The Impulse Kitchen

I’ve had some version of Impulse Kitchen floating around in my head since around 2008. The original idea was a restaurant where someone could walk in, choose an ingredient, tell me a little about their preferences and dietary restrictions, and leave the rest up to me. I loved the idea of having that freedom to experiment and create something unexpected, especially for someone who might never have thought to put those ingredients together themselves. It was a little unconventional as far as restaurant concepts went, but the idea of cooking something entirely around another person’s tastes and seeing what I could come up with was enormously appealing.

Years later, Impulse Kitchen eventually took shape as a Japanese catering venture. It was an interesting experience, and one that taught me some pretty difficult lessons about the difference between loving to cook and enjoying the business of producing food. As it turns out, I’m much happier spending an afternoon creating a beautiful meal for a few people than preparing the same dish a thousand times. There are people who absolutely thrive in that environment, and I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for them. It’s just not where I find my happiness in the kitchen. Thankfully, none of that ever affected how much I love cooking itself.

Whatever sounds good

I spend a lot of my time experimenting with food, and have for as long as I can remember. Some days I’ll decide to bake a loaf of bread or make fresh pasta, and other days I’ll spend hours putting together an elaborate dinner simply because I’ve got an idea I want to explore. I love working with unfamiliar ingredients, trying combinations that sound interesting, and paying attention to how flavors and aromas develop as I cook. Sometimes I start with a very specific dish in mind, while other times I let the ingredients and my curiosity determine where things go. There’s something wonderfully satisfying about becoming completely absorbed in the process, especially when I end up surprising myself with the result.

I don’t really subscribe to any particular style or cuisine when I’m cooking at home. I’ve made everything from sushi and Filipino comfort food to fresh breads, pastries, curries, and whatever strange combination happens to sound delicious that afternoon. I enjoy the technical side of cooking, and there’s certainly satisfaction in getting a particular technique just right, but I also love the freedom of improvising. Sometimes I’ll make something relatively simple with whatever happens to be in the kitchen, and other times I’ll spend half the day on a meal that probably could have been accomplished with considerably less effort. I’m perfectly happy with either approach.

The best part is sharing it

Of course, one of my favorite parts of cooking is getting to share it with people. I love putting a plate in front of someone and seeing what they think, particularly when I’ve been experimenting with something a little unusual. I don’t need every meal to be extraordinary, and I’m certainly not expecting everyone who eats my food to have some profound culinary experience. What I really enjoy is when something I’ve made gets a genuine reaction out of someone. Maybe they’re excited about a flavor, curious about an ingredient, or reminded of something they ate growing up. Sometimes a bite turns into a twenty-minute conversation about food, and sometimes it’s just a look on someone’s face that tells me they’re having a wonderful time. Any of those reactions can make my day, and they inevitably leave me thinking about what else I’d like to try.

There’s something particularly lovely about the relationships people form around food. So many of my favorite memories involve sitting around a table with people I care about, enjoying something delicious and getting lost in conversation. Cooking gives me another way to participate in those moments, and I get an enormous amount of satisfaction out of knowing that I’ve contributed something to the experience. The food doesn’t need to be the center of attention, either. Sometimes it’s the thing that brings everyone together, and sometimes it’s simply there to make an already wonderful evening a little better. Either way, I’m happy to be the one making sure everyone has something good to eat.

There’s an episode of the original British Kitchen Nightmares featuring Momma Cherri’s Soul Food Shack that I’ve thought about quite a lot over the years. Gordon Ramsay visits this little soul food restaurant and is served a plate that doesn’t look especially spectacular at first glance. It’s generous, homey, and unpretentious, the kind of food that would feel right at home in your grandmother’s kitchen. Then he takes a bite, and he’s absolutely delighted. Here’s someone who’s spent his life working with and experiencing some of the finest food in the world, practically lighting up over a plate of soul food.

What stays with me about that scene is the entire exchange. Momma Cherri has made something she genuinely loves, exactly the way she wants to make it, and she’s proud to put it in front of him. There’s no apparent need to dress it up as something it isn’t, or apologize for the fact that it doesn’t resemble something he’d serve in one of his own restaurants. She knows her cooking, she’s happy to share it, and someone with Ramsay’s experience recognizes just how wonderful it is. I find that interaction incredibly moving, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that makes me excited about sharing food with people. There’s something beautiful about watching someone’s passion translate into an experience that another person can genuinely appreciate.

I think that’s also why I appreciate such a wide range of cooking and presentation. I absolutely love beautiful plating, thoughtful composition, and all the little details that can make a meal feel special, but I also get an enormous amount of satisfaction out of putting a giant bowl of pasta or a generous serving of curry in front of someone. Sometimes I want to create something carefully composed, and sometimes I want everyone at the table to have more food than they know what to do with. There’s plenty of room for both in my kitchen, and I think some of my favorite meals have managed to be a little bit of everything.

Somewhere to put it all

Over the years, I’ve accumulated hundreds of photographs of the things I’ve cooked. Some are carefully arranged plates that I took my time photographing, while others are quick snapshots of dinner before everyone starts eating. There are pictures of fresh bread, homemade pasta, elaborate meals, familiar comfort foods, and quite a few experiments that I’m not entirely sure I could reproduce exactly the same way. I’ve enjoyed looking back through them recently, remembering things I’d made and occasionally discovering dishes I’d almost forgotten about. It’s a pretty eclectic collection, but that’s part of what I like about it. I don’t cook according to any particular cuisine or style, and I don’t see much reason to pretend otherwise.

That’s ultimately what brings me back to Impulse Kitchen. I’ve had this collection of culinary experiments sitting around for years, and I’ve wanted to give it a proper home for quite some time. Since designing websites is already such a large part of my life, it seemed like a wonderful opportunity to take something I care deeply about and give it the same kind of creative attention I normally put into projects for other people. I’ve been working through the photographs, experimenting with typography and layouts, and thinking about how to present everything in a way that feels refined without losing the warmth and personality of the food itself. I want the website to feel thoughtfully composed, but I also want someone browsing through it to get a genuine sense of the things I enjoy making and the experiences that surround them.

I’m treating Impulse Kitchen as a personal culinary portfolio, somewhere to share photographs, dishes, experiments, and occasional stories from my kitchen. I have no particular interest in turning it into another restaurant or building some elaborate business around it. I might cook for people privately from time to time, and I’d certainly enjoy the opportunity to share some of these experiences with more people, but that’s not really what this project is about. I’m making the site because I love cooking, I love sharing what I make, and I’ve got a whole lot of work that I’d be delighted to finally put somewhere people can explore.

In the meantime, I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done: experimenting in the kitchen, getting excited about ingredients, cooking entirely too much food, and sharing it with the people I care about. If something I make gets someone curious, excited, or even a little sentimental, all the better. Those moments are some of my favorite things in the world, and they’re a big part of what keeps my curiosity alive.

People need to eat, and I personally want my people to eat right.