Turning things around… creating a turning point
I have a potential turning point for how I teach and what I teach… I saw it yesterday.

It’s a potential turning point, because I am not sure I can do it. After all I would be teaching something I did not learn myself. So I don’t even know if it is teachable. But at least now I understand what is going on. Why the results are sporadic.

I’ll explain later, after the story… but let’s start with a story, OK?

I’ve been cooking regularly since I was eight or nine years old. Don’t remember the age, I only remember what I screwed up then. So I am a veteran when it comes to cooking.

Something happened a few weeks ago.
I learned a new word.
Aromatics. I knew this word from Organic Chemistry… Yes, I went to school, and yes I learned what they taught. Didn’t you?

Onion, garlic, celery, even carrots… spices, herbs. All aromatics.
Aromatics refer to vegetables and herbs that add flavor and aroma to a dish. When cooked together, these ingredients help create layers of flavor in your food.
Just like with everything, food can be looked at from many different aspects. These aspects are called, at least in this work, DISTINCTIONS.

Aromatics is a distinction. The common denominator, what they all share, is that they release an AROMA when they are cooked.
Aroma is a distinctive, typically but not necessarily a pleasant smell, while in combination it is heavenly

You can look at cuisines through their use of aromatics. You can estimate the sophistication of the country and its culture through that.
Today, instead of learning to cook, learning to use aromatics, people go to a different country’s restaurant… Almost every country’s ‘cuisine’ is boring, flat, hard to enjoy more often than once a week.

Chinese, Tai, Indian… all dishes taste the same after a while.

My cooking, on the other hand, just because of that one distinction, has become explosively more enjoyable over the past few weeks.

Aromatics are like musical notes. You can create pentatone (boring) music with it, or you can create symphonies, musicals, rousing songs of love and loss…

Same with words…

Same with facial expressions…

Or the alphabet… 26 letters, millions of words and combinations.
Information… all the raw material you can work with.
The difference between a five star chef and you is simply the chef has distinctions. At best you can smell and taste the difference between something well prepared or not… But most of you can’t even have that much distinction, let alone doing what the chef does.

Same in every area. Music, literature, acting. No distinctions.

You may have a kitchen without ingredients. You may have access to many ingredients, but don’t have any distinctions of cooking, you’ll put ketchup on everything, or follow a recipe. Repeat the words…

This is what has been happening in my classes: you repeat the words. but there is no substance behind the words.
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