I spent 3 minutes typing and deleting text, failing to express my appreciation and support for this type of video that talks about topics very few people bother to discuss even if they are the base of all cooking. So yeah, I give up lol
That happens to me all the time. I tend to drop thoughtful creative comments myself and often mess up the first few attempts. I don't edit comments either so I have to delete and start over if I think of something I want to add. LOL
If it makes you feel any better, this video took me forever to write. I started and stopped a few times over a period of a couple of months until I could finally put it into words :)
@@helenrennie I plan on writing a book about my life in the digital underground spanning the past 35 years or so. I know the feeling. I have been starting to write the book for a few years now. Ahhhhh! BTW, off topic, you are probably the most beautiful gal I have ever seen. I can't help but drop this comment. I'm a man and when I see nice looking people I comment about it. Take care, Helen! Regards from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I do think creativity is a product of action within restraints. If I had everything in my pantry that I loved, I wouldn't feel creative. It helps to keep a simple pantry, and eat seasonally. Then you have to use your noggin to create something GOOD.
The limit of my creativity is to peruse 4 or 5 recipes for the same dish, from sources I find reliable, and choose or substitute-in the elements I think are best. Mine will never be a household name but it works pretty well for me.
I also think education can help. I did a year in the culinary department my husband taught at and while I knew so much of what was being taught it really did help with all the really basic stuff...clarifying butter, toasting nuts, the best pan to saute in. Once you get all the basics down it is so much easier to be creative. That being said, there are just some people who have a natural gift for innovation. I don't envy them but I do acknowledge their talent and see what I can incorporate into my own cooking. This is why your videos are so important to me. And I have been cooking for 57 years. There's always room to improve and things to learn. Thank you for your honesty.
Thank you for endorsing craft. In an era in which everything is falsely lauded as "an art" simply because it is accomplished, it is good to remember that developing craft is a worthy accomplishment and is indeed distinct from art.
Well, necessity is sometimes the mother of invention ... and I think creativity too. For instance, I was making your recipe for Mujaddara and while I had some canned tomatoes in the cupboard, I had a dish of already roasted red peppers in the fridge. I decided that since roasted red peppers tend to be my substitute in many things when tomatoes are out of season, they might be a good and slightly more convenient replacement in this dish. Yum! I think I may like them better than the tomatoes :) I often thing in terms of flavors and textures. This need something salty or sweet; this need something crunchy ... then I look in my pantry and fridge and see what I have on hand. Keeping a well stocked pantry can make this a pretty satisfying adventure :)
Thank you!!! You are the cooking teacher I wish I had had back in junior high when they forced all the girls to take cooking and sewing and I wanted to take wood/metal shop. (I got a C, basically in dishwashing since the other girls were always fighting over the stove rights. Why only a C? because I washed them the way my mother taught me, which made more sense and used less water and soap than the way my young unmarried no kids teacher told me to cus it was in her book.) The Levels!!! I have been struggling to figure out how to approach learning to cook beyond 'keeping people alive' levels (yes at 58 the desire finally awoke). The Levels makes so much more sense now...especially after being married to men who had that same chip as you do and couldn't understand how I don't. I'm an intuitive regarding other subjects, but not domestic skills. I can etch a printed circuit board! I can solder resistors. I can code computers. But the kitchen and the sewing machine...that was just Magic as far as I was concerned. Thanks for bridging my cognitive gap in making the cross-references. If I am ever in Boston (I'm in Los Angeles), it would probably be just to be in your class. I also love your pixie cut!!
Dang, your classes are soo freaking reasonably priced too!!! One of the local schools are here wants $300 for the same lessons! But that's Manhattan Beach for ya. But not all of us are aerospace engineers with 6-figure incomes. :/
He he -- I am the reverse. I studied computer science in college and it never clicked for me. I am married to an amazing software engineer who finds coding so intuitive and it never became intuitive for me no matter how hard I tried. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses :)
Wowww! What an inspiring video. I can't tell how I enjoyed and learned from it. At some points I was nearly crying for the beautiful way of explaining the obvious, yet critical and essential points she mentioned.
Dear Helen, you are incomparable! It seems that time passes by and always manage to make even better videos. Your explanations are so clear and precise... Thank you and Congratulations!
Great advice! In addition to eating out, I would add to watch and read lots about food. When you want to make a dish, try looking up several recipes and see how they differ. Eventually, you learn to pick and choose from them and even ad-lib from other knowledge. I also highly recommend _The Flavor Bible;_ it's a reference book where you look up a major ingredient or flavor component and it will give you a list of pairing flavors, and sometimes even 3-5 flavor combinations.
Another fantastic "Helen video". And I even saw her clever credits. "Adam Schiff for President". That's a "creative" idea. A mature, sane adult for president. Thanks, Helen!
Speaking of culinary evolution, I recently made a Cincinnati chili where I did not have chili powder... so I used curry powder and it turned out pretty good!
Too often when I was applying for a Chef position I was taken to the kitchen (usually by the Chef de Cuisine) and given an apron and a pair of gloves. Once I had donned those the Chef said simply, " If you're any good you should already have an idea where everything is. So please, cook me something." This is the very essence of culinary creativity. To possess enough skill and knowledge to walk into any kitchen cold, look at what's available and put together a tasty dish. That particular Chef, after tasting my dish, hired me and put me to work that evening using my dish as the special. I disagree (reluctantly, I like her a great deal) with her assessment that there is no art in the second phase. Like she quoted, an artist with his palette. The artist chooses the colors to work with but she fails to mention that the artist starts with basic colors. Then the artist appears, mixing and blending the basics in to wonderous colors. That's the art, that's the creativity in culinary arts...
To me creative cooking is knowing how to combine food for best effect (including how to cook/prepare to best effect). It takes a certain level of knowledge (granted not much) to know what/how to combine things. It is possible to be "creative" without having the skills to pull it off, which is where practice comes in.
Thanks Helen! I value your perspective and guidance. As a little boy growing up in Montreal in the late 40's and 50's, the availability of ingredients was limited. Cooking was about the "season" because that was when specific ingredients became available locally- unless you had a can opener handy! Now we live in a time and location where we can put our hands on almost anything whenever we want it. What a luxury and opportunity to try so many exotic things and experiment with cuisines from around the world. And so nice to have you as a guide! I argue that with today's proliferation of ingredients, "good guidance" is more important than creativity. But I still insist you are creative!
I have a Dog in this Hunt ... been a professional artist since I was 10 years old when I sold my first Drawings ... as I got older I got better and better and because of that sold enough of my product to get by reasonably well .... what I eventually figured out about my abilities is the whole thing boiled down to learning the correct techniques and learning to apply those techniques consistently and even more important, Remembering these things in a very Conscious way .After awhile I could almost close my eyes and still recreate a very saleable piece of Art because I had internalized what I had learned .... so after figuring out so-called Creativity was just learning a huge database of metaphorical recipes it was a natural for me to approach cooking the same way as I dealt with my art.....so I would say that Creativity does'nt really exist at all ..instead what were really seeing in certain types of people is they have the non-stop drive to keep moving forward in their endeavors and a great love of learning new things ..So IE. this is more about learning techniques and remembering them than some sort of innate artistic ability ... so I guess a great Cook is no different than a Great Artist they both know their particular endeavors techniques and desired outcomes so well ...it just comes natural for them to to create something really good...
The number of times I've said the sentence. "I made a weird salad or soup for dinner" to my boyfriend... Sometimes my creativity works but most timed it just makes stuff taste weird, rarely bad though. Luckily he cooks more often and we eat delishious meals most often. 😅
You are an amazing teacher. How I wish I could stay in Boston for a while and take some classes. Your egg pasta video was much better then the hands on class I took as an example. Are the
Wow, Just happened upon this video and it is fascinating. I was a professional cook for many years - got out permanently a few years ago cuz restaurant work will destroy your back, knees, feet and nerves after a while. I learned to cook first from my grandmother and mother, got a job as a dishwasher in a hotel kitchen and kept my eyes & ears open, started reading cookbooks and experiementing at home. Moved up through the kitchen - prepcook, pantry/cold foods, hot line. Ended up with a degree in Food Service Administration and did some traveling. I found you can always learn something about cooking from almost anyone, even people who are not professional cooks buyt know how to do even one dish well might have a new idea or technique. Many of the cooks and chefs I worked with early in my career were usually very willing to share knowledge and as I improved I willingly shared my knowledge with others. I stil cook at home and recently started getting in touch with my Sicilian roots again. Lastly, Helen is such a lovely woman these videos are so well done and very informative, helped me recall a few things I forgot since leaving the kitchen and learned safew things too..
A presentation of profound culinary wisdom... One thing I might add is when I cook for friends and family, I watch closely what they actually eat as opposed to what they say they liked. People tend to feel guilty about "liking" foods that they perceive as not being healthy, but given the chance love to actually eat them... Watching always yields the truth...
