Mission Statement

Welcome to “Breaking Eggs,” a web log about food, wine, and gastronomy from the viewpoint of a veteran chef. That would be me.

I began cooking professionally in 1974. That’s several epochs ago, in culinary terms. During these years of extraordinary change and increasing sophistication, I have had the good fortune to cook in many great kitchens in North America and Europe as well as in my own restaurant, the Ryland Inn, in Whitehouse, New Jersey.

My aim here is to talk about what I have learned in 35 years in the restaurant business—and to put that experience in the context of what I am still learning each and every day. If, along the way, I break some eggs—figuratively speaking—it is, as the saying goes, the first step to making an omelet. Some days you may get scrambled eggs. My viewpoint is not always sunnyside up, but I hope you will find it fresh, interesting and informed.

Since chefs are in the habit of organizing dishes into menus, I’ve laid out a menu of topics I will be addressing in coming months:
 
•    Pay No Attention to the Man behind the Curtain: hysterical (and heartbreaking) things that go on behind the scene in a restaurant.
•    Homage to my Mistakes: Having been cooking for so long, I can claim to have made more of them than most people.  Mistakes have often been my best education.
•    Controversies in Cuisine: Fads vs. Progress.
•    Discoveries: Things I’m excited about right now.
•    Techniques: Myth, Mayhem, and Magic: Towards an “Intuitive Cuisine”…

The common ingredient in all these categories is my passion for food and restaurants. I hope to blend past and present and add a soupcon of humor. 

What I will not do, however, is review or critique other restaurants. Rest assured I also will not use this platform to promote or defend my own projects. As a working chef, I do keep my knives sharp, but I use them only to cook with.

Bon Apetit,

Craig

Tags: Ryland Inn

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