Mending Broken Sauces
by Paolo Neville
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Creating a perfect sauce is an art. It’s something I’ve sometimes struggled with, while at other times it's come together so effortlessly. In the end, I’ve found that with sauces, just as in life, when I try to force something to be what I want it to be, it risks breaking. Creating a beautiful sauce (or a beautiful life) requires balance. Most sauces have two main components to them: liquid and fat. The trick is to get them to join together and create something that transforms those flavors and textures into a beautiful whole. At the same time, the purpose of sauces is to accompany or complement the main character. The sauce isn’t meant to overshadow, but to enhance, to play the supporting part. I’ve worked as a chef for over thirty years but it’s not what I am, it’s just something that plays a supporting role in my life. It takes up a lot of my time and energy, but at my core I am so much more. I'm a complicated, multi-dimensional human who experiences all the ups and downs, highs and lows that this life brings.
But because I've been a chef so long, I often use cooking metaphors to describe my fully-dimensional experience of the world. Just as the steak relaxes as it rests or is caramelized as it's seared, changing the texture and flavor, we all change as we go through our own life experiences. Some days the steak calls for a vibrant chimichurri to contrast the beautiful marbling of fat, and other days a smooth butter sauce to coax out the deep flavors. So am I constantly changing and evolving depending on choice and circumstance. I try to learn from the way I work in a kitchen. When things go wrong there I get to make choices so that things can turn out better. The solution might be to change a sauce's temperature quickly by adding a tablespoon of cold water, or by whisking a little faster, or by gently folding in the next component. In my daily life beyond the kitchen, if I take a deep breath, slow down and try to look at things from a different perspective, I often realize that there is often a clear path forward to making things work. If we pay attention to how a sauce reacts or pay attention to how our minds react we have an opportunity for achieving true balance.
It’s a learning process, though, and sometimes it just doesn’t work out. I’ve stared into a small sauce pot on the stove many times throughout my career asking myself where I went wrong, and sometimes the answer is “I have no idea,” the sauce is beyond repair. That's when I know that although it may take time and hard work, I can always start again. I've learned to apply that same philosophy to my life.
Paolo Neville is an Executive chef and author with 30+ years in the service industry. With a passion for food and family, he is striving to create a restaurant culture he would be proud to have his two sons be a part of.
