Jonathan started getting the New York Times a few weeks ago and I'm now having a problem that I had when I was watching a lot of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" this winter: no food is good enough. I love cooking and eating and I usually believe my creations are pretty decent. But my butternut squash lasagna and homemade marinara sauce don't measure up to Le Chateaubriand and The French Laundry.
I think that everyone needs people, places, and/or internal forces that push their edges a little, that challenge them to do a little more and a little better than before. But as it is with all mentoring, advice to a mentee pushed too far will fall on deaf ears or end in arrested efforts. If I'm not careful, Wednesday's Dining section could paralyze me into a non-cooking (non-eating?) person who certainly wouldn't be any better than before.
So I remind myself that the aforementioned institutions are reserved for people with a much better wardrobe than me and that I live outside Cincinnati, which has no Michelin stars to its name. I don't have the specialized tools these guys have and my audience worries very little about presentation. I have all the mentoring I need right now in my own quest to cook and eat better food and it suits the circles I run in just fine.
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