05.12.2010     12h10

As longtime readers (and familiar faces at our table!) already know, Damien and I have been getting into cooking over the past year or so. We watch a lot of cooking shows (Top Chef, Masterchef Australia, Eric Ripert's "Avec Eric", Gordon Ramsay's "the F word") and we try to find good quality food when we go out to eat.

One of the most famous American chefs out there today is Thomas Keller. the Boston Globe recently did an interview with him and he emphasized the importance of trying and practicing in the kitchen:

Thomas Keller is one of the country’s best-known chefs, the man behind such lauded restaurants as California’s French Laundry and New York’s Per Se. But there’s more to him than the high end. He has a casual, family-style restaurant called Ad Hoc, and his cookbook “Ad Hoc at Home’’ just won a James Beard Award. We spoke with Keller about home cooking, fine dining, and the dishes dearest to his heart.

Q. This book is for home cooks, so: What does one need to do to become a great home cook?

A. Practice. It’s like anything. We’re always thinking, Let’s do something new. What’s the next thing? That’s not how you become good at something. You don’t become a good writer because you’re always trying to write a different way. You learn the fundamentals of the English language and practice every day. Baseball players practice every day, violinists practice every day. You can’t expect to go into a home kitchen and bang out an incredible meal your first time. Go in and practice your skills. It’s really a very fundamental process. Repeat repeat repeat.

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