Time and Precision

I had the pleasure of sitting next to a chef while on a flight to Chicago earlier this week. I like to cook, so conversation came easily. I was surprised by a couple of things he shared with me.

First, making good bread from scratch apparently takes about 12 hours. Who knew? Mr. Chef gave me first-hand, step by step instructions detailing what it takes to make good bread, and the process takes a long time. You have to add yeast to the dough, let the dough rise, pound it back down, and let it rise again several times before baking it. According to Mr. Chef, the more opportunities the dough has to rise, the better the bread will be in the end, but this takes a lot of time.

I asked Mr. Chef about baking, and found out that baking is fairly simple. "Follow the recipe," he said. Wait a minute, I thought being a chef was all about experimentation and adding flavors ad hoc. Nope, being a chef is all about making good food, and in the world of baked goods if you screw with the recipe and don't follow it precisely, you can ruin good baked goods. He was adamant, "follow the recipe."

So, what did I learn from my friend Mr. Chef? I learned a couple of important things: time and precision are important factors in bringing about the good stuff in life. Some things just take time - there's no other remedy, and there are no shortcuts. The same is true with precision. If we want things to turn out well, it's in our best interests to be as precise as possible on the front end.

I'll never look at bread or cookies the same way again.