Kitchen Creativity: Unlocking Culinary Genius

Have you ever dreamed of walking into a kitchen and creating a dish from scratch, knowing exactly how to season it to perfection?
Have you ever dreamed of walking into a kitchen and creating a dish from scratch, knowing exactly how to season it to perfection?

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg recognized that need and used their expertise to write KITCHEN CREATIVITY: Unlocking Culinary Genius—with Wisdom, Inspiration, and Ideas from the World’s Most Creative Chefs.

Karen joins host Lisa Davis to share the three stages to Kitchen Creativity.

Get farm to table ingredients and recipes delivered right to your door every week with Sun Basket. Go to SunBasket.com/talkhealthy to save $35 off of your first order. - sponsor

Stage 1: Mastery. A cook copies the masters -- their dishes, their techniques, their seasoning -- to develop a knowledge and skill base. Here, Page recommends essential books for the chef’s library, explains the difference between enhancing flavor and adding flavor, lists trusted food sources for the best-quality ingredients, and demonstrates how to learn time-tested flavor pairings and affinities.

Now you can save money on your life insurance just for being healthy. HealthIQ helps physically active people save up to 33% on their life insurance. Go to HealthIQ.com/talkhealthytoday to get a free quote. - sponsor

Stage 2: Alchemy. A cook integrates and applies new knowledge and experience, converting ingredients and classic dishes into something fresh. This section overflows with examples of converted classic dishes, chefs’ sources of inspiration, and the thought process behind reinventions. Page also breaks down the principles behind the creation of individual flavors, especially those that contribute to the taste of familiar dishes, showing how to apply such principles to the invention of something new.

Stage 3: Creativity. A cook connects and combines elements into a new creation. Page teaches you how to take a look at the cooking techniques you know, and the dishes you love, to play with different combinations and create dishes without recipes, using your informed imagination. You’ll also find countless proven techniques for enhancing creativity through both stimulation (including travel, reading, and dining out) and stillness (such as lowering brain wave frequencies via meditation and yoga).








Sponsor:

Now you can save money on your life insurance just for being healthy. HealthIQ helps physically active people save up to 33% on their life insurance. Go to HealthIQ.com/talkhealthytoday to get a free quote.

Additional Info

  • Segment Number: 1
  • Audio File: talk_healthy/tt171.mp3
  • Featured Speaker: Karen Page
  • Book Title: KITCHEN CREATIVITY: Unlocking Culinary Genius—with Wisdom, Inspiration, and Ideas from the World’s Most Creative Chefs
  • Guest Bio: Karen-PageKaren Page and 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).

    Their books—including What to Drink with What You Eat, named the 2006 Georges Duboeuf “Wine Book of the Year” and the IACP “Cookbook of the Year”; Culinary Artistry, called one of the “World’s Best Cookbooks” by Food & Wine; and Becoming a Chef, which won the James Beard Book Award for Best Writing on Food—have been honored with every major gastronomic award and translated into multiple languages.

    The married couple lives in New York City.
  • Length (mins): 27:28
  • Waiver Received: Yes
  • Host: Lisa Davis, MPH