{"id":1827,"date":"2011-09-09T11:19:04","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T18:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2011-09-09T11:19:04","modified_gmt":"2011-09-09T18:19:04","slug":"replicated-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/2011\/09\/replicated-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Replicated Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most intoxicating aspects of being in a kitchen for me (besides, of course, being intoxicated while in the kitchen) is the vast opportunity for creative common-sense problem-solving. It seems that everyone who loves being in the kitchen has a little bag of ‘tricks’; things meant to make our work easier, more-efficient, more-exact, etc. The Alinea cookbook is rife with examples of this, both literally and between the lines.<\/p>\n

An example: when lining a sheet tray with plastic wrap, they often recommend lightly-spraying the tray with cooking oil, to give the wrap something to adhere to so it’s less cantankerous to smooth on the tray.\u00a0I love this little trick; I use it constantly. Anytime the book (or any recipe) calls for a sheet tray lined like this, I almost-unconsciously reach for our can of Pam sitting in the cupboard.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, a coworker shared this video<\/a> with me. It’s largely about cooking something en sous vide using plastic wrap (which was great enough on its own), but there’s a brief moment where the chef lays down some plastic wrap on a countertop. To get the wrap to stick, he uses water rather than spray oil.<\/p>\n

This one tiny moment highlights something that is a huge struggle for me. When I think about laying down plastic wrap now, I think “I need some spray oil”. I don’t<\/em> think “I need something that’ll make this plastic wrap stick to the surface better.” There’s a subtle distinction to be made there; in the former case, I’m just aping something someone else has shown me. In the latter, I’m thinking critically and creatively about solving a problem.<\/p>\n

I’m pretty confident in my abilities to replicate something; I follow directions well, and can compensate for error in small but significant ways. This entire project, for example, isn’t much more than me following directions. This extends to other areas in my life as well: at work, I can learn something taught to me by someone, tidy it up, and internalize it. But in most cases, I need the seed of this idea to be planted in my head before I can expound on it. It’s very often that I’m taught something, internalize it, and then assume that ‘this is the way it’s done’…I stop critically-analyzing it. Such is the case with using oil to hold down plastic wrap — I learned it and now I just default to ‘this is the way you do this’ rather than ‘this is A<\/em>\u00a0way to do this’.<\/p>\n

The past several nights, I’ve had vivid dreams where friends have left work to take jobs elsewhere. The pervasive feeling I have is desperation and sadness, that because I’m not moving on too I’m ‘behind’ them and need to ‘catch up’ somehow. The friends in the dreams are specifically people to whom I look as a source for inspiration; they are innovators, clever people who have taught me much over the years. When I wake up, I feel sad, as though the dream is an acknowledgement that they can think in ways that don’t occur to me.<\/p>\n

Clearly I’m able to recognize innovation when I see it. I’m inspired by it, and I yearn to have it myself. And therein lies a great paradox for me: is innovation something I can learn? Or is it an intrinsic thing, like a chemical reaction or hereditary attribute? Is the best I could hope for just being able to replicate someone else’s innovation?<\/p>\n

And if I can’t teach myself to be innovative, can I be ok with that?\u00a0It’s so, so frustrating to stand right at this threshold and feel unable to cross it. It’s like a sheet of impenetrable plastic wrap; I can see and recognize other people being innovative all around me, yet it never occurs to me to think critically about everything myself