The Search for Culinary enlightenment !

I have often talked about the search for culinary enlightenment. Ten years ago when I went on this cooking as a Job journey I never really had a career path mapped out. I didn't dream of being a Head Chef or being a Chief Food buyer for Waitrose. No all I wanted to do was learn to cook and cook dam well at that. (Actually I would like to withdraw that last but one sentence please. If any one from any of the major Supermarkets food buying departments would like to offer me a job please Ill take it ! ha ha ! ).

To me the chance to learn from the seemingly never ending pages of recipes and kitchen techniques from the Imaginary Buddha Cooking for Mystical and Culinary enlightenment Scrolls was all I needed to get out bed in the morning and get my Cooking head on. If I was not working in the kitchen practising my kitchen skills or trying to shake a Chef or Cook down for a new recipe or technique, then I would be sat in front of the TV watching Cookery programmes and viewing the good TV Chefs to See if I could copy any of the ways they cooked or their recipes.

I remember watching Chef Giorgio Locatelli on the Food Channel one day and he made fresh Pasta. I recorded the programme. Wrote down the ingredients needed to make pasta and off I went to the shop to buy the necessary items including a £40 pasta roller machine. I then spent the afternoon learning to make pasta. Now that's commitment to the cause ! And so it went on. My fast tracked learning curve began. I wanted to be able to cook everything or at least have an idea on how to cook everything. I loved catching this bug for cooking and every day off was spent cooking, watching, listening and reading anything to do with food.

Although my obsessive nature towards my favourite subject has eased a little I still watch TV programmes. My current Sky plus box has various Rick Stein, Anthony Bourdain, Healthy Yummies, Saturday Kitchen, Tom Kerridge Proper Pub Food and of course my current favourite Bitching kitchen episodes to watch.

The Cookery book buying front this year has been a bit quieter. Their are, I am sure, a lot of good books out their this year but my purchasing has been a bit more selective than usual.
My old college tutor, and still one of my closest and most respected Culinary Buddhist Teachers Dalai Lama Peter Wilson said to me once.
"Jamie Oliver, Nigella, James Martin and all that mobs cookery books you don't need to be a good cook. All you need is a copy of the Old Escoffier which will teach you all the techniques you need and an good imagination !" Wise words I thought and very true.
The market for Cookery Books is pretty flooded. Everyone just about who has a food blog dreams of writing a cookery book. I know I do but it would have to make me enough money to retire on ! ha ha !
Writing a book yourself is a big task. Just about every household recipe has been published in various books so knowing what to put in your book is not easy. So for the time being I am pretty happy just blogging away but please start saving now for when I do decide to put a book together !! ha ha !

A couple of Books I have enjoyed this year are a Katie Quinn Davies book called What Katie Ate. Katie is a most excellent Food and Lifestyle Photographer. I brought this book because I love her Photography and hoped I would be inspired by its pictures. I truly was but this book has some fab recipes in it especially the Pulled Pork one and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Tom Kerridge's Book Proper Pub Food is a true food lovers bible. The man is a 2 Michelin star Chef but he is a bloody good Cook too. He makes his food so easy for the home cook to understand and therefore easy to make and costing an English tenner only its a must have book ! Love it.
For the Veggies out there Denis Cotter and 'for the love of food' is a lovely tribute to the kitchen garden and the books recipes are truly delicious ! I particularly loved the Smoked Mash with tomato and maple-braised Brussels Sprouts. It was real satisfying comfort food especially when I slapped a nice Pan Fried piece of Duck Breast with it ...Ha Ha ! Great book though.
Florence Knight is an up and coming Chef and could be a future TV superstar. I saw her at the Food Show in London and stood right next to her for 0.00001 secs before Security moved me on ! ha ha !
Anyhow her current book 'One' is very good. Again her use of very few ingredients deliver excellent dishes. No fuss food and some really different supper meals.
The book I am reading at the moment is a self penned biography by Nice bloke Chef Rick Stein called 'Under a Mackerel Sky'  I love Rick Stein. The almost poetic way he has of speaking and writing about food makes him a bit special. A lot of the Chefs you watch on TV are passionate about Food but very few of them can express the passion in words that can make a good cookery book or TV programme into a truly memorably journey. Rick is able to do this. I have not finished the book but I am savouring every page. Its funny but it was watching repeats of Ricks programmes while laying in bed on Sunday mornings drinking Tea and scoffing Bacon Sandwiches some 10 years ago that planted the cooking seed into my brain that eventually sprouted into this constantly growing forest and search for the total cooking enlightenment........I still have a lot to learn so I don't intend walking from the Buddhist teaching Temple for a long time yet in the mean time if you could save up for my book due out in 201? I might even sign it for you in a Celebrity Chef kind of way....ha ha.........Enjoy !

Now you know why Chefs have big hats. Its because there Brains expand so much with all the knowledge they need to store ! Mind you some are just ' Big Heads ! ha ha !