Tag: chef

To Defy The Laws Of Tradition Part 6: Heed Thy Calling

“Let the music be your master” – Led Zeppelin

I always thought my calling was to be a rock star. That is all I ever wanted to be. Music was my master, my savior, my medicine, my escape, my love…my everything. Then one day I just quit. The truth is the story is more complicated than that but the details are better left for another piece.

To wrap up this series , however, the relevant cliff note version is that through some soul searching after I quit music I discovered that whether I play and write music or not I must create. If I don’t, my soul slowly withers away into the darkness.

Cooking and writing is my current form of creating that nourishes my soul and allows me to heed my calling. I might not be creating traditional music but what I create is inspired by music and the rhythm of my soul. This internal music is what inspires ideas and action. I hope that what I create for others in my shop is like music for their taste buds and what I write is like poetry that resonates within.

I often approach my writing and cooking much like I did when writing and playing music. While writing I often talk it out in my head first much like I would hear a riff or a lyric. I talk it through in my head with a cadence as if signing along to the beat of a song. When I cook I think of flavors that will play well together and enhance the other ingredients. Once I have worked that out I practice. Practice, practice, and more practice. I write out sentences or I create a dish and work on it until I have produced what closely matches song I heard in my head.

Even more, I like to create that which hasn’t been made before, or doesn’t seem like it would fit but the flavors meld and accompany each other and come together in brilliance. As I touched on it in the beginning of this series, this approach has often produced many things that simply do not work.

I don’t like to waste time, money, or food so I have to be careful. I also do not like being told what I can and can’t do. That is where the laws of tradition come back in to play. What I create must be confined by some basic rules. Very basic that is. I love music and art because the freedom it allows the creator. The rules are there to keep the artistic process moving and flowing, not to restrict or prevent. Yes, they are rules but they are basic and do not crush the spirit of creativity and passion. They are there so an artist can produce something that truly works. They allow a musician to create a song that is played in key, a pastry chef to create a cake that rises and holds its shape, or a writer to create a poem that can be read. None of which has to make sense, it just has to work.

So, will you heed your master’s call? Will you defy the laws of tradition and push your art to the boundaries of creativity to create your masterpiece?

I hope so; the world needs more of what the artists create.

Talk Soon,

Kevin W @LEAP272
Owner-Operator

You have to leap if you want to live

To Defy The Laws Of Tradition Part #5: All In The Family

“Remember to laugh kiddo” – Jerry Williams, my Dad

I write this on the tail end of our annual Thanksgiving closure at the pie shop. Thanksgiving is our Super Bowl. It is our busiest time of year. The closure is always a wonderful way to rest, recover, and enjoy time with family and friends.

This year we did Thanksgiving at our house. My daughter was missing her papa, my dad, and really wanted to be at home this year. It was great; we all had a very nice holiday.

This really allowed me to think about the traditions we have that date back as far as I can remember. The Thanksgiving traditions I remember most from my early childhood are the stuffing, the turkey cooking process, grandma’s jell-o mold, and my mom baking pumpkin pies for our home and some for her lifelong friend. She did this as long as I can remember, up until the day she lost her friend.

Oh, the stuffing. Every family seems to have their own version of stuffing. My dad’s is the best that I have ever had. I don’t know how far back it goes. I am sure it is documented somewhere, but my dad always made it by memory. Fortunately, one year my oldest sister and I finally stood by and watched him with a notebook so we could document the recipe and pass it down. Making the stuffing the night before is a process and one of my favorites traditions. It was always the kickoff to Thanksgiving and the holiday season. My daughter has helped every year since she was little whenever it was our turn to make it. These are memories that will last a lifetime that strengthen the traditions so they will last generations.

These are not traditions I want to defy. I want to uphold and keep them alive. I also do not want to be too rigid. I believe there is room for traditions to evolve and adapt. As I reflect on all the various traditions, I realize how many revolve around food and that there are traditions the traditions and within the cooking processes. It is almost ritualistic. These are traditions I want to share with my family and my customer at the pie shop.

Many of the products we make at our shop have been inspired by dishes that were first created long before my time by my family members and ancestors. The recipes are only part of the traditions that were passed on to me. The more important aspect of all the traditions are the people, the rituals, the processes, the feelings, the stories, and the experiences they provide for others. They are made stronger by the people they are shred with and solidified by the stories we tell and remember year after year. These traditions are meant to bring joy and happiness. They are meant to create bonds and memories. And most importantly, they are meant to evolve and adapt so they can be shared for generations to come.

