Chefs should start practicing writing recipes
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I love seeing journalists start to blog for chefs. OK, I have really
only seen On My Plate, from Plate Goddess Chandra Ram. And she has only
just started. But I wanted to draw attention to it nonetheless because,
well, isn't this post about recipes and journalists something we should be addressing?
Recipes are a hornets nest for most restaurant chefs. I'd even go so far to say they are a pain for restaurant pastry chefs (all the ingredients for pastry chefs are metric weights, not your standard cup and teaspoon). Having to write recipes means having to step out of the raging river of work that chefs and pastry chefs are confronted with each day and step in front of a computer and, with some sort of mental quiet, parse out the actions and methodology that come as second nature.
But being able to write a legible, clear, lucid, not ridiculous recipe is important for the chef who wants a little time in the spotlight.
After all, being able to write usable, audience-specific recipes can be the difference between getting in a national magazine or not. The reason: most of the magazines that write about chefs are recipe books. And, if you ever are in a national magazine and end up having the potential for being a media darling, you'll find real quick that one of the primary tasks of the media darling is, you guessed it, recipe-writing.
So, if your goal is to be a media darling, you might want to first read Malcom Gladwell on the importance of practice, and then realize that while you may have been cooking for 10,000 hours, you likely haven't been writing recipes for 10,000 seconds. So, it is time to get practicing.
While you do, here are a few things to remember for the majority of recipe requests:
1) No one judges the size of your toque by the complexity of your recipe. So, when a journalist calls you for a recipe, they are needing something a home cook can accomplish. Home cooks do not have flat tops, eight burner fifty billion BTU stoves or sous chefs (or dishwashers!).
2) The recipe has to fit into a reasonable space in the publication. So, you are likely supposed to put the whole thing into one recipe with one set of instructions, using some reasonable shortcuts (like store-bought mayonnaise/chicken stock/tomato puree) that can keep the recipe short.
3) Your Excel spreadsheet recipe, developed for restaurant quantities, does not convert if you simply change the number in the serving size field from 30 to 4. It doesn't work. Ever. Really. If you can't manage the conversion responsibly, ask your brightest cook to do it for you, for the love of all things Holy..
4) Type up your recipe. Chandra's comment that she got a recipe scribbled on a napkin and faxed to her is believable, to me. I once got a whole recipe for venison ragu scribbled on a bevnap. It said, use venison, make ragu. I didn't punch the chef. For the record, I still want to.
5) The recipe is for the reader, not about you. So, be reasonable when the writer needs to tweak and pare down your recipe. No one is going to look at that recipe and think you can't cook because you made substitutions. The readers are gonna look at that recipe and judge you on if they can make it (muse on that for a few) and your chef peers are just gonna stare at the recipe and wonder why no one called them.
And for all you misguided chefs who still claim that you don't share your recipe because it is a secret, blah, blah, blah, well, I can't even think of anything funny to add, just stop with that nonsense. It's nonsense.
Recipes are a hornets nest for most restaurant chefs. I'd even go so far to say they are a pain for restaurant pastry chefs (all the ingredients for pastry chefs are metric weights, not your standard cup and teaspoon). Having to write recipes means having to step out of the raging river of work that chefs and pastry chefs are confronted with each day and step in front of a computer and, with some sort of mental quiet, parse out the actions and methodology that come as second nature.
But being able to write a legible, clear, lucid, not ridiculous recipe is important for the chef who wants a little time in the spotlight.
After all, being able to write usable, audience-specific recipes can be the difference between getting in a national magazine or not. The reason: most of the magazines that write about chefs are recipe books. And, if you ever are in a national magazine and end up having the potential for being a media darling, you'll find real quick that one of the primary tasks of the media darling is, you guessed it, recipe-writing.
So, if your goal is to be a media darling, you might want to first read Malcom Gladwell on the importance of practice, and then realize that while you may have been cooking for 10,000 hours, you likely haven't been writing recipes for 10,000 seconds. So, it is time to get practicing.
While you do, here are a few things to remember for the majority of recipe requests:
1) No one judges the size of your toque by the complexity of your recipe. So, when a journalist calls you for a recipe, they are needing something a home cook can accomplish. Home cooks do not have flat tops, eight burner fifty billion BTU stoves or sous chefs (or dishwashers!).
2) The recipe has to fit into a reasonable space in the publication. So, you are likely supposed to put the whole thing into one recipe with one set of instructions, using some reasonable shortcuts (like store-bought mayonnaise/chicken stock/tomato puree) that can keep the recipe short.
3) Your Excel spreadsheet recipe, developed for restaurant quantities, does not convert if you simply change the number in the serving size field from 30 to 4. It doesn't work. Ever. Really. If you can't manage the conversion responsibly, ask your brightest cook to do it for you, for the love of all things Holy..
4) Type up your recipe. Chandra's comment that she got a recipe scribbled on a napkin and faxed to her is believable, to me. I once got a whole recipe for venison ragu scribbled on a bevnap. It said, use venison, make ragu. I didn't punch the chef. For the record, I still want to.
5) The recipe is for the reader, not about you. So, be reasonable when the writer needs to tweak and pare down your recipe. No one is going to look at that recipe and think you can't cook because you made substitutions. The readers are gonna look at that recipe and judge you on if they can make it (muse on that for a few) and your chef peers are just gonna stare at the recipe and wonder why no one called them.
And for all you misguided chefs who still claim that you don't share your recipe because it is a secret, blah, blah, blah, well, I can't even think of anything funny to add, just stop with that nonsense. It's nonsense.
Recipes are also a spectacular vehicle for word-of-mouth publicity. People will say they made "Chef X's roast chicken" when they bring the dish to the table, and when their friends ask for the recipe then they will announce to their friends that they're making "Chef X's roast chicken," and before you know it there's a virally spreading a relationship between home cooks, home eaters, and Chef X. So when they want to go out to dinner, the sense of connection and investment between them, the chef, and his restaurant is already in place.
And everyone who plans to write a recipe like that needs to look hard at Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home (I think the new edition has a slightly altered title). To see how a great chef with a distinct personality and all the resources in the world comes up with recipes that really are realistic for the average person, yet clearly express his values. (You could also read my blog post about my struggles with Ad Hoc at Home, which is much more problematic for the home chef: http://skyfullofbacon.com/blog/?p=367)