Creativity that Inspires
Things I find inspiring.
When you go to cooking school, they immerse you in the classics. Which usually means old-school French techniques. Nowadays, people realize that’s a pretty narrow reference point for what constitutes a “classic. I don’t think it’s as important as I used to, knowing all the French techniques. It does come in handy occasionally, depending on where you work. When I first started cooking, to measure the skill of the saucier, a chef would drop a coin in the consommé, and if you could still make out the face on the coin at the bottom of the pot you did it right. It had to be crystal clear. The other one was a chef taking your butter sauce and boiling it to see if it would break and separate. That’s a tough one, most of the time it’s going to break and the chef will make you do it over. Most people know the line in the sauce on the back of a spoon thing. If you dip the spoon in the sauce and run your finger across the fat end of the spoon, if the line stays the consistency is right, if it closes up too quickly it's too thin.
I always admired those guys who mastered those techniques when I was coming up. Chefs who could effortlessly produce clear stocks, perfectly turned vegetables, and butchered fish with precise cuts and little waste were inspiring. I knew it took years and years of repetition and practice to acquire these skills and I had huge respect for that. I can recall the first time a sous chef showed me how to properly butcher a whole salmon and I promptly cut a huge gash in the middle of the filet. It looked like someone took a bite out of the side of the salmon. So embarrassing. Eventually, I could do it without hacking the salmon up, and was able to cut nice smooth even filets. It took a lot of practice but I got there.
I’ve worked with cooks and chefs who seemed like they picked up on things much faster than me, I had to work hard at most things. Some of those cooks were just talented I guess, and certain things came naturally to them. It always made me a little jealous. There were even a few I would say were gifted. They, through some sort of instinct or talent, could seemingly master techniques after one or two tries. Meanwhile, it seemingly took me forever to learn how to make a proper sauce or make pizza dough. When I observed other people making these things with little to no effort I always felt envious.
All these things occurred to me as I was listening to John Batiste's new album Beethoven Blues. It’s an unusual album and hard to classify, which I think is a good thing. He plays standard Beethoven pieces and improvises jazz and blues riffs as he goes. I know some classical music fans might be taken back at the audacity of improvising over Beethoven but he finds a way to effortlessly weave old and new, modern and classic, funky and elegant into a seamless wave of magical pieces. As a Juliard-trained musician, he knows the material and can play it with competence, but his ear and his heart heard more. He heard blues woven into the fabric of the music and found a way to extricate it. Just like a great chef knows how to produce a great stock from bones and vegetables. Also just like a great chef he found a way to take something classic and put his own touch/spin on it while staying true to the original. I’ve heard Moonlight Sonata hundreds of times. And yet when John Batiste plays it he improvises a small blues riff at about the 1-minute mark, and it fits. It fits so well that I would wager if you’ve never heard the piece before you would think that was how it was supposed to be.
On Symphony No. 5 Stomp, he takes those familiar opening notes that most everyone knows and adds a slight twist. It breathes new life into a piece written long ago but still makes me appreciate the original, a difficult proposition. To me, this takes a special kind of talent or insight I wonder if there are classical music fans out there that feel that it is sacrilege or presumptuous to add his ideas to what is considered a masterpiece. But to me, it works and has provided many hours of listening enjoyment.
For chefs, I feel this same concept applies. There should be some sort of skill set that should be acquired before experimenting for the sake of it.
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