"An incredible reference for home cooks, young chefs, and seasoned pros alike. Kitchen Creativity should be in everyone's library." - Eric Ripert, chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin and New York Times bestselling author of 32 Yolks
Unlock your creative potential with the world's most imaginative chefs.
In this groundbreaking exploration of culinary genius, the authors of The Flavor Bible reveal the surprising strategies great chefs use to do what they do best. Beyond a cookbook, Kitchen Creativity is a paradigm-shifting guide to inventive cooking (without recipes!) that will inspire you to think, improvise, and cook like the world's best chefs.
Great cooking is as much about intuition and imagination as it is about flavor and technique. Kitchen Creativity distills brilliant insights into these creative processes from more than 100 top restaurant kitchens, including the Bazaar, Blue Hill,
Daniel, Dirt Candy, Eleven Madison Park and the NoMad, Gramercy Tavern, the Inn at Little Washington, Le Bernardin, Oleana, Rustic Canyon, Saison, Single Thread, and Topolobampo.
Based on four years of extensive research and dozens of in-depth interviews, Kitchen Creativity illuminates the method (and occasional madness) of culinary invention. Part I reveals how to learn foundational skills, including how to appreciate, taste, and season classic dishes (Stage 1: Mastery), before reinventing the classics from a new perspective (Stage 2: Alchemy). Einstein's secret of genius-combinatory play-pushes chefs to develop unique creations and heighten their outer and inner senses (Stage 3: Creativity). Part II's A-to-Z entries are an invaluable culinary idea generator, with exercises to prompt new imaginings.
You'll also discover:
- experts' criteria for creating new dishes, desserts, and drinks;
- comprehensive seasonality charts to spark inspiration all year long;
- how to season food like a pro, and how to create complex yet balanced layers of flavor;
- the amazing true stories of historic dishes, like how desperate maitre d' "Nacho" Anaya invented nachos; and
- proven tips to jump-start your creative process.
The ultimate reference for culinary brainstorming, Kitchen Creativity will spur your creativity to new heights, both in the kitchen and beyond.
Kitchen Creativity's author Karen Page and photographer Andrew Dornenburg have been described as "perhaps the most influential and important of all food writers working today" (KLAV Radio), having created "many definitive guides" (Wall Street Journal) and "some of the most important books on cooking" (Good Food, KCRW/NPR), "making their mark with books that bring us inside the craft and life of America's chefs and their restaurants" (The Splendid Table, NPR).
Drawing on a shared passion for food, as well as previous careers as a creativity and strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies (Page) and as a restaurant chef (Dornenburg), the duo's thought-provoking books are often fueled by creative pursuits outside the kitchen, from Harvard Business School's famed creativity course to a dance company's advisory board. Their books have been translated into multiple languages and received citations as sources of information and/or inspiration in numerous scholarly, fiction, nonfiction, and other creative works globally.
Former Washington Post wine columnists who have run six marathons between them, the married couple lives in New York City.
