The problem with cooking and my happiness (sanity)

To be a good cook, or a great cook it takes a lot of things. The first of which is an absolute love of food and wanting to gain knowledge of it. Just like with anything, an almost fanatical desire is required to truly be good as a cook or chef, or whatever it may be regarding food. I have seen said desire and to have it. I watch television shows, learn techniques, read books, try new ingredients, etc.

Another thing is being able to follow a recipe, and develop a recipe that can be followed closely. I struggle with this a lot. All of the recipes I write on this blog are not extremely precise, but more guidelines. I like experimenting and I cannot follow a recipe to save my life. This is a major problem. I was reading Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America, and it outlines the necessity to follow and develop recipes as an integral part of being a chef, while I was reading it, I remembered why I didn't go to culinary school.

Food is only fun to me when I am creating the flavors myself. It is only fun when I am creating recipes that I haven't seen the exact same way. I have followed recipes before but it wasn't the same. I love to take the classic techniques I have learned and put my own spin on it. Food is more art to me than it is anything else. I could make something that has no feeling in it that would taste fine, but if I try to create something like a painting, when I taste it, it is more important to me. It makes me happier to eat these things. My favorite thing is to take the traditionally southern dishes my family loves and to recreate them, but with a classic focus.

What I am saying is that I don't think I can ever be more than an artist, and I hope that I can be a good one. Following recipes isn't fun to me, and if food becomes something that isn't fun to me, I wouldn't be happy with myself. It is an odd feeling, because all of the good cooks I know can follow recipes, they can make them their own, they can triangulate them, and create something that elevates the food beyond where it was. But to me it is all about the art, creating something from an empty canvas that makes me love food.

Uncooked proteins, dried beans, fresh vegetables, seafood stocks, legumes, pasta... all I see is a paint brush with different colors, and I don't wait to just do a paint by numbers.