Jazz bassist Charles Mingus and the culinary arts

Making food and making music have much in common. Both coalesce the cognitive and the creative. Both require focus and discipline while finding a way to keep innovation unfettered. Both require mastery of the basics and attention to simplicity, rather than a striving for complexity.

What? you say. What is classical music if not complex? What about the complex counter beats of jazz, the riffs of some popular music, the harmonies of gospel? All have their complexities, as do many of the world's cuisines. Agreed. But bear with me on this thought for a few minutes.

Culinary-musical commonalities bring to my mind the late, great bass player and composer Charles Mingus (left), who is among my favorites in jazz.

His innovation, his discipline in getting the music just the way he wanted it and his musical attention to the region of his roots -- the U.S.-Mexican border -- all capture my attention. Mingus was born in the border town of Nogales, Ariz., the same town in which my mom was born.

My favorite Mingus music is his Tijuana Moods set, in which he played a few essential pieces of music several times over, adjusting in each to gain a slightly different outcome. Each is distinct, yet familiar and connected.

About music, Mingus said: "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."

The thought clearly applies to cooking, and it is especially in my mind this week as we approach the stress of final cooking competency exams in Culinary Foundations III.

In short, keeping it simple will serve us well.

Chef Instructor Dan Fluharty reminds us to keep it simple. He does so every time one of us asks about making a twist or turn in the proposed menu, every time one asks about adding an ingredient or using a cooking method other than what is prescribed, every time one says what if ...

Chef's response: Keep it simple.

He knows and is teaching us that the only way to get to complex is to start at simple. That's the key to success in our class.

Just as Charles Mingus found it to be in music.

Is tomorrow Wednesday? No, it's Fryday

"Tomorrow is Fryday -- not Friday -- but Fryday. We will do all kinds of fried things, including tempura."

Chef Dan Fluharty made the announcement both at the beginning and the end of class today. We will fry shrimp, fish, potatoes and other deliciousness.

Fryday. Not the healthiest concept, but a necessary one to learn in the realm of culinary arts.

I shall approach it with the same curiosity and intent that I have every other aspect of cookery to which I have been exposed at the California Culinary Academy.

Just a dash of cooking, but a big dollop of inspiration

The documentary film Pressure Cooker, which opened in San Francisco Friday, may disappoint if one is looking for a food and/or cooking movie.

But if one is looking for inspiration -- true life inspiration -- see this movie. The inspiration it offers and the real-life drama of the students' lives more than make up for the relatively limited screen time devoted to actual cooking.

Pressure Cooker is the story of a culinary arts class at Philadelphia's Frankford High School, an inner city institution whose students face an array of issues from their grinding urban life. Culinary arts teacher Wilma Stephenson is their mentor, surrogate mother and whip cracker.

Stephenson knows that the way out for her students is learning to cook so well that they take top honors at the area high school culinary competition and earn college scholarships. See the film to find out if they do.

This is a true-life version of To Sir With Love and the many other lesser films that show gifted, dedicated teachers inspiring their students to achieve beyond their own and many others' expectations.

(Photo credit: Lauren Feeney/Bev Pictures)