I hope you are as lucky as I am to have so many wonderful family traditions that get better and better every year.

Happy Holidays!

Talk Soon,

Kevin W @LEAP272
Owner-Operator

You have to leap if you want to live

To Defy The Laws Of Tradition Part #4: Radioactive Chocolate

“If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion.” – Elon Musk.

The excitement. The anticipation. It’s killing me. I feel like a like I am a kid again waking up on Christmas morning, running down the hall to the fireplace to see what Santa brought this year. Did he get my list? Did he get me what I REALLY wanted?

I can smell the sweet aroma the all the ingredients coming together in my new masterpiece. The timer buzzes, indicating it is time to check my cake. I open the oven…disappointment consumes me just as it did my seventeen year old self gazing at the empty space surrounding the fireplace. My cake didn’t rise properly. It has a deep, ugly crater in the center just like the hole in my seventeen year old self. No amount of icing can correct this.

Don’t judge, I still believe in Santa Claus. 1989 was a crazy year, there was a lot going on in the world then and there was probably a glitch that landed me on the naughty list. But again, that is another story.

Mr Elon Musk is right, creating a company and a cake both require very specific ingredients in the right amount to be successful. I know, I have done both many times and some have not worked out so well when I didn’t follow certain rules. I would also add that the ingredients need to be introduced and incorporated in the proper order for success. Timing is important. For example, you probably do not need a customer service employee or department before you have products or a salesperson to sell them. Spending money on unneeded employees can be disastrous for a new business.

The same goes for baking. I can have all the right ingredients I need set out and ready to go but if I start just throwing them into a mixing bowl with no thought of how or when they should be incorporated I am just asking for trouble.

If you have read the rest of this series or any of my other pieces you should be able to guess that I do not like to follow rules much. That doesn’t always work out in specific types of baking. In a lot of cooking, improvisation can work quite well, except, of course, when someone asks “what did you do to make this so moist?” Uhhh, I don’t remember. I am great at throwing meals together and working with what ingredients I have available; my weakness is remembering exactly what I did so that the dish is repeatable with consistent results. This is important when you move from family dinner to restaurant production. Customers expect consistency in the products they consume.

I love creating. I love improvising. That is why I studied blues and jazz when I was playing music. Jam sessions were my favorite. We would get a group of friends and fellow musicians together and make music together on the fly. Ahh, but when I dive deep and really think about those jam sessions there were certain rules that needed to be followed in order for it all to work out. Simple, basic rules but rules nonetheless. Each instrument had to be tuned properly; the musicians had to play in the same key within the same time signature, for example. If we didn’t follow those basic rules, the music would not work out like the flat cake that never rose.

These basic rules are the fundamentals and the foundation on which to build. These have to be learned, mastered, and followed. When they are, they simply become second nature and do not create that boxed in feeling that many rules tend to do. They allow me to explore my creativity and still produce consumable pieces on my way to a masterpiece. If I didn’t practice the fundamentals much of what I create would not be satisfactory.

When I am baking I must know when to follow and when to deviate and improvise. This can be done within the same recipe once those fundamentals are truly second nature. Know when to use cold fats instead of melted or softened fats. Know when cook over high or low heat. Know when to beat them and when to fold them. It’s all about the framework. Once I have the framework for a basic type of cake I want to make, I can improvise with the flavors, shape, size, frostings etc. Because, as long as I have the batter that will bake I can bake in a variety of textures and flavors. Once all has risen I can present the final product in my own creative way. That is how to bring it all together and improvise within the constructs of a baking formula and know how to bend the rules without breaking them

The lesson for me was that I can’t always do it my way without the guidance of a recipe. The reality is that there is a lot of science behind baking and science always wins. Trust me; I have learned this the hard way. When I don’t follow the basics I often end up with radioactive chocolate…no one wants to eat that.

Talk Soon,

Kevin W @LEAP272
Owner-Operator

You have to leap if you want to live

To Defy The Laws Of Tradition Part #3: Man In The Box

“Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.” – Douglas MacArthur

Don’t put me in a box. I don’t like small spaces. I get claustrophobic, anxious and I panic. I don’t like elevators and will take the stairs whenever possible. I don’t particularly like planes, trains, or automobiles, except for the movie, of course. Oh wait, this is not literally about being put inside a physical box? Why am I asking you? I am the author.

