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Creativity

trev_teich

I just wanted to pick everyones brian about how they go through the creative process. What do you do when you start thinking or developing a new dish?

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Mason_Perry_34060

@Chris I think the idea of surrounding yourself with like minded creative and amazing people is one of the best things to do to promote and enhance creativity. I think this site has really sparked my interest, and made me think more outside the box because everyone here is creative and awesome. Thanks for everything you guys and gals at @ChefSteps have put into the course and forums, it's truly amazing.

Chris_Young_80640

I'm not really sure how to explain my creative process. I'm actually pretty uncomfortable with this question because I've found that people assume that there is some secret process that I have developed.

Personally, the only thing I've found that consistently works is to surround myself with incredibly talented people with a diversity of skills and experience and creating a culture that pushes out distraction and lets us focus on doing whatever we find interesting at the time.

Mostly we fail A LOT—maybe 95% of what we try doesn't work. The only thing I've gotten better at is being disciplined about failing quickly so that the team can move on to other ideas that might work.

Right now I feel incredibly lucky to work with nearly 15 amazing people every day. Chefs, photographers, filmmakers, writers, musicians, programers, hardware inventors, and graphic designers. It's all pretty amazing actually. But the even better part, and I truly mean this, is that we're able to share our ideas and interact with people from around the world through this forum.

We're super excited to be able to deepen this global collaboration and create tools that let us experiment on a massive scale with like-minded cooks from around the world. I can't wait.

prince_of_porcelain

@Trevor - Great question. I find that the inspiration for the creative process varies. Sometimes, it's a great looking ingredient I see at the market and pick up because it just looks good, and then I need to figure out what to do with it. Other times it's a technique I want to try. Or a dish I had at a restaurant, or saw a picture of, read about, or dreamed up all on my own. But that's just where it begins. From there, I like to think about the effect of the final dish. What am I going for? How do I bring in other flavors? I really like Chef Achatz' flavor bouncing as a way to expand a dish. (I'm not sure if this was his idea, or just something he uses, but I saw him demonstrate it first - via video, not firsthand -, so that's where I'll assign credit) I've been trying to use that more explicitly lately. I'm usually making notes long before I head to the kitchen, sometimes refining the idea over several days or weeks on paper. Once I've got the palette (or maybe I should say palate?) that I'm going to work in, I think about how to bring the elements together. Texture, treatments, all of that. I rarely try to copy, but I do typically research other similar dishes or components. I do a lot of internet searching, reading various recipes and techniques before I cook. Sometimes it's even helpful. I may pull a component from another recipe, and combine it in a new way to get the effect I'm looking for. I also like to bring an element of fun to my dishes, sometimes just in the name or description. Other times in a more visceral way. I realize that this all sounds rather pretentious, but I enjoy the process. Sometimes they are ideas that I don't have any idea how to pull off, but wish I did. Every so often, inspiration hits and I figure out a way to make that idea work. Sometimes it's weeks, months or even years later. I enjoy putting together menus. I like to have a story behind my dish, even if I'm the only one who knows it. I experiment on my friends regularly. Sometimes even the unsuspecting public, though I do try to understand my audience and proceed with a little more caution when warranted. I swing hard, and don't worry about failing. Actually, that's not true. I worry a lot about failing. Particularly right before an event. I want my dishes to be good. Sometimes they even are. If I'm honest, that not entirely true either. I want my dish to be the best you've ever had. They may not be that, but on rare occasions they might approach it, and so I keep trying. I've had some pretty spectacular failures too.

trev_teich

Time is not our friend here this is true. It will tale me 10 more years to feel I might be in a place to open a place, but if we think about more how the flovors and smells interact we can as a group come up with a eqation for winning dishes. This is my weird experiment.

seijoed

Like those thoughts. Pretty similar to what I go through, I just have far less experience.

trev_teich

Of corse there are off shoots. Like lets say you want to make a mole and fish dish. Well what goes into mole, and do a sauce gel, or tuiles of each flavor. Break it down look at what you like most about a classic dish and exploit it.

trev_teich

Ok here is what I have been doing.

- What do I want to cook? Protein? Veg? What is it?

