Culin-Artistry
An
essay by Stephen Geez
www.StephenGeez.com
Art by Dizzy
We have entered the age of fully interactive media, and it sure tastes good.
Now more than ever, pleasureful stimulation of the senses provides its audience opportunities to participate, select venue, arrange elements, control pace, combine or separate pieces, choose climax and finale, and determine outcome. Of course, one medium has already been offering near-perfect interactivity for thousands of years:
The culinary arts.
Food preparation truly is an art form, one that elevates the satisfaction of a most basic human necessity, a drive stimulated internally by hunger, or externally through any of the senses: the chilly tickle of ice cream on a hot day, the staccato of sizzling bacon bringing rhythm to a dreary morn, the vision of a gourmet spread in enticing splendor, the aroma—ah, the many aromas—of vanilla bean and cinnamon, warm bread cooling on the hearth, roast beef simmering in deep broth, smoky trout fillets grilling over mesquite embers, citrus slices summoning tropical orchards to wintry climes, creamed corn bubble-blurping in an earthen crock, and the youthful exuberance in whiffs of fresh-baked pies and cakes and tortes . . .
Any symphony to stimulate the palette requires a maestro, either performing the scored recipe of another composer, presenting one of his own favorite opuses, or improvising like the spontaneous session players of free jazz.
The art of pleasing the tongue is a noble human endeavor. The community of man has devoted considerable effort throughout history to discovering more and more ingredients, ensuring ample supply year-round, maintaining maximum quality, and inventing new ways to serve. Nearly every home devotes an entire room to preparing food, plus another to consuming it, a process that is certainly ritualized and often communal, with each participant controlling his own sensory immersion.
All people pick up the rudiments of food preparation, then start a lifelong process of learning from others, developing their own techniques and identifying their own preferences. Taking the best from those who have “cooked” before, each develops an individual talent that belongs exclusively to one. For some, their skills remain rudimentary. Others raise it to high art, which often sparks a desire to share with others.
At the top, we find the master chef, a trained and practiced soul who has transcended mere skill to stretch his creativity, a performer for the famished masses, every presentation a masterpiece appealing to all the senses, an exquisite homage to taste.
My friend Kent Casey is one.
He revels in the interactivity of culinary expression.
He appreciates a medium where people start with a menu, choose the courses, then customize further—from dressing flavors to entree cooking times to dessert toppings. Once served, they add their own spices, decide how much and how fast to eat, then fully interact with their meal, taking a bite of this or a nibble of that, maybe pushing aside those while devouring all of these and saving some of the rest for last. What and when and how much they drink adds liquid syncopation to their selections. Chefs at Kent’s level maximize the choices and ensure an elegant experience where each diner ultimately takes charge.
Top chefs performing for larger audiences earn their own venues, restaurants or clubs where they develop signature dishes, evolving menus that shift over time in response to customers’ raves, operations as elaborate as the tour production of a musical group. A full support staff helps pull together all the elements needed for a grand performance that embodies the artist’s vision and pleases the crowds.
Kent has done that and more, working his way up from supporting “back-up” roles, sometimes with famous chefs boasting well-known names, then succeeding as the executive chef designing his own menu for a new restaurant. Each proved a grueling, time-consuming commitment, so when family obligations urged him toward a lighter schedule, I was proud to see him take his art to people who deserve a measure of culinary pleasure often missing from their day-to-day living: the residents of retirement homes and assisted-living communities, an audience quite easy for him to find in the greater Tampa area.
Accepting the challenge at several facilities, he transformed their dining operations by listening to their preferences, accommodating their special needs, and finally dazzling them with gustatory delights. Where unhappy residents had customarily avoided the on-site facilities’ pabulum, participation soon skyrocketed, and many made Kent’s dining rooms into regular destinations, even treating their family and friends, a way for loved ones to share the kind of joy only tasty food can uniquely offer.
In my own coming dotage, I should be so lucky.
Now Kent relishes the selective flexibility found in sharing his art with private clients. As Tampa’s “BEKKS Personal Chef,” he’s thrilled to have finally achieved maximal interactivity. Just as you might cook for your own family and friends, expressing your own creativity to show you care, he gets to visit people’s homes and perform for small audiences, each occasion a unique opportunity to listen to their wants, then amaze them with his concepts, sticking around only long enough to drink hearty drafts of their afterglow. From romantic dinners to grand celebrations, he plays a role central to the very best of the human condition.
Of course, a little something to, you know, help pay the bills is important, too, but that just affords him more chances to make new friends, discover new tastes, try new ideas, and orchestrate tasting events to raise awareness and funds for his favorite causes, such as breast-cancer research.
Culinary arts is literally the medium for which people hunger, and while a pleasing presentation can bring deep satisfaction, the desire inevitably returns. It’s the fundamental cycle of survival, claiming its place in the base of any hierarchy of needs, yet aspiring to the pinnacle of self-actualization. It’s a means to survival lifted to an exultation of esthetics.
Wonderfully prepared foods touch all aspects of our lives. Every taste evokes impressions: melodies, images, fleeting nuances, associations, memories, even people near and far, past and present. Hunger makes us anticipate, just as each course satisfies one moment while teasing us with the next. A great meal takes us to our own place, dances us to a theme, elevates, varies, infuses, and always questions . . . then reaches a crescendo and floats us through the coda of dessert.
I’ve attended incredible concerts, viewed great art, watched phenomenal films, read the most moving books . . .
And savored the singular pleasure of having my friend cook for me.
And still, in the truest form of interactive media, I accepted the gift of his art . . . and made it my own.
Gosh, how lucky for me that I have such good taste.
* * *
Learn more about Kent Casey, the BEKKS Personal Chef.
© The Fresh Ink Group, LLC, 2008
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