I would like to see some videos on spices and when and what to use them on. Even if it’s just the basic info, because there is so many variables on this.
#RealComment Thank you for this wonderful message. I have learned so much about the "craft" of cooking for your channel, and I'm so grateful for all you share and teach. Would you consider a video on acidity? The different types, what sort of flavor (in addition to acidity) the types add, and when you'd be better of with a certain type of acid, for example, when would you be better off with lemon juice than pomegranate molasses, for example?
Hey Helen, Many many years ago, I ate at a place in St. Louis Missouri. I had what was called, Blackened Sea Bass. I've rarely enjoyed a meal as much as I enjoyed the Sea Bass. It was so good, 20 years later, I still remember it. I think of it about 20 times a year. I've never found anything close to this sea bass. Can you make a video on Blackened sea bass? Please.
Me and my boss (who's a veteran homecook) recently discussed various foodtubers out there, and I said that the one foodtuber who I respect the most out of them all, the one I'd pick if I could only recommend 1 food channel to someone - is Helen Rennie.
I think you're too modest. And I think people are confusing your thinking for creativity. You think about food, you think and experiment about how to get to best result that you would like. Most of the people approach cooking religiously, as if it were some hidden secret skill endowed only to the few selected and initiated. As the final stamp of proof of this amazing cooking knowledge that people love to mystify, the best ones become TV celebrities. If something is a mystery, then people cannot just freely act about it and break it down, criticize it, experiment with it and change it.
I love your videos Helen, not only because you go over simpler techniques and recipes, but because you also teach about such broad topics like these! Taking a step back, I feel like your advice can apply to more than just cooking, but to life in general haha. Honestly, as the amateur I am, you'd be my go-to teacher for cooking! I'm so grateful you spend the time to make these videos!
🤔 Looks like Kale Pasta to me, I can abstractly reverse engineering something similar just on one still photo only. I didn’t say it would taste exactly the same. But that all to me is part of the essence of creativity in the kitchen. I think you answered it well. I find a lot of my own creativity also comes from my imagination as well also being inspired. When I didn’t know the basic essence of cooking, well I couldn’t figure how to just cook anything or even what added flavor. I learned that and always learning. In imagination it helps to know of ingredients and some idea of how to use them. In using them, you learn and get better at It. It helps to be adventurous in the kitchen for creativity. Just looking around at what you have and build some abstract idea of a dish in your mind or doing so while actually making it. I find I often watch great chefs cook, especially the masters in learning techniques. I thrive on learning techniques and when I see it. The chefs for me inspire in how they cook and in how they creatively use ingredients. I find learning in all that. Less so on the exact ingredients they use, but in abstract how they cook or plated a protein on a simple dish, a salad or ragout or anything as such. That inspiration 🤔 I’ve found for myself over time allows me to just look around my kitchen and pantry and say, I’ll do something along that line. Not exact but with what I saw as inspiration. Other times I see a vegetable or two and say 🤔 maybe I sauté some good Chorizo I just bought and add some mushrooms and kale or some greens I have. Maybe I double sear a protein I have on hand and stick it on top of that. Or maybe I make maybe a Ragout or vegetable Medley with ingredients I like and cook the fish in a way I like that complements the dish. Then try to plate it with imagination. Thus for me Imagination and Inspiration both has helped to make me a much better cook. At best, I always try to stay inspired in what I see or taste and always learning. Find what helps or spurs your inner creative you. And so for me I get creativity not in reading good photo cookbooks, but in random flipping the pages quickly and let the photo speak back. Watching chefs cook in videos or TV and see how they use techniques in assembling dishes. That all inspires my own creativity.
So, Helen, you have 136K subscribers. Lets have a vote...all those who think Helen's work is 'creative', regardless of your interpretation of the word, please raise your hands now. Guess what Helen? We all raised our hands. I watch to learn and enjoy. Keep up the good work. 👍🖖😉
I remember taking a class about the concept of creativity back in college, and the author of one te t spent 400 pages making an argument for a difference between small-c creativity that lives in day to day inventiveness and big-C Creativity that has broad cultural impact or fundamentally changes how we do something. There's rather a lot of perspective to what constitutes creativity. While I'm not likely to open a restaurant and earn Michelin stars, I love making inventive flavor combinations (especially across cuisines from different parts of the world) and the challenge of inventing a week's menu from whatever is freshest on shopping day. Small-c creative it may be, but done well it's pretty satisfying all the same. I also share the love-hate relationship with the food-flavor-recording part of my brain. Such a memory is useful when recreating a dish or making an "objective" comparison to another rendition, but I also had to learn how to keep it from getting in the way of enjoying what's in front of me.
loved this video! I went to Il Casale in Belmont, MA once and I had spaghettoni with lobster that was fantastic! I had never eaten anything quite like it. I went back and had it a second time. I've been trying to recreate it in my own kitchen ever since. I've never quite gotten it right, but I do enjoy trying!
Short of spending $$ going to restaurants, what's the next best way to get level 2 knowledge? Is there a substitute? Is there any approach you would recommend in looking at info purely online from home in order to come up with ideas?
It doesn't have to be restaurants. It can be your friends, neighbors, someone's grandma, etc. it can also be memory. you probably already had some dishes that someone made for you that you don't know how to make yet. Work on that. Try to recreate it. Google for recipes of that dish to see what ingredients are typically used. What I am trying to say is if you've never tasted Thai food, trying to learn Thai cooking from a book might not be the best use of your time.
Thank you so much for this video! There are so few videos out there that can teach not about the subject but about how to approach the subject. I bet it's much harder to capture that level of abstraction in words, but I found it so helpful!
My Ultimate Passion is.... Cooking ❤️ I didn’t use recipes for years, but I do write down what, why, and how when cooking. I do this because when a recipe turns out delicious, I need to remember so I can duplicate 😋
Oh you are definitely missing a couple layers here... one does not go from the basics straight to viral food icon. AND you sell yourself short in oversimplifying- because you are not in 2 even while you claim not to be in 3 (yet). BTW love the channel and clearly you are an amazing talent!!!!!
#realcomment Although the TV show Iron Chef was a little contrived, I find myself in the situation of not wanting to go shopping and making do with what is around the house. I have never resorted to banana stuffed bell peppers, but some Desperation Dishes have become family favorites, like pork chops and red sauce. What is red sauce? Well, the first ingredient is desperation, then you add some ...
Hmm ,not sure I agree. Isn't creativity the choice of what you do in a combination that you pay attention to and what you ignore? I love to sketch buildings and landscapes and sketch what is there, but I decide what I put there, what I leave out, what color I decide to make something. I don't think it's that different for cooking. Love your video though.
I try to meal plan around a cuisine for period of time (2 weeks to a month) to familiarize myself with how it looks, cooks and tastes. I've learned a lot about pattern recognition in recipes across a cuisine that way. Sometimes it challenges me to experiment and get creative if I get tired of how certain flavors or ingredients interact. I've made some fabulous one off meals like that, boredom necessitates change and change can be very good and tasty.
If it sounds good and I can obtain the ingredients I make it. I've come up with lots of creations this way. I encourage my son to do the same. Experiment and see what happens
I'm sorry that I'm commenting on so many of your videos, but they're so good! This addressed what I mentioned in an earlier comment. I have to share this one too!
#realcomment. Helen I’m a new subscriber, I love all your videos. Already made the pasta twice following your video, both times I succeeded 🤗 however, I have a question, do you think that the sheet of pasta for lasagna should be around 5 in the machine? I made a lasagna and I wish I can bite more of the pasta. Hope you can answer. Thank you and keep on bringing more videos 😘
you can definitely go for 5 in the lasagne. also make sure you boil the sheets about 10 seconds, then shock in cold water, and dry them before assembling. sometimes people don't realize that they have to do that and the texture ends up being all wrong in the finished dish.
And here I thought it was my poor memory, my laziness to track down the listed ingredients after I forgot, and a willingness to make it work regardless or today is going to be hungry :P Today I'm trying havarti grilled cheese because it's there.
Ya wanna see some creativity check out "emmymadeinjapan". Her "creativity" will scare you! Not to step on Helen's toes though. You can't even compare the two because they're totally different. I love Helen's videos because she she is so concise with her recipes and pronunciation. love her accent too
OMG! What a perspective of looking at cooking. I was complemented by my friends for my cooking creativity, and I told them I was using replacing / adding similar ingredients in the original recipe. For example, the recipe suggest tomatoes and pepper. I add eggplant as well. When you are someone who cannot think of such a dish without eggplant, it comes by default into my recipes. When I do not like garlic, it triggers my mind to come up with something that can replace the taste and function of garlic. In most cases, it ends up with skipping garlic.
