“Oh no, I don’t read the blogs – you couldn’t pay me to read the blogs. I don’t want to know what people who can’t even afford to eat in my restaurant, let alone know how to cook have to say about me…”
-Lisa Fernandes, a contestant on season 4 of Bravo’s Top Chef
I don’t watch much tv but I’ve been downloading the torrents of Top Chef throughout this whole season. It’s a pretty good culinary competition. The judges are uncreative in their methodology but I like it for the insight into the thought process of how chefs make new dishes.
This quote from the NY Daily News really bothered me. Lisa is a finalist, and for all I know she might have won as I’ve yet to see the finale. Her skills and attitude and personality in general are bland and predictable, but this display of arrogance caught me off guard. How did she make it to the end if she’s so far out of touch with what cooking is?
In cooking, like any other art, you don’t cater to your audience. You create what feels right and if anyone admires the product, they will consume it. Or want to consume it.
To say she’s not cooking for people who can’t afford her product is unbelievably pretentious. Anybody can admire or critique a piece of art whether or not they’ll bring it into their home (or body).
In fact, cooking has less room for pretension because its media are literally consumable. A cook is a servant at the most basic level.
When I worked in a kitchen I was filled with utter joy to watch hundreds of people a day consume my creations. Whether they expressed appreciation was irrelevant. They were in my establishment eating my art, and they would not have been there had they not admired it. But I knew all this was irrespective of the reality of cooking: I was providing sustenance to these people to KEEP THEM ALIVE. I was serving them FOOD.
Lisa’s attitude is like somebody getting self-righteous over creating a new sex position. Yeah yeah, you’re an artist. But in the end you’re still just fornicating like everyone else.
