“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative
expression and knowledge.
I wish Albert Einstein had been a chef. He would
have awakened so much within many of us. Thankfully we can still look to him
for guidance. A friend of mine has just joined the blogging world , Paul
Britton, (check out his site and his food here http://paulbritton.blogspot.com/ ) we work together and chat
together about food most days.
Our years cooking together has seen both of us
change and develop as chefs more completer because of the talks that we have
had, many conversations nothing to do with food. Inspiration comes from the
discussion not from the physical act of talking. Words, visions, ideas have all
been translated into food at some stage, some successfully, some , well, we
just don’t photograph. Our time together as chefs has truly been a blessing,
some days teachers, some days inspirators some days students ourselves of the
words we speak and try to translate into edible works of art.
Recently a mutual friend of ours, James Claire a
brilliant Bahrain based writer and another theologian of the coffee hour, (Check his blog out http://thescribe-jamesclaire.blogspot.com) wrote
an article about his vision of the Schrodingers Cat theorum.
I won’t relay the
whole concept (best you take a look at Paul’s blog site for that, he does it so
eloquently). James wrote of how in essence we are all Schrodinger’s Cat living
together on Schrodinger’s Planet to anyone living off site from our home rock.
Paul expanding on this wrote the following.
“If you put a Chef, or team of chefs , as we always travel in packs, in a concrete room,(Kitchen) with gas, fire, electricity and water , all running at the same time in high volume for hours on end in extreme heat, under the correct circumstances one could look at the Schrodinger theory as a kitchen environment. On paper, looking in, are the chef’s alive or dead. All these elements combined are a recipe for a real life quantum entanglement.
This maybe just a chef’s perspective of over thinking a conversation over coffee, but to create good food many topics are talked about, on many levels that might spark a new creation.”
And that’s exactly the ethos and the
intellectual environment in which I adore to cook. Chef’s thinking on many levels,
voicing opinions and expressing themselves over coffee, lunch or merely during work
hours, which makes another think, expand upon the original context and
eventually transform the words, thoughts and creativity into a visual feast. To
our friend James, they are but words. His mind flows with them and we love him
for the freedoms he enjoys by expressing himself in the published written word (Check James Claire out at his home magazine Bahrain This Month http://www.bahrainthismonth.com/regulars/lastword.php ).
My friend Paul can take a conversation about Quantum entanglement and develop
it into a scenario about the kitchen and me well, I’m left to develop a dessert from our chats , I term it simply Entremet Erwin. (after Erwin Schrodinger of course)
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| ENTREMET ERWIN |
You see, the cake is there, but you know someone is
going to eat it soon. You see a picture of it because I made it, but at any
moment you have no idea if the cake sits in my refrigerator still or has
already been masticated. At anyone moment of viewing this photo the cake is
both dead and alive. Until you open my refrigerator you have no idea if it is
alive or dead. So it is truly Schrodinger’s cake.
But FYI…no cake has ever lasted long in my fridge…
See ya all again soon. Happy thinking leads to
happy cooking !!
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| Birthday Cake |
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| Something to go with our coffee |
The following pics are just todays work in the kitchen... Bon Appetite folks
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| Fraise Chocolat-Strawberry Gellee ,chocolate sponge, chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis |
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| Dinner for a friend..Chocolate breton Sable, Chocolate Mousseline, blackberry geleee, Chocolate sponge. |
