The page contains a set of principles that I use in cooking and eating. The list is, and hopefully always will be a work in progress and under construction.

Freshness First

Freshness is almost an absolute. That Kris and I are highly sensitive to rancid and spoiled scents really helps drive this one, along with the security of quality going into our family's bodies. There is nothing like a fresh locally grown strawberry or raspberry, or a piece of sashimi grade buri or salmon. Food just decays too quickly when shipped, stored, or dried, with some exceptions, of course. For example, intensity can be improved with drying oregano. Aging meat, particularly in this just-in-time world seems to have been lost, and so has tenderness, but I won't sacrifice safety; rather, I'll look for alternative techniques to preparing meat, including rapid aging. Molecular gastronomic techniques are making new approaches available.

Value Per Bud

People tend to use a more dollars than sense approach to dining and drinking. I believe in assessing a wine by $ per bud (taste bud). Is a $1700 bottle of Chateau Margaux 10 times better than a $170 bottle of Chateau Montelena or is that 10 times better than a $17 Beringer? To some, maybe. For me, it's a balance between the greatness of the wine and the need of the meal, but I have a serious problem paying insane amounts of money for something I've never tired before. It's rather like buying a pig in a poke. Drink what you like, not what it costs. I was at a winery in the mid-1980's where some wine was pushed as having  "un future incroyable" . The wine in question tasted like it fortified with extra tannin to make it taste like it was going to be bigger than it really was or what was possible for the varietal. The actual wine sold didn't appear to have this issue. I couldn't verify it, or the country's authorities would have been contacted. That, however, was when the Value per Bud principle was born. It also jaded me towards wine for many years.

The same thing should apply to food. One of the best meals I've ever had was a simple farmed elk cheeseburger with smoked gouda. It cost about $5 per person. I've also had $30 pâté de fois gras that tasted like crap, but looked beautiful. Yuck.

Cost Per Use

When selecting equipment for your kitchen, or even walking through the kitchen toy stores, as yourself one question: "Will I get value for this tool?" One retailer tried to sell me a steam oven. I asked him, how many times and I going to use this a year. He couldn't answer me. I couldn't answer the question either, so the oven wasn't included. Some things you will use a lot, but are still too expensive, like a stone pizza oven. Sure, it'll get used every few days, but you need six hours to bring most of them up to temperature, and they weigh a whole lot so the building structure would need reinforcing. That didn't happen either, but I have hopes for making one outside.

Understand What You're Doing

Blindly following a recipe accomplishes nothing in your development as a chef, whether professional or amateur. You'd end up being only as good as the recipe you're following. For a line chef, this drives consistency, and you don't want to upset the head chef by slipping unexpected changes in at the window. But understanding why a recipe is made a certain way, what the food is doing while you're making it, and how you can change and refine it, can lead to some novel and unique creations. Molecular gastronomy helps here too, in the science of what happens to food. The study of eggs has been of great value to me in improving my game. Knowing when and how various proteins behave and change at specific temperatures has allowed me to develop some better recipes than I can find.

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Last modified: 25-Nov-2008

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