Salt and Pepper, The Foundation

People always ask me why food taste better when you eat out.  And outside of the idea that you did not have to make it yourself there is one main difference… Restaurants use more butter and more salt and pepper than you do when you cook at home.

There are two lessons that still ring clear in my mind when I think about seasoning.  The first is from my French professor at culinary school who said when we would want to boil something like pasta or vegetables, “The water should taste like the sea,” he was referring to making sure you added enough salt to the water to be able to impart flavor into whatever we were cooking.  The second such lesson came when I was working at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, and my then mentor reminded me that salt and pepper are the foundation of any great dishes.  You cannot add a dash at the end expect that to hold up the dish. He would say “Salt and pepper is the foundation, you cannot build a house without cement and 2×4’s and you can’t build great food without salt and pepper from the beginning”

So to all you who read this I suggest, be bold, be brave, and season with meaning from the very beginning.