I wrote Theater of the Kitchen in my freshman year of college after reading cookbook after cookbook and feeling frustrated with their prescriptive language and approach. Cooking is the art of good technique working in tandem with a cultivated understanding of flavor and an instinctive creativity… Not the art of following instructions!

So I decided to write a book that fosters creativity in the kitchen, focusing on developing a cook’s instinct, intuition, and irreverence, instead of recipe following. My goal is to help you train your palate and develop your personal artistry to coax your culinary genius to come out from behind the curtains and take center stage.

As it turns out, the themes from my acting training also apply to learning how to break away from replicating recipes and create food that is an edible manifestation of who you are. Learning how to trust and follow impulses, listen and respond to your environment, and disregard rules, standards, and structures that inhibit your artistic freedom, are ever-present themes of both good acting and good cooking.

Theater of the Kitchen is now available for purchase through Amazon. It is also available at the culinary bookstore Kitchen Arts and Letters in Manhattan.

Check out my Instagram food feed @theaterofthekitchen!