Creatives in the Kitchen #1
I think creativity and cooking walk side by side. I follow a lot of creative people online and I kind of see a pattern of people who rather like cooking or eating. So I decided I should talk with some of them to see how is their kitchen business! For me, cooking is intuitive so it is a regular exercise of creativity, with all its ups and downs. Sometimes it tastes amazing and you feel you got it. Other days it tastes awful, you cry, but you eat it anyway and life moves on.
I’ve been following Sandra Juto for some years, so pick her to answer me some questions on this topic was an obvious choice! She’s a Swede living in Berlin, Germany, and she can’t describe her creative work in just one word, since it involves photography, graphic design, blogging, illustration, and so on. But one thing she’s sure about: she cooks. A lot. And it’s so peculiar that her interest for cooking better food was the result of a not so good meal!
“When I left my parents, I hadn’t been cooking much. My boyfriend at the time, who I moved in with, cooked me a meal; it was pork without any spices, not even salt or pepper. From then on I decided I needed to learn how to cook because a bad meal is a waste of food”.
Sandra’s nowadays cooking is often pretty fast and simple, although sometimes she takes some time to cook for hours. “Good things do take time as they say, take a tomato sauce for instance. I love experimenting with spices and just learned how to cook rice without it getting soggy, so there’s a lot of Asian food going on in my kitchen”.
She just follows recipes from time to time, in a way to keep her home cooking school on going. And it seems to be a trustful method, since she has developed a very good sense of which flavours go well together. “My husband, who’s a great cook, often asks me what’s missing and I can be pretty much on the spot about what makes the meal more balanced taste wise”.
Hmm… Some pink there, some orange over there, some yellow to the left. You see?
Sandra sums it up beautifully and simply: “almost anything tastes good if it’s made with love and the “right” combinations of ingredients”.
Q&A à la minute
Intuitive mix of ingredients that always work together?
I’m a sucker for frying things (veggies, fish) in a sauce made of honey, soy, chili, ginger, garlic, oil & a bit of water.
First thought about food today?
I passed by my supermarket and jumped inside to buy an egg salad sandwich. I have been fasting (just discovered that fasting is very good for my mental health) for a few days and will indulge myself in the egg salad craving I have now. The sandwich has been in the fridge for a couple of hours already, though. Soon it’s in my belly!
How do you let your creativity flow in the kitchen?
A bit of red curry here, a bit of garlic there, more salt, let’s see what else we need!
