Over Easter, I had the much-welcome opportunity to support a private chef at one of his events. As he demonstrated the plating of the vegetarian mains for me, I complimented his work with the comment that it looked great. His instant response was, “Only great, not perfect?”
I didn’t know what to say beyond, “Well..”. In my mind, I was thinking “why on earth does it have to be perfect?” and “who am I to deliver that judgement of perfection?”
Where does our yearning for perfection come from, chef? The all-powerful Nature didn’t create anything perfectly. Neither each one of us nor the blueberries in this punnet. Sure, it would have been much easier to clone all of us to be perfect and exactly alike. But who wants to be part of that?
Let’s instead use perfection sensibly – as a driver to give our best, chefs. Whether that’s for quality control, or portioning, or even self-improvement in our lives outside the kitchen.