Every ingredient must audition for the plate. Every technique must audition for its use in a recipe. And we must be tough critics in the selection process. In order to create a great dish, we must push ourselves to be exhaustive in our analysis and absolute in our selections.
Adaptations
It takes time to concentrate flavors.
Cupcakes: a micro bakery
Wonder
The adjacent process
Do we have to understand to appreciate? And do you have to appreciate to understand?
You can’t teach a new dog old tricks.
Why does this dish need X?
Amazing what we will try in a game when in life we will not.
Flavor Foundation
Great flavors remain great.
What we want is not what we need.
Form Creates Function
We like what we know.
If it ain’t broke, break it!
The failing process is not fun, it is necessary.
Discovery is blind.
No one wants to wake up and say, “Boy I hope I fail today.”
Tripping over words slows down the process.
I love how clam chowder is yet another example of pork and clams.
There is no reason why you cannot create anything.
My plan is not to plan.
We don’t always know what we’ve discovered.
The questions we ask change the way we think.
A wall is a moment to pause and catch your breath and figure out how to use it.
Commit to being great.
Interested in understanding the wonder of the ordinary.
We look to the read option in the kitchen.
Disheveled elegance
The different is not better and vice-versa.
Playing Better than Ever
Interaction of Flavor
Try it first, then tell me if it works or not.
If removing water concentrates flavor, why are we constantly cooking ingredients in water?
Gaining pleasure through discovery.
Transparency in Delivery
Thinking through the steps.
You Can’t Fake Timing
“The key is trying to win games while getting on the same page.”—Peyton Manning
You need to create to be creative.
Does Practical Matter?
You can’t chase what you don’t know.
Craft and Purpose
Capture, organize, share/connect.
Your notebook is only as good as what you put in it.
Old isn’t new, it’s just unknown.
Simplify the problem to its root cause.
What are your building blocks?
Looking for Elevation
“You Just Have to Taste Things.”
“Clean up the minor details! That’s how you get great.” —Bruce Arians
Passionate about the minutiae.
Darkness and a pound of bacon
Trying to prove yourself.
Capture, create, collaborate.
Got breadcrumbs?
The need for individual flavors.
We create our own resources.
Leave out the parts that people skip.
Stay out of the way (rather appear to have done nothing).
Amazing how we like challenges.
The gift of discovery.
We don’t see the instructions right in front of us.
Are You Chicken Enough?
An excuse to cook.
Cooking delicious food is not a style.
Make waves where it matters.
Handle it like it’s a work of art.
Act like you’ve been there before.
The other of invention
A restaurant is a combination of technical elegance and a lot of emotion. —Michael Anthony
(How to) organize experience?
“Working tirelessly and relentlessly on my craft to unearth the diamond to be. The preparation determines the outcome. BTM.” (The Colts’ motto this season: Building The Monster). —Daniel Adongo
Inspired by technique
Interesting how our first response is to add our own opinion/thought/twist/suggestion rather than listening, absorbing, and contemplating.
The results can change the direction.
Explore the delicate nature of food.
Go to where the color is.
A need to get it right.
You search, you break, you rebuild.
Openness and Rejection
I’m okay building sentences like thoughts, piece by piece.
About Space and Light
The right angles are essential.
We are often blinded by expectations and miss the genius in front of us.
Is it better to create or improve?
Ingredient Sampling
Improving the Platform
At one point there was no authentic pizza.
It’s not about the answers. It’s about the directions we are going.
If you’re gonna cook, cook.
Ideas in Food Bank
If you smell something burning, it is (did).
An Idea Club
You need to read the lines for the information, not between them.
“It’s not what I was expecting” seems to be our calling card.
We make lists so we can cross things off.
Eliminating something is evolving.
Not really sold on the line “It’s just what we do.”
It is the work of others that makes us better.
Amazed at what is supposed to be straightforward and what is deemed complex-worthy.
Authenticity and originality are two enormous roadblocks.
Keeping it all in the family.
Putting pieces together
Make it a star
What else can we actually do?
Look for the idea inside.
Always a race to the starting line.
As good as an idea is, you must always be ready to throw it away.
If you’re not looking to learn, what are you doing?
I’m distracted by distractions.
