It was an unexpected and unpredictable journey. For a guy who could cook less than a dozen things for the first half of my adult life, I discovered a wonderful gift. My cooking heroes have changed over the years. It makes sense. My launching point was the training wheels-like safety of the 20 years ago Food Network. Chefs like Rachael Ray, George Stella, Guy Fieri, and Tyler Florence? As I look back on this I cannot help but feel a wave of embarrassment. But this was the road that got me to where I am today, even though I’m not exactly quite sure where that is, although it is becoming obvious.
I can tell you that my cooking heroes have certainly changed. At the top of my list, are June Xie, Stephanie Cmar, Adrienne Cheatham, and Anthony Bourdain just to start with. These are not cookie-cutter chefs, and perhaps in some definitions, not chefs at all. (Had to add this as June does not like being called a chef).
15 years ago there was definitely some excitement watching shows like the Next Food Network Star. As I look back on this I realize that this was some seriously gimmicky stuff. Food Network was not interested in bringing anyone in with talent. In fact, the best I can tell their goal was to recruit some side-show with hair that looked like the result of an overnight college prank and jewelry sold in dollar discount stores back in the late 1970s. They just wanted to appease the armchair quarterbacks of the culinary television world with an odd brand of shock and awe.
These were necessary steps though. These shallow, sugar-coated, absolutely void-of-nutrition-type cooking shows actually did lead somewhere. The empty calories in the substance these shows provided made me hungry for natural talent.
When I ate the first best meal I ever ate in a little restaurant in Kansas in 1999, it made me feel great. Not only the food but to celebrate with people, the same people I ate sand, dirt, MRE, and T-rats with 10 thousand miles away during the Gulf War! Until this happened, I had no idea such a thing existed. Food can create an atmosphere. It can make that one night you will wish you could revisit for the rest of your life. I knew that the Food Network and their paint-by-numbers cooking were never going to take me any further.
Then I discovered Bravo. Between Top Chef and Top Chef Masters, you could actually begin to see some natural talent, some real creativity, and get a taste for something that you really want to do yourself. The one thing that shines through in watching these competitions is that true culinary artist expresses themselves from their hearts with their cooking. No gimmicks, no garbage! Chefs are cooking their hearts out to further their dreams and build their creativity. Above all, I saw respect. I seriously wanted more.
In 2010, I went to culinary school. This happened not in the traditional way, but through the trailblazing audacity of Chef Jacob Burton of Stella Culinary School, amazingly then known as the “Free Culinary School Podcast.” Mr. Burton clearly broke all the rules. Exactly like one would learn at CIA, Cordon Bleu, or Johnson and Wales, he shared all of the secrets that others paid tens of thousands for in a beautiful series of some of the best and most compelling teaching I have ever known! His structure was perfect, the content clear, and you could see, then employ every single lesson because this man could teach. I consider myself very fortunate to have found this treasure.
Now on a higher plane of understanding, I saw bits and pieces of technique rising to the surface every now and then. The great but elusive realization was that a good meal comes from the heart, not from a cookbook or an online recipe. Technique was a crown jewel that I had searched for. But, like the song says, “got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues” and this is so true of technique. So many fails! But so much to learn. At first, even my capacity to learn was weak, but as time moved on it got better. I started making connections between what I do and how things came out or failed to come out. Yet, I was still at a 10% ratio of understanding.
Mistake, after mistake, after success, I noticed that learning came with both of them, and dare I say, there was more to learn from the failed attempt than there was from the successful one! It still took me a long time to grasp what that really meant for me. Today though, I get it. Every attempt at cooking is a success no matter what the outcome. Journaling wins and losses really help me get the most out of the lessons that await me.
My cooking heroes of today edify what I have learned, that cooking is not this facade. A 1950’s family TV show, displaying impossible virtue and simple outcome. My heroes are real people. They have been overlooked because of their skin color, not taken seriously because they are not male, deal with anxiety over simple things, and magnify it in their own ways. At times, they are their own worst enemies and make no mistake, the strongest of advocates. They lead with their weakness, and because of it brings profound depth to their craft. They are beaten, injured, discouraged and so many times have not been in the winning circle despite having worked harder than all others. But you know what? They won’t give up. They will not stop bringing it. Each in their own right, the injustice and frustration have fueled a fire that cannot be put out. There is no vengeance here, only a drive to bring food out of the dark ages. There is a lesson, for all of us. We know who we are.
From June Xie’s superhuman-like creativity with no known barriers. From Adrienne Cheatham’s humility, courage, creativity, and strength. Stephanie Cmar’s core talent is bold and impenetrable by the factors that erode us all today. Rick Bayless’ wonderful storytelling of each meal, its origins, and the respect he conveys in bringing it to us.
Finally, Anthony Bourdain. I was going to add an adjective before his name but I realize, he was to complex for me to attempt that in two words. I heard Tony say in an interview one time about finding a successful career of blissful food and travel, that he was always figuratively watching the rearview mirror, waiting for the law to pull him over and arrest him for living a life that did not belong to him. Such a sad and beautiful sentiment that described his deep respect for all those incredible cooks, moms, dads, sisters, brothers, and the like, cooking their hearts out in places that our crybaby, sterile American collective could not muster a grilled cheese sandwich in.
Of course, there are many more people I so appreciate. Emily Kim (Manngchi), and the aforementioned Chef Jacob Burton, to name a fraction of them. This story is about change.
There is a question I keep asking myself: “What do I want out of this?” The simple answers are, I want a business sharing great food that I can work with my family in. I want to up the ante of the food where I live because people deserve to know. But the core reason is, corporations are reprogramming everyone today. They are subliminally telling us all that cooking is too complicated for the average person. They tell us that it takes too much time. They tell us in a steady stream of white noise that what they make in boxes, packages, bags, and mail-order meal kits actually tastes better than if you made it in your own kitchen. IT’S A LIE!
The food network under the cloak of telling you that you can is also telling you to follow these steps and your meal with the look and taste like the one made by the warm and personable face on your screen. Of course, the meal does not turn out that way, so then, by way of advertising, they gently, relentlessly nudge you into buying their sauces, spice blends, meal kits, and whatever else they can conjure up. My friends here is the dirty little secret, your meal most likely won’t look and taste like theirs. This is not how cooking works. It takes making something over and over. You will find yourself in that recipe eventually. It will be better than on the screen too because when you find yourself in the creative process it is yours.
June Xie and Delish just parted ways. She was really the only thing keeping them afloat. Without her, they are just a recipe Pez Dispenser. She released a video on her personal YouTube channel redoing a chocolate banana cassava cake that she made the week before. Her goal was to make it again and have it turn out not dry as it did before. A learn-from-the-experience demonstration. She headlined the thumbnail photo: “You are not a bad baker.” She highlighted how we need to do these things over and over, and in doing so, this is when we shine. I truly believe that sourdough would not be possible if only positives existed without negatives!
What do I want? I want everyone to know, that your kitchen is not so big and bad. You got this! Let’s all rise and show who we are, to ourselves, and our families at the table. Corporate processed, commercial retail food distributors think they have won, but I am telling you: we are not finished yet.
