Years ago I was en route to finalizing my required cooking apprenticeship 3,000 miles away and had spent my life savings on cooking school. My family was moving to SoCal and offered for me to drive their car across the country.
We settled on me driving from NYC to Oklahoma City, and my brother Kevin flying in from SoCal to OK City to take it the rest of the way and I flew on the parent’s dime. My cat took a limo to the airport and flew all 3K miles. Hmm.
AAA Triptik in hand, I spent two hours the first night and three days traveling eight hours a day and driving to the outskirts of the next city, on the SW side so I could get an early start the next day without traffic. Interestingly but unrelated to cooking, the further west I traveled the less gas station attendants would do for me. Driving an old Jaguar XJ-6 they wouldn’t check the oil but said “Right nice car you got there, ma’am.” So I had to do all the maintenance in the morning before I rolled out.
Meeting Kevin at the airport, we stayed at an all-suite hotel so we’d have two beds and a living room. After checking out every restaurant within a couple of miles we were both tired so went back to the hotel.
Now Kevin can cook, and in the hotel dining room first came out a fruit platter on dry ice, compliments of the chef. We quickly noticed that practically everything on the menu was flambeed at tableside, or served on dry ice. Both techniques were so passe at that time that to use them on most of the menu was… sad.
So what did we do? Laugh until we almost fell on the floor, and slept well before our journeys the next morning. The car broke down the next day with Kevin at the wheel, water pump or something.
Note to chefs and now molecular gastronomists: play with food all you want. In the end we don’t want what emotional havoc or culinary magic happens in the kitchen, in the dining room; nor do we want half our menu to be prepared tableside. We came here to eat a good meal and have a conversation between guests, not “Hi, I’m Alex and I’ll be your Knight for the night.” Please keep this in mind.
I survived the three-hour root canal yesterday and am getting back into the game. Thanks for your kind notes.
Cheers, Dee
Cooking with Dee 