Inspiration?

Inspiration

Where do we get it? Where does it come from? that's a hard question to answer, because there is no one answer for it, we always look for it expected, and unexpected places, but how often do we really ever find it? Rarely if ever I am going to wager. So, let's talk Inspiration, and where I personally draw it from.

Pictures

What kind of inspiration can you get from a photo? 

I feel like this one is a "No, duh" kind of thing, but never the less I have it down, it really is a great way to get really great idea's for plating. Not just any kind of pics will do, well I guess you can use any kind of photo to draw inspiration from. What I usually do is search for whatever the protein is I am going to be using as the center piece of my plate. For example... scallops!

 I chose this photo because it actually gave me a really great idea for a new dish I want to make, the title of the photo is "As cherries blossom, a taste of summer" I read as just cherries and from that I now want to make scallops with cherries!

Blogs

all kind of blogs, not just cooking.

There isn't really one particular blog that I follow, but rather I'll just google "bla, bla blog" and read, or sometimes just skim ideas. let's keep with this cherries and scallops idea I have now and want to follow thru with.  Alright here we go. This blog post here is really great it's totally great, all about just doing the bare minimum to the scallops and getting an amazing result out of it. 

Recipes 

Sometimes a recipe can a great source.

Alright, so now that we have the theme of our plate pretty well set, seared Sea Scallop with some use of cherry use in it. Maybe its going to come from a reduced cherry sauce, maybe a cherry glaze of some kind, or maybe even a cherry Beurre blanc we'll have to decide here in this step. The two ways I go about this are: using my favorite book, The Flavor Bible, or the Internet. I'll probably use a bit of both here. First I'll look up scallops and cherry's and see what the have in common  that will work as a sauce base,  veg, and finally some kind of starch to have a complete plate. 

Something random 

Some of my favorite ideas have come from random and unexpected sources.

Now, that I hopefully have a pretty solid idea and vision of my plate this is where I'm going to find that something that's missing from the plate, even I don't know what it is but this part I'm going to realize something is missing. So, in-between now and the time I go pick up the indigents I need, and start the cooking process, something will likely pop in to my mind, and I know it'll be from somewhere random, something I spot out of the corner of my eye as I'm walking around, something that's playing on Pandora or maybe a conversation I'm having with my Boyfriend, the last piece of the puzzle will come from the most unlikely of sources, as it always does.