Some years ago, I reached out through social media to a celebrity chef/restauranteur/author and asked the most obnoxious and boring question a journeyman chef could ask. “Where do you get your ideas for dishes?”
With respect to Tim Ferriss and his “nothing ventured, nothing gained” philosophy in The 4 Hour Work Week, social media has created an atmosphere of parasocial relationships. Celebrities, influencers, authors, writers, and other famous personalities put their thoughts and ideas out into the public, and we feel a bizarre approximation of intimacy with someone we don’t know. Why else would a pastry chef from Portland, out of the blue, decide he was entitled to an answer to a fundamentally involved and idiotic question from a guy with a restaurant brand and empire to manage?
So when I got the one-word answer to my question- “Life”- my initial reaction was “Wow, no kidding jackass.” With the benefit of hindsight, I know this individual didn’t owe me an answer at all. I was the random asshole on the internet bothering them with a childish question.
I also have, with time and experience, found that the answer to that question is both insanely simple and involved and personal. Had they wanted to give me a full answer, it wouldn’t have been wrapped up in anything pithier than simply saying “life.”
Well this is my blog. I have time and lines to fill, and I answered some parts of that question already. No one’s asked me (yet) but here’s my best explanation for how I come up with new desserts for the winery.
