The reason why I love cooking is the same reason why I love journalism so much.
It’s the perfect merger of art & science. Journalism is the science of gathering details, solving problems, and creating a product. The only difference from cooking is that you are using the eyes and the mind as your audience, not the tongue and the stomach.
However, you can make minor tweaks that create just the right “je ne sas pais” adjustment that a reader (or an eater) cannot quite put their finger on, but come back for more, hungry to solve the grand issue but always not quite there.
There are rock stars in the cooking world (The James Beard awards are on tonight) just as there are rock stars in the journalism world (Hunter S. Thompson is revered on the level of Jimi Hendrix on my school’s campus), but even though their stylistic flourishes often come in the way of their product, they reach all kinds of audiences and have a little to do with why I picked up a spatula or a pen in the first place.
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