A side story to today's kitchen work
March 9

Here's an interesting side story to today's kitchen work: Ever sit down in the quiet of your office (or wherever) to do some creative work, and enjoyed the luxury of feeling your way through your own personal process, content in the knowledge that when you are good and ready, you can show your work to those you trust for input? Yes? Well imagine this: Here in Tokyo , when I'm getting ready to try out some new ingredients or a new take on a dish, the chef or sous-chef loudly proclaims to the kitchen staff that Chef Romano is about to do such-and-such. At that point each cook immediately drops what they are doing and gathers around, with pads and pens in hand. Every reached-for ingredient, every grab for some salt, every twist of the pepper mill has the cooks scribbling furiously in their pads, documenting choices that may change at any moment. (Today I grabbed a pinch of sea salt to toss into a tomato sauce, and out of the corner of my eye saw a cook grab a similar pinch, put it on a scale, and record the amount in his notebook) A movement on my part from work table to stove-top engenders a migration not unlike a swarm of bees hot on the honey trail. When, finally, the finished product is plated (which may or may not be what I'd hoped for or intended) the chef or sous-chef once again loudly proclaims the fact, and in a flash, fifteen cell phones emerge and pictures are snapped, celebrating the arrival of a new-born dish. Gotta love it.