No, this is not about being put inside a physical box. This is about a categorical, metaphorical, organizational box. Do not put me in one of those either. I don’t want your labels. I don’t want your titles. And, most importantly, I don’t want your rules. If you would like, give me a box that I can throw all your rules and other crap into and set it afire. Or, as Jello Biafra would say “Why don’t you take your social regulations, shove ’em up your @$$?”

The question I have is does the opening quote speak the truth or is it actually the opposite and simply a justification for the lazy to do whatever they want and not follow the rules? I think there is probably a strong argument for both sides. I will argue in support of the quote because I do not like to follow the rules and believe that creativity should not be placed in a box or confined by rules. That said, I will admit that I do have a lazy bone that takes over now and again.

I was always pretty creative. My generation had to be in order to avoid death by boredom. Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of great technological inventions when I was younger but we did not have smart phones, 24/7 streaming TV, social media, or the internet among many other things. What we did have was the outdoors, skateboards, bikes, big wheels, green machines, Star Wars figures, toy guns, and most of all, imagination. If I couldn’t go outside for whatever reason, I was daydreaming of being outside, on another planet, in another galaxy flying x-wing fighters or playing music on stage in front of a sea of people.

That imagination carried over and fueled my creativity when I began to play music, write, and later when I began cooking. Music will always be my first love and passion but my career was very short lived. I will save those details for another story and jump to cooking because that is what I do professionally as I write this.

I always loved food, especially junk food. Cookies were always my favorite. I am not sure where my love of cooking started but food was always an integral part of our family tradition whether it was a holiday, birthday, or just a Sunday dinner with family. I also have a hard time pinpointing when I first started to enjoy cooking, although the first things I remember learning to cook were eggs and sandwiches. Maybe that is why one of my favorite things to do is put an egg on a sandwich.

Growing up, my go to items were creative sandwiches, a variety of cookies, milkshakes, and eventually grilling. Fast forward to when Kerry and I had our second child, I was working at home and ended up watching a lot of cooking shows. That led to a lot of experimentation and my repertoire just exploded. That said, our family has a long standing tradition of marathon Christmas baking that just began to roll in to other holidays. We made so much there was just too much to even eat. The large variety was partially fueled by my desire to try new flavors of fudge and create new cookies with different ingredients. My oldest sister did the same with cookies and rocky road.

During all of this, I started trying to cook new dishes, then entire meals with accompaniments that paired well together. I always started by following recipes. Once I became comfortable, however, I broke out of the box. I can honestly attribute part to being lazy. I simply did not want to pull out a cook book and take the time to follow it step by step every time I made a meal or baked cookies. The other reason was I just did not want to be confined to follow and prepare another person’s dish. I wanted to create my own. It is important to note that by this time in my life my musical outlet was absent for many years but the creativity was still there and needed an outlet. Cooking is one of the areas in my life that provide a release.

As the years passed and I became more and more passionate and more and more confident, I continued to break the molds of convention and defy the laws of cooking tradition. Am I saying I am unique and created everything on my own? No. I was inspired by many chefs, besides, most things have been done already. Yes, I did come up with many things on my own and put my unique twist others. It doesn’t really matter because I am not looking for credit or doing this for accolades. I am doing this first and foremost because I love to create unique foods and share them with others.

My menu and cooking continues to evolve and I continue to ask the question “why?” Why must it be done like this? Why can’t I put these flavors together? Why hasn’t anybody made this type of pie? Or, how can I create this or that? How can I make something people will never forget? How can my food provide an experience that will never be forgotten and add joy to someone’s journey? I will tell you how. By breaking out of the box and continuing to defy the laws of tradition. By continuing to create flavor profiles that top the taste charts. I am blessed with the perfect vehicle for experimentation; I own a restaurant. Nothing fancy, it is a small bakeshop and eatery, but provides the much needed creative outlet.

In my humble restaurant where I am constantly defying the laws of tradition, I am bringing back the long standing traditions of my family by adapting old recipes from family and friends for our menu at the shop. Also, buy learning when traditions and rules must be followed and I have to stay inside the lines. I do not like to do this, but some things must be done just as they have been laid out in recipes for centuries with precision if I want an edible product for my customers. I have learned this the hard way by trying to do certain things on my own when I really needed to follow a precise formula.

See you next time when I discuss getting back in to the box to follow certain rules. It hurts but the results are delicious.

Talk Soon,
Kevin W @LEAP272
Owner-Operator

You have to leap if you want to live