooking and write a blog about it. Also in the meantime, you see bits and pieces from the life of Julia Child. I enjoyed the movie immensely. It was based upon two true stories actually. At the end (this is kind of a spoiler, so skip this part if you don’t want to know), a reporter calls Julie and tells her that Julia Child was not thrilled with her blog and asks her if she wanted to comment. The young woman is greatly upset by this. We can only guess at why Julia was not flattered or at the least curious about the blog based upon her cooking. Maybe it was the way that Julie set about cooking Julia’s recipes. Julia describes herself in the movie as being “conventional”. Today we have all kind of gadgest and implements designed to cut our cooking time in half and make things easier for us. It is possible Julia Child frowned on that. Or maybe she just did not subscribe to the train of thought that imitation is a sincere form of flattery. We just don’t know. The young woman had this fantasy and idea in her heart about who she thought Julia was and how she thought that she would respond to her cooking and blogging about her. She had imagined Julia Child finding out about her project, reading her blogs, and cooking for her upon a visit. I thought about the times that I had cooked something, only to find out that someone did not care for it too much, not because it was cooked bad, but just because it wasn’t “their thing”. Cooking, or should I say eating what someone has cooked is subjective, just like art is. You may not like the art work because it is not your taste, but that doesn’t mean it is bad art. For example, you may walk into a house that just undergone a major improvement. The people who lived there chose the colors and scheme to their own taste. Now, you may not like the colors they have chosen, but you appreciate what they have done with it and how everything fits together. So it is that way with cooking as well. People cook and eat according to their tastes. That is the beauty of cooking. If you do not like a particular ingredient in a recipe, substitute something that is to your taste. If you don’t like carrots, well use another vegetable. If you don’t like wine in your recipes, then use chicken stock. I am the kind of cook that likes to do everything by the book. I most comfortable following the recipes to a T.  This made me think about the Filipino recipes I have been trying recently. Since I do tend to follow recipes, I was overwhelmed and frustrated by trying to find the “right” Adobo recipe. There are so many different kinds and in my fear of doing something wrong, hesitated to do it at all. So my goal for this new upcoming year is to cook “outside the box”, and try to be creative in my cooking and in doing so, find the artist within myself.

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