The naked cake scandalizes and tantalizes.
The unfrosted dessert defies classical pastry tradition by honestly exposing tiers of delectable confetti cake layered with thick slabs of scrumptious frosting. Rainbow sprinkles and cake crumbs joyously tumble and spin childlike delight into Christina Tosi’s iconic birthday cake.
“I’ve seen how obsessed you can get with frosting a cake, and that time should be spent elsewhere,” brightly declares Christina Tosi, the splendidly wondrous and seriously accomplished master chef behind the bakery empire, Milk Bar.
Besides a brazenly bare take on cake, Tosi is also wisely and whimsically concocting an extra treat for her wild fans: “a dollhouse moment of looking in and seeing the world of amazing things happening inside.”
This commitment to creative authenticity serves as her distinct signature and pioneers her deliciously phenomenal success.
I watch Netflix’s docuseries “Chef’s Table” for the eye-candy of winking confetti cake and exactly for these nutritiously inspirational moments.
The chefs’ elated passion for their chosen profession feeds my soul.
My creative spirit recognizes the spirit of creativity animating the chefs’ devoted pursuit to elevating eating as an art that merges the mundane with the divine. Their cooking reveres the land, strives to advocate for the conservation and integrity of quality ingredients, and entices me to slow down and truly experience the pleasure of living in my senses: the taste of an apricot, the scent of baked cookies, the texture of a cocoa bean, the ruby sight of a tomato.
I take a seat at “Chef’s Table” because I enjoy watching people come fully alive.
I possess absolutely no interest in cooking and do not entertain daydreams of dining in the restaurants featured, but I have radical respect for these culinary creatives.
My aliveness brews in words – spoken on stage and written on the page. I honor how creativity enlivens my being, and I greatly honor the same thread of brilliance that ignites recipe exploration and cooking discoveries.
For a tasting sample, like delighting in wonder over the revelatory notion to not frost the sides of the cake and Christina Tosi’s clear reasoning behind it.
And as I meander through the international courses of “Chef’s Table,” I start to detect themes in the chefs’ life stories, and I tune in for the nourishment of their stories.
Most of the chefs begin their careers by leaving home, by boldly claiming their ambition to excel in culinary excellence and embarking on a quest to search for something outside of themselves. They travel the world to attend competitive schools, to work in the kitchens of famous chefs, to masterfully perfect cuisines that are not their own but ones the world exalts as the best.
And then, there’s a fork-in-the-road, a pivotal decision, a wake-up call to either continue on the traditional trek or answer a deeper calling, a soul reckoning. And typically, to answer that calling will bring them back to their home kitchen, back to their country of origin, their hometown, or to the recipes of their childhood with refreshed and reinvigorated enthusiasm and determined vision, and this directs them forward.
For those who do not feel the pull to return home, it’s a homecoming to simplicity: a clearing away to focus on the truthful beauty of pure ingredients, or a curiosity reemerged from childhood that beckons to be actualized into a new chapter.
All the chefs are brave.
All the chefs followed their inner voice, activated their courage to remain true to their path, and all have struggled, all have doubted and failed, and in retrospect, in the grand cook book of their life, the mistakes are necessary ingredients for their current happiness, their current success.
I banquet on their stories. I study them like an old recipe. Their stories are comfort food and essential vitamins. Like a celebratory dinner with loved ones, I keep close these people who dare to serve an undressed cake. I hope that when the time comes, I choose to honor what my own creative musing soul decides to cook up.