Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many colours or notes, there are only so many flavours, it's how you combine them that sets you apart. If you are a cook, no matter how good a cook you are, it's not good cooking for yourself, the joy is in cooking for others, it's the same with music.
I started cooking at the age of eight. I have been interested in cooking for as long as I can remember. At that age I did not want to be a cook I wanted to be a movie director but at age fifteen my love for food grew, I found that food had became my form of artistic expression.
I have a passion for food and I want to be a cook. My inspiration is definitely my mum because she was the one who told me that I had a passion for cooking. I wasn't really thinking about becoming a cook until my mother told me that I had passion for food. So I then started concentrating in the Culinary Industry still development.
When I'm cooking, I love the smell of food rising into my nose. The warmth of a tomato picked right off the vine and the way the knife feels in your hand when you slice through it. There has to be love and respect for the ingredients. The ability to know when a pineapple or watermelon is perfectly ripe. The aroma that flows through the air as the scent of the flavours permeates a room, and the textures of the food at the tip of your fork that makes your mouth explode with sensation of wanting more. Knowing what type of meat works best in a certain dish. Tasting what you are cooking and going to serve. This brings a smile not only to your face but to those who will share it with you. I might get a basic eater who says "I do not like cheese" but I sneak it in their food and they end up loving the food , these are some of the good things about being a Cook.
Cooking is what I love, not what I'm cooking. When I'm cooking for people I love the way I come alive and incorporate a piece of myself into dishes I cook. The food that I cook with great love and care always taste different to that is cooked without feelings and therefore soulless. When I'm cooking I feel happy and successful because I don't rely on knowing how, because it comes from the heart, soul, makes great demands on the palate, needs enthusiasm and a deep love of food. When you cook you have to feel it, you have to get the smells into your head, the senses provided by the nose and tongue, imagine how it is going to look on that palate and imagining how people are going to feel when they get their food and when they taste the food. You have to have some kind of knack for food. Painters learn to add a small amount of grey to a bright green apple to emphasise the shadowed areas. Cooks learn to add a "pinch" of a favourite spice to enhance flavour. So when you cook keep it simple, keep it fresh and the food will do the rest.
I love it when I come across something I haven't heard of and I have to research it. It's amazing and awesome. I like the creative side of it. I absolutely truly love what I do . There is nothing more satisfying than when my friends and family say "Oh my God, I'm loving this food!" Food is the best way I can bring joy into people lives. In twenty-five years I can't think of anything else I'd want to do besides cooking.
People may think of elaborate kitchen with burner stoves and confection ovens, expensive ingredients from the farthest regions of the world and years of Culinary Education and Cooking experience. Although it can mean those things, it means something much simpler. To cook means to bring love, passion and respect into what you are cooking for those who will enjoy your food. Cooking for me means turning simplest ingredients into ecstasy and something magnificent for the soul, social celebrations and future memories. I like cooking because I have feelings of being nourished and satisfied go hand in hand with love, passion, respect and the pure gratification that it brings into my life. I cook because I have respect for not only who I'm cooking for, but acknowledging where the food comes from not farmers, but animals too. Regardless of the occasion food is always something that binds everyone at the table together, it brings joy in people's lives and this is one of the reasons why I like to cook. To me, it is a way I can express myself!
