Thoughts on Recipes

Dreary, fall weather is my favorite! I don't feel obligated to go outside and enjoy the sun. I can be content stepping out on our deck with my coffee, breathing in the wonderful breeze then spending the day inside catching up on cleaning, tv, or in this case blogging!

With Jamie Oliver on Netflix and baby boy content with rolling, I decided to spend a little time putting some cake recipes on LaLa Cake.  While I was thinking about which ones to pick I almost felt sheepish thinking that any recipe I was posting was not in fact a LaLa original but out of my beloved "Cake Bible".

During culinary school I was taught to follow each and every recipe to the letter. Before I would be trusted in the culinary world to cook something my way, I had to first master cooking 'their' way.  With graduation, however, also came the confidence of graduating from recipes.  I was a chef now, no longer did I have to succumb to someone else's thoughts on how to cook. This line of thinking of course ended with my first restaurant job. Not only now did I have to cook someone else's way, but there was also a fear instilled in every line cook. An understood rule that we would not even consider steping up to the creative line. Instead our job was to keep our sleeves white, and a simple phrase in our vocabularies; "Yes Chef!" 

I've paid my culinary dues however and now reserve the right to scoff at recipes and simply create! Baking is quite a different story.  I am inexperienced and still in the "Yes Chef" stage.  My new chefs will never see the fruits of their labor, or know the infulence to my art, but they the most important ingredient at the moment.  With that said, I have reassured myself, and hopefully you, that there is no shame in using a good recipe.