My cooking style – it has evolved over 35 years

My cooking style – it has evolved over 35 years

Yep, a question I get asked a lot, what is your favorite thing to cook? And what is your cooking style, how would you describe it? Two of my favorite questions I get when people find out I am a chef.  As for my favorite thing to cook, anything in season right out of the garden or from the farmer’s market. I truly get inspired by the food I see, it made it really tough to wander the food halls in France last fall and not have a kitchen to cook in on the trip, next time! I think this desire to cook what is fresh and in season really stems from the power of the seasonal rhythm. I always ask chefs what their favorite food season is and why? Mine, it is a tie between Spring and Fall. Spring the new awakening in the garden, the early vegetables, and bright flavors that signal a new beginning. As for Fall, the comforting warmth and earthiness of the harvest bounty. I love the slow cooking of stews, soups and hard squashes, root vegetables and the aromas that are a clear sign of moving into the winter slumber. So you can see that by shifting to a seasonal mind set for me it has informed my larger cooking style of simplicity. Cooking with fewer ingredients has continued to drive my culinary approach at home and even at work. Over the last 10 years I have really found the sweet spot for me of trying to stay with in 6-8 ingredients or less when creating a dish. I have also challenged the chefs working for me to strive to self edit and reduce the number of ingredients as well as number of steps. It can be a real challenge to achieve this balance of simplicity that delivers an amazing finished dish.  What it does is allow the best ingredients possible to shine through in the final plate. I have found over the years that unnecessary ingredients can have a tendency to “muddy” the flavors in a dish. Stripping the recipe down to it basic fundamental flavors and then rebuilding it with fewer ingredients can and usually delivers a far superior result. It has become second nature for me to approach cooking this way each and every meal at home, even if I am working off a recipe from someone else, I usually tweak it to be less ingredients and more about the focus of the quality I am putting in the dish. I will leave you with a fall example of how I cook, Fig, roasted beets and Pear Salad. The fig tree is still booming with fruit, combined with a ripe pear, perfectly roasted beets, all sliced and arranged on a plate, drizzled with EVOO, Fig Balsamic Vinegar, cracked black pepper and kosher salt, that is it. The flavors come together on the plate to create a beautiful bite of fall, you can feel the crisp cooler air moving in and the leaves turning.  Cooking this way for me continues to be a journey, because each new / fresh ingredient inspires me to listen, learn and grow.  Being a chef is always about learning and loving the life we live.