Introspective Culinary Philosophy

Fish Stock Noodle Pour-Over

I love to cook, even more then I enjoy eating (which is a lot!). Next to writing and recording music, cooking is my favorite thing to do. Lately I’ve been on a big Asian kick with inspiration being drawn from Thai and Vietnamese cooking styles. Tonight I made a noodle dish that consisted of mushrooms, red bell peppers, chili peppers, cabbage, and leeks. I tied everything together with a fish stock that I had made the night before. Delicious!

I’m not a fan of following recipes. Most of my cooking is improvised. I have a firm understanding of ingredients and how they work with one another. I like to think that I cook in a fashion similar to how a jazz musician approaches a performance. I like to keep things free-form and open to suggestion. The element of surprise keeps the act of cooking fresh and exciting. Each dish is an improvisation that could easily become a disaster but more often then not turns out to be delicious.

I more or less use recipes to help give me ideas but I rarely follow them… and NEVER to a T. Despite my lack of interest in following recipes I want to make it a point to start documenting my culinary creations. Not that I’m some amazing chef trying to force my culinary ideas into your brain cavities. No. I’m doing this for me. If anyone else happens to find a use for my documented culinary endeavors it will merely be a byproduct of my original intention. But then again, I am putting this on the internet for everyone to see. What’s that all about? Perhaps I’m kidding myself. If I really wanted this to be just for me I would write it in a book, not a blog. I blame it on all of the episodes of Anthony Bourdain that I’ve been watching via netflix lately.

So yeah, call it a New Years Resolution if you will (I can’t stand those things).

Oh, and just in case you were wondering… I’m not going to include a recipe for the soup photographed above. At least, not in this post.