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So… every November 13th I review P.S.I. / CJWDT agenda and Feb 1st I review the stats of this blog. Now.. Feb 2nd day after annual year anniversary, I want make this day a little special as well.
Working as a chef, I learn and invent new techniques, study and discover new ingredients, then get inspire and come up new ideas. Just like musicians make new albums, the cuisine will keep changing and developing as time goes. Now as of 02,02,11, what is “my cuisine”? What I want to cook? What is my culinary vision? It has been keep changing last bloody 10 yrs and will keep evolve as I advance as a culinary artist. I want to post about this answer on February 2nd every year from now on.
Since this is the first time, I’ll look back my past a little to start.... >>
As I said previously, I originally start cooking just to get out from JP, no passion or anything!! And soon after couple years cooking slowly became my 2nd biggest “joy & fun”(first is heavy metal / laugh) in my life. But I met someone in San Francisco on Nov 2002, his name is chef Laurent Gras. I saw his passion & spirit(professional mentality / pride) in his cooking and his cuisine is full of inspirations. He completely changed my life itself.
Back in time, 2002-2003 I was working full time at Hawthorne Lane restaurant and also staged at the 5th floor(where Laurent was a chef) twice a week. This means I worked 7 days a week and actually I worked 50-60 days straight, no single day off! It stopped because I asked a day off to see a concert in San Jose. I remember it was Whitsnake, Scorpions and Dokken !!/ laugh
Every week I worked like 25 hrs at the fifth floor with no pay, completely free!! People called me crazy, but my answer was (finally)“cooking is my passion, I don’t care about money”. Finally Cooking became “my profession” in my life, Laurent changed my life. Chef Laurent never tell me about passion or mentality on cooking, I learned from his back. Just watching him working made me think and taught me what chef is.
I say he’s the sole reason why I start cooking French cuisine. If I didn’t see him, I doubt I'm still cooking right now…. Maybe bartending in heavy metal karaoke bar on Sunset strip or something! I just can’t picture my life without meeting him. He is one of three people changed my life completely. I’ve known him over 8yrs and been like my father. I claim myself as his Japanese son and no one may agree( but his wife), he’s very funny!
Anyway… after I quit Hawthorne Lane, I moved to New York on June 2003. Simply because Laurent came from NY, so I thought every chef in NY is like him which is NOT!! As I spent one year at Le Bernardin, Alain Ducasse & Guy Savoy and also staged like 70 restaurants in the U.S., Canada and France, I start slowly developing my style. It was the mixture of French, New American and Japanese. I think the fact living outside of Japan definitely draw more Japanese identity into my cuisine.
On April 2006 I met another my biggest culinary mentor, his name is chef Grant Achatzs of Alinea. What can I say but he’s a genius!! I staged a day at Alinea and I got blown away. I remember clearly I sit down with him after my stage in the dining room and told him words to words “I staged like 70 restaurants in the past , this is the most inspiring stage I ever have since the 5th floor!!” Funny to look back now , 2yrs later I work both L2o and Alinea same time…..
Working at Alinea completely changed my cooking. Like I posted a series of “my inspiration” post, chef Grant broke what cooking is. I learned many new molecular techniques, knowledges and recipes at Alinea, but I say the biggest thing I learned from him is imaginative, intelligent and intellectual approaches in my culinary creativity.
Now 2011… every single chef want to cook original cuisine, so am I. I’m sure people can see through my background from my dishes, but I want my cuisine to be original, unique, playful and inventive. Say: I want three things in my cuisine
1 un-label or rather say my cuisine can’t be categorized. 2. no-rules just I said a series of “my inspiration”, I want to break the rule of cooking, make new reloutional approach on cooking. 3. Inspiring, in other word, “wow factors”, presentation, ingredients, flavor combinations… I want give the diners “Inspiration” which I call the fuel for life. I want to make the dining expereince filled with inspirations.
1,2,3…. UNI!!! Maybe next year I choose some other words, but for 2011 UNI is my cuisine!!
What else… I like the current movement of slow food / market cuisine. Definitely I want to use local ingredients as much as possible, but also if I could introduce some ingredients diner never have would be awesome same time. Like there’re tons of great ingredients in Japan, I want to let people know.
Just like sushi, I think simplicity is beauty of cooking. Let ingredients speak, I personally don’t like too many ingredients on the plate. “20 vegetable on the plate, making symphony of colors, flavors and textures”, is cool, but I rather focus less ingredients, showing more variation of one ingredients.
I talked about my inspirations in my cuisine on my previous posts, so I think this all I have to say for now. I can still keep going, but this post is already too long, so! Now… time to find my stage to shine!Labels: My Passion
