Creative Juices
“If you want to find something, use your eyes.” I used this line a few weeks ago to encapsulate the value of firsthand local research when sourcing quality ingredients. You might also recognize this as a line from the movie Serenity. Our spunky hero has just fooled the antagonist by tampering with an electronic tracking device. Analog for the win, baby.
But the importance of direct sensory stimulus is broader. Yes, it’s helpful for ethical sourcing. And though I have no frame of reference, I imagine it’s useful advice for tracking a clever scoundrel on an interplanetary adventure. It also applies to the creative process. For chefs, that means menu writing.
Last Sunday, on the morning of our salmon feast, Mac and I took a trip to the Ballard Farmer’s Market. With a bright blue sky and early summer vegetables in full swing, it was a sight to behold. We had a loose idea for our sides: a simple potato salad and a big salad of grilled and raw vegetables (and some fennel I’d already pickled).
At Olsen Farms, we found some good waxy red potatoes and nice bacon for the potato salad. We knew we had chives in Mac’s garden. The bigger question was the vegetable salad. We chose snap peas, spring onions, summer squash, kohlrabi, and fresh basil from Foothills Farm. Rainier cherries and early tart apricots caught our eye for dessert.
Once we washed everything and laid it out, we started assembling. We discovered that the apricots were really tart, too tart to eat raw, so we grilled them until soft and emulsified them with the pickled fennel brine (along with oil, salt, and pepper) to make a salad dressing. The salad got too big, so we ended up saving the kohlrabi for later.
The best way to shop the market is with a very loose plan. Once you arrive, ask yourself one question: “what looks good to eat?” Trust your lizard instincts. It doesn’t work out one hundred percent of the time (recall the apricots). But then you pivot, and more often than not, you end up in a more interesting place, a place you could never have imagined in advance.
Since I always frame things narratively, I like to think of this as manually moving the plot forward. It’s the same reason why it’s better to take a date on a walk than to a restaurant: the movement ensures you’ll encounter an endless string of things to talk about.
If you’re trying to find something - whether it’s a lost sock, a topic of conversation, an existential answer, or a fitting side dish - sitting around thinking about it is just not that useful. Take it from one of the most overly reflective people you know. If you want to get the creative juices flowing, get out of your head and into the world.
We’re glad you’re cooking with us.
Cheers,
Sten and Mac
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