Basic is not easy. Simple is not fast.
An openness to anything, not everything.
The day doesn’t matter.
You have to be happy with your own style.
We tell stories to share experiences.
2 things to know when you are in charge: know it, and be willing to delegate.
Curate, edit, choose your sources carefully.
We learn through the process.
When everyone does the same thing we become bored.
The subject is the canvas.
It’s not just where you look, but how you look.
Algorithm-based discovery misses some of the point of searching.
Improving the workspace
You can’t bottle connections.
Making it complicated is easy.
We fill the space we are given. How not to do so.
We all have obstacles, it’s how we face them that matters.
Connecting disparate: ingredients, ideas, methods.
It’s strange seeing leaders follow.
Chasing greatness
Take the time to make the modifications.
The difference between classic and dated.
A story is only as good as its connections/transitions.
The same results may be achieved with different processes.
Cost Controls Choices
People want to hear the stories that haven’t been told.
“If you teach the concepts well, the players will understand it. Once they know the concepts, then it’s easy for them to execute. It looks complicated, but it really isn’t.” —Rex Ryan
Why is the voice of reason so unreasonable?
A willingness and openness to destroying an ingredient.
No ingredient or form of an ingredient is sacred, look at all the possibilities.
“Cooking is based on common sense,” she used to say. “Don’t use unnecessary ingredients, don’t cover up flavor with spices, it is just as important to leave something out as it is to put something in.” —Marcella Hazan
It is very difficult to create without a purpose. I’d say impossible.
Oftentimes obstacles are not walls, they’re white picket fences.
I’m all for doing it wrong as long as it gets me to right (the end justifies the means?)
Start with a model, then break it.
The juxtaposition of flavors, textures, ideas, and techniques is easily overlooked.
“The act of going beyond the obvious is where innovation lies.” —Seth Godin
If you’re gonna change the world, might as well change it chef.
Creating is fun.
What are you willing to do, and why are you willing to do it?
Limitations are opportunities.
The Artist Outside
Searching to connect it all.
I have to make it really complicated before I can simplify it.
Looked at for inspiration, overlooked for accolades.
Get the words down.
The first level of why is relatively easy. It’s when you dive deeper that the why’s become more difficult to explain.
Apparently, science is like salt; most observers use it to season to taste. In actuality, it is best served as a calculated ratio.
Cooks adore challenges.
If you could’ve done that, why didn’t you?
My creative zeal is fighting with my practical sensibilities.
If you are trying to do your own thing, realize you’re going to need a lot of help; isn’t it ironic?
You have to ask the questions.
If you worked in other kitchens you are not self-taught.
Create the dish, develop the sauce.
Google doesn’t have the answers, it just helps you sort through the possibilities.
There is always a punch line.
Flourize anything.
Changing form changes function.
We can make everything from anything. The fun part is making something from (almost) nothing.
If you’re looking for a pat on the back, start by learning how to stretch your arm.
Connecting curiosity.
If you can find a flaw, then you can find a solution.
Those that want to improve learn how.
You either get it or you don’t.
Tradition is a starting point.
We are here to change the world, not to win awards.
We can have good ideas and good flavors; greatness comes when we may combine the two.
Forward is only a direction, not the right one.
Classic versus dated
Quicken the mind
Opportunity in repetition
Discovery for the first time
Delight in discovery
Sameness sucks
Someone else is always going to do what you are doing, the difference is you.
See breakthroughs.
Ideas flourish in the fringe.
The importance of a lesson plan.
Culturing creativity
If you connect all the dots, you get a completely full page instead of blank. Need to know what to connect and what not to.
It’s not about changing the way you think, it’s about being open to the possibilities.
A continued driving force is a need/desire to utilize everything in an ingredient.
Mess things up.
Those that want to improve learn how.
We need fewer how-to books and more do books.
If you can find a flaw, then you can find a solution.
Share what you know and learn.
We are able to create more when we look at less.
Combine the best of what you know with the best of what you like.
You either get it or you don’t until you step back.
Be your own benchmark.
In what way is this idea smart?
Ignore boundaries.
Look beyond boundaries for ideas.
We don’t need breathing room, we need to get in better shape.
Know-how, intuition, and creativity
Create interesting.
We learn by doing.
It should read, “Don’t tell me I’m wrong, show me why and teach me how to improve.”
Interesting how chefs go to learn grandmother’s secrets and home cooks look to chefs for secrets.
You get squashed in the middle.
Get the ideas down first, then move them around into the order you like.
There is no solid ground, just levels of balance.
It is a rare day when we have the opportunity to support the creative vision of another.
Those who want to know figure out how to learn.
Teaching old recipes new tricks.
The first lemming was brave, the second one stupid.
It’s not that every day is a big idea, it’s that every day there is an idea that contributes to the big ideas.
Use your own skills on yourself.
Begin by working with ingredients on the most basic level.
In creating complexities, we miss the simplicity.
Don’t tell me why I’m wrong, teach me how to improve.
There has to be a want in order to achieve.
Making your own difference.
If you’ve done it, do it better.
Creating a creative comparison.
Connections.
The sources of inspiration.
“What’s important now?”
Cooking wasn’t created, it was observed.
Connecting observations.
Excellent isn’t perfect.
You can only be where you are.
Inspiration takes you down paths you wouldn’t have seen before.
Incremental improvements and mess with it.
Asking the right questions.
Challenge traditions.
What will we cook up next?
Explore everyday ideas, tear apart and build back together.
When you move obstructions, it’s amazing what you can see.
Nothing is designed with the cleanup in mind.
The trick is knowing when to go back to the drawing board, and when to use someone else’s idea. —Hugh Macleod
All traditions were once progressive.
Quiet refinement
Celebrating the ordinary
Keeping it all in the family.
“I think it’s important that we learn how to draw and to make something and to do it directly,” he says, “to understand the properties you’re working with by manipulating them and transforming them yourself.” —Jony Ive
Stop to notice a small, quiet connection.
Everything is a learned process.
Failure is not a permanent condition; it is a stepping stone for growth, learning, exploring, persevering.
If a chef puts 1 or 50 things on a plate, our job as diners is to see how well the combination tastes, not to say use more or less.
One idea at a time
Put the flavors where you want them.
Cleaning is as important as creating.
The stain on my tongue
What is a layer of flavor?
Exploring influences
Anything against a wall collects dust
As soon as you discard “authentic,” anything becomes possible.
Everything is a learned process.
What can we do that has not been done before?
“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be,” Tom Landry once said.
Unique and authentic
Take problems from the outer level in.
“It is true of any subject that the person that succeeds in anything has the realistic viewpoint at the beginning and [knows] that the problem is large and that he has to take it a step at a time and that he has to enjoy the step-by-step learning procedure.” —Jazz Pianist Bill Evans
Newness is elegantly combining old things.
Understand the problem to enjoy the process.
A willingness to make anything happen
Willingness to keep doing something until you get it honed
Note to self: Any liquid that tastes good can make something else taste even better.
Clarification is an element of design.
What are you willing to do to achieve the desired effect?
Creating with purpose
Refinement is more about feel than looks.
A well-constructed cookie
Sorrow is an opportunity for happiness.
Underdog was a superhero just like white chocolate.
Oftentimes the fix is not the solution.
When you wear it on your sleeve, be ready for it to get dirty.
A brilliant, elegant, and simple solution
Disciplined choices
It’s good to miss out and miss opportunities.
I make things.
Clarification is an element of design.
My only plan is to plan for change.
Critiquing with dynamite
Understanding your errors to make fewer trials
Think minimalist in your entrée-style plates.
We all have problems to solve.
The most important ideas lie within the mundane.
The focus on discovery means looking at a lot of history.
Even chefs like recipes.
When we change how we lead, those that follow change too.
There is always something to fix.
Pay attention…how much does it cost?
The difficulty with ideas is they can eat at you non-stop until they are brought to light.
By not knowing, we can discover.
They are not secrets; there is just a lot of stuff we haven’t learned yet.
It’s only the best ever until somebody makes it better.
In today’s environment of exact and precise cooking, elements of chaos are sought out to keep the ideas fresh and cooks on their toes. The combination of precision and chaos leads to great achievements and greater failures. It is the juxtaposition of these disparate principles that excites us on a daily basis.
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