A good friend of mine told me recently that she felt she needed to “step up her cooking game” a bit, having been awed by some other friends working in restauration. I was impressed, because I think of her as being pretty far up the culinary ladder already—both in terms of food knowledge and practice, in the day-to-day and on special occasions. She’s a great cook, put simply. She is at once seemingly effortless and highly studied, attentive to subtleties of taste and curious about innovation and exploration. If she’s going to step things up, I’m going to have to just sit back and watch.
In my own history, I’ve been called many things regarding my food. Some have been negative (my “weird” feeding-robot pastes!), and some very postive (an 11-year-old cooking “prodigy”). And I do take pride in the ease, style, and intentionality with which I cook and serve. But the more I get to know the new generations of fermenters and bakers and brewers and distillers and curers—not to mention growers—the more I think that I’m just a lowly old bill.