- it needs two sauces ( a puree and a sauce, two purees, two sauces, same thing) they must complement each other

- crunch

-complimentary veg

- herbs

- method of delivery for each

trev_teich

@Chris or anyone from the crew care to share?

trev_teich

I was hoping no would ask. I'll get back to you on this, but lets say for now it's never just one thing, or one way. Each time is different. I know this for sure, it can never be forced.

Mason_Perry_34060

@Trevor what about you?

trev_teich

Great input so far everyone.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Haha well we can't rule that out!

Flavors definitely change as a dish is cooled so I try and take that into consideration most of the time. Texture to me is really the most important though. I love the chewy gelatinous texture of things like tendon and also the snap you get from a good hot dog casing or even tripe cooked well.

Shannon_Barnes_68642

@Brendan, it took me a really long time to figure out the texture balance thing, I blame it on growing up as an american and eating a lot of casseroles.

I'm being somewhat facetious, of course, but I do think it is a component that never occurred to me to manipulate for a better meal.

I have a Chinese friend who will sometimes see some of my dishes and complain that Americans like big chunks of food, and it's too much work to eat, whereas the Chinese cuisine places an emphasis on bite sized pieces of food easier to eat with chopsticks. I didn't even think about how food temperature played into that - the more you have to play with your food to eat it once it's plated, the higher the likelihood of it getting cold before you finish! I thought he was just being pseudo-superior.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I like to approach most dishes from a functional and then textural standpoint. I think this comes from my asian background but texture is of huge importance to me in any dish so I always look to strike a balance between soft/tender and crunchy/crisp. This can be within the same ingredient (i.e. soft/tender chicken with super crisp skin) or between ingredients (fried garnishes, sides, etc.) and then I take a look at function. How will I be eating the dish. I tend to eat most things with chopsticks at home because that's my habit so I look at how easy it will be to pick up, is it too slippery, to big for one bite. If it's a knife and fork plate I look at how long will it take to eat, is it too much work and it will get cold before you finish. And then lastly for flavors, once again drawing from my asian tastes I like to always look for a balance of sour, sweet, spicy, and salty (with an emphasis on savory always). My spice and condiment collection reads like an asian supermarket so I always have something to mix together to accomplish this and I have a lot of fun incorporating these flavors into more traditionally western meals (I love using fish sauce in place of worchestershire sauce in most dishes).

Mason_Perry_34060

@Johan yes good point if I have a special ingredient no matter what it is I will most times reverse engineer a dish to compliment or highlight that specific ingredient, saffron is a good example, don't want to overpower or muddle it.

seijoed

If I have a really fantastic cut of meat or fish, I go the other way around, what pairs with this - and what can I use to highlight the component.

Mason_Perry_34060

OH and really important atleast for me, if I ever have a good idea or something i think would be a good idea or something interesting, i always write it down immediately, normally on my phone and email it to myself so it's logged in writing somehwere, I have done this after waking up in bed and needing to jot something down, this way I don't miss anything like I used to. nothing is worse than the "man I had a great idea or I thought of something and I just can't remember what it was...."

seijoed

@Trevor - this is actually a question I was going to ask you

My process is as follows - right now...

I look at a dish/classic recipe and the ingredients, then I frequently

try and see what spices and components make the final dish.

I like deconstructed or inside out takes.

I look at the proteins and what properties they have, how could I do them

differently and with a more say sous-vide result.

I then often spend a lot of time googling images for the said dish combined with

haute cuisine or fine dining - just to get a few ideas or see if it has been done.

Then I try and take all of the collected above and see if it is doable.

I don't really have time enough to do all of these things as I'd like to - I have to

write code to make a living. - The "Altering vegetables" question stemmed from one

of these sessions.

Mason_Perry_34060

Most times I don't just jump in to something from 100% scratch, but will spin off of something else I have already made or from a recipe that I found that way I know I have a baseline and it won't be a total flop (worst case is a learning experience) I tend to write down steps and see if I can change, improve or streamline anything. Tonight I had to cook my protein in entirely weird new fasion just to get the plating presentation I envisioned. It was fun to do something wacky, I think cooking at home for myself and wife lends to more creative results as I don't have to worry about failure as I would for s professional service. I tend to think divergently anyway so the oddball creative stuff just comes to mind, often times when I am not thinking about food just randomly spurred by some other experience. Liek Newcastle ice cream was an idea when watching a commercial telling people not to drink and drive as i was thinking how would I enjoy beer without drinking.... stuff like that.