Thursday, August 7, 2008

Inspiration

I am finding Chef Matthews (the dean of the school who also teaches several of the classes) endlessly inspirational. There will be several classes that will help me develop technique and skills in certain areas, etc, but World Cuisine is turning out to be more intellectual and philosophical than practical or tangible, which I love. I'm still not sure exactly what my mark will be in the culinary world. How I will voice myself or what my identity in food will be is uncertain as of yet. I'm sure it will be something that solidifies over the next few years and will continue to morph as my life changes. For now I will just immerse myself and seek knowledge. I will try to absorb as much as I can and stay sensitive to any gravitational pulls, taking note of and exploring further areas I find myself particularly interested in. I can now define what California or Pacific Rim cuisine is and I see how this has influenced me. I am also realizing how much I truly love and enjoy Colorado. These parts of my life will carry weight in my expression through food.

I've made it through the first week of classes. It is a bit tiring but I find myself craving more. I'm a bit disappointed that I have no class to attend tomorrow night, but at least I will have some free time to actually cook. My Monday through Thursday schedule consists of waking up around 6am to go to work, getting home around 4:30, eating dinner and hanging out with my wife for an hour before leaving for school at 5:30, and getting home from school anywhere between 10:30 and 11:30. It's long days but the time seems to go by quickly and I'm feeling very alive in these pursuits. I'm enjoying it all immensly, except for the detestable student loan process that just doesn't seem to push through...

3 comments:

Cara said...

steve! tarin asked me to send you links to a few of my favorite food blogs... you may know them already, but here goes...
tastespotting.com and foodgawker.com are aggregate sites that take link suggestions with pictures from people to post on their main site. so, if you take cool pictures of the stuff you make and submit your entries there it'll be posted for a huge audience! people like me with a short attention span love sites like those because i only click on the pretty pictures and read those entries...

also, check out the grinder and slashfood for fun foodie-related news stories.

line.cook is written by a sous chef and his daily life in the restaurant world...

a little old, but relevant: diary of a cooking school student

also, michael ruhlman is fantastic.

totally unrelated, but in the off-chance you haven't already run into it, stuff white people like is pretty funny.

i'm so excited for you and your cooking school experience!

Cara said...

also, i think it is HEE-larious that i named my never-quite-got-around-to-starting-it wine blog "paper baggin' it" (in reference to drinking high class out of paper bags, but also learning how to appreciate the nuances of wine through blind tastings) and yours is called "dusty doggy bag".

we are kindred spirits.

redredsteve said...

Thanks, Cara! I will definitely check those links out. It's good to hear from you!