The Stand Alone Peach

I don’t think we need to sugar coat the reality of living in Los Angeles. Let’s be honest. Humans have many ego protection mechanisms in place regardless. Living in Los Angeles can often magnify this human flaw to even greater proportions to the point of pure inauthenticity.

Just yesterday morning I was diving into a story that could serve represent a beautiful goal for all of us and I wanted to share. Chez Panisse is a renowned restaurant in Berkeley, California that was named Best Restaurant in America in 2001. It’s also earned a Michelin star, which is an oft rare designation for a stateside establishment. The restaurant has a rich history of chefs to emerge from it and is most known for its early practice of farm to table sourcing to create an emphasis on food ingredients over techniques.

In 1994, now famous chef, Dan Barber, was working at Chez Panisse when he saw a dessert plate leave the pastry station that caught his eye. What kind of desert stops a culinary mind like his in its tracks? No it wasn’t a instant ice cream made with liquid nitrogen or a mousse topped with 24-carat gold flakes. It was a peach.

Just a stand alone peach.

There was no salt or olive oil to adorn it. It wasn’t sitting in a bed of raspberry puree. On the menu you’d read: Mas Masumoto, Sun Crest Peach.

Not much chef technique can trump the incredible power of a perfectly grown peach, after all. The Masumoto farm does just that. More attention to detail is paid to just the soil these peaches are grown in that most chefs pay attention to in an entire menu. The result? A peach of such beautiful authenticity that it could stand alone in perfection.

As you might suspect, the cliche human experience is teed up for the lesson. Wouldn’t it be a beautiful goal to get to a place where you, too, could stand alone if perfect authenticity? You don’t need any accoutrements. We all need you to be you.

No posers, please.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach