I have a terrible tendency to lick my fingers when I cook. So much so that I got a telling off from my pastry teacher years ago, who said it would hinder my prospects.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The finger lick is just a really bad habit - I do it all the time. My wife Ashley is going to kill me if I do it at dinner one more time. I look like an animal about to dig in.
I am not a shock jock pastry chef. I don't create desserts using strange ingredients just for the sake of doing so, like so many of my colleagues in the industry.
I like cooking but I don't know much and whenever I enter the kitchen, my mother sends me out! Because whenever I try a dish from a book, it comes out bad.
People have all this interest in food. But for most people, it's a mystery how to prepare food. I wanted the knowledge cooks know: the in-your-fingers knowledge you get by doing it over and over.
Even though I'll do finger warm-ups that go up and down the neck to build up my chops and dexterity, I never, ever sit around and practice the actual licks I'm gonna play live. If you do, then you'll be all worried about the complexity of getting the fingering right and everything else about it, as opposed to the feel.
I think that women like to use different parts of their brain and their hands. And I think that cooking allows you to do that.
As chefs, we cook to please people, to nourish people.
A savory chef must first master his knife skills and understand the basics of sauces and soups, etc., before he/she may move on to become a great chef. It is no different for pastry chefs. If you do not have a strong foundation and are a master of the basics, then you will never be that strong - you will never be a master of the trade - period.
I make no bones about it. I have no understanding of pastry.
I will pursue my passion of cooking every day until my hands fall off and I lose all sense of smell and taste.