Purslane and Tomato Pilaf

For a long time I have been looking down on simple recipes. I discarded anything with only a few ingredients and way-too-straightforward flavor combinations. I was on a continuous hunt for the original recipe ideas that I gathered from the cookbooks, food magazines, blogs, TV shows, newspapers and restaurant menus. I took pride in my extensive recipe collection. I was constantly taking notes and meditating on the new combinations of textures, colors and flavors. I loved going to the restaurants run by the like-minded chefs. Cooking is an act of infinite creativity, and kitchen is a lab where experiments never end. Spontaneous stone soup? My apologies, I am too cool for that. I did not want to publish traditional recipes on this blog as I anxiously wanted to include my own unique vision of every single dish I came across. Because honestly why to bother with something that does not include me?

Things changed after the first season at the restaurant we have created and are running with my husband. As I was working on the menu I wanted to impress our guests and critics. I wanted to combine the products that you never see together, I wanted to apply unexpected cooking techniques to the well known products. For the whole first season I was in the pursuit to awe. And if you dig deeper, it is not hard to see that the pursuit was sponsored by my huge ego. After all as a chef and a restaurant owner you need to have one. Huge ego is as mandatory as a massive tattoo on both hands if you are in the business. Sadly, these days we tend to worship people driven by the huge ego rather than the desire to serve others. I wanted to be like that, but luckily came to my senses just on time.

After all it is not your ego that you sous-vide, plate and serve to the guests. The more I cooked at the restaurant the more it became obvious (and the more I refused to accept it) that as a cook I am not the creator, but only a humble servant, and the real joy of cooking is to give joy to the others. I start with something that was grown by somebody else and cook it according to what I had learned from some other people. While doing so I resort to the inspiration, the divide spark, that obviously does not belong to me. My cooking becomes an act of gratitude as I am lucky to express my talents while being useful to others. Such thinking by no way depreciates me and my merits as a cook, on the contrary - it empowers me to be fully free and honest in my creative pursuits, and the creative pursuits themselves go beyond fame and recognition.

Once you remove your pride from the culinary equation, life at the kitchen becomes easy. Without stressing about your great role in the creation of a particular dish you could eventually focus on honoring the farmers that have grown the produce you work with and on passing the tremendous force of love and life through your cooking.

I am blessed with the excess to the excellent produce of the Turkish Aegean coast. And my cooking is only as good as my ingredients are. If I have got juicy and sweet tomatoes, my job is easy. I can put that tomato on a plate and serve it as is. And the guests will be ecstatic about the taste they have not come across since ages. I heard this is what they do at Ches Panisse presenting such and such peach from such and such farm. If my product is not in season, not fresh or not tasting great, I may treat it with butter, salt, exotic spice mix and still will not be able to fool anybody. Allright, someone who is not very sensitive and eats food like that everyday might call it tasty, but this food will not nourish the body and mind. Moreover, it will steal from that person’s well-being.

Most of our restaurant dishes are shamelessly simple. We are painstakingly choosing the best products, and as we put on the apron we take off our heavy crown of the Creator. Such a mindset makes my antennas ready to receive the signals. While a moment ago I had no idea how my new meze of roasted red bell peppers will look like, now I have a perfect plate with balanced flavor, color and texture. Simple enough and yet worth a restaurant menu. Next day my husband will report that our guests loved the new meze. I will smile and shrug my shoulders. Someone might say it takes experience. Indeed, the more you cook the easier it becomes to create new dishes. But there is more to that, and it is the motivation of the cook. Driven by the desire to impress any cook becomes restless, never gets satisfied and tends to turn simple things into complications. But when that cook rightly understands her role, which is to transfer the love and care that nourishes and elevates the eaters, they don’t need to fuss about or talk loud. Their food speaks for itself.