[Sca-cooks] OT OP Rock Star Chefs

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Fri Oct 2 06:55:45 PDT 2009


On Oct 2, 2009, at 9:42 AM, Johnna Holloway wrote:

> There's an article in the Wall Street Journal this am on
> Rock-Star Chefs. Top chefs are drawing crowds of screaming fans with  
> live performances. Making jambalaya sandwiches in a 5,500-seat  
> amphitheater.
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574445030348967804.html
>
> Johnnae

I believe I first encountered this when I heard about Keith Floyd's  
death... he had been doing that.

No, seriously, though, I've long been a proponent of the athletic/ 
dynamic side of cookery (the guy thing?); that approaching it as a  
dynamic physical activity (among its other aspects) makes you better  
at it.

That might actually translate well as performance art. There's a way  
the great ones move their hands, I don't know how else to explain it,  
but it was pointed out to me that there is an... acquirable  
discipline... to moving in a certain way, and there are advantages to  
it. I guess it's like knowing the motions necessary for a certain  
martial art, but having no physical grace, no innate sense of how hard  
to press or how fast to move, your movements are going to be  
ineffective.

Well, no soap box here. It just struck me that yes, I can see the  
attraction for performance art of this kind. It's sharing in a kind of  
mystique that the Food Network can't quite completely touch.

Phil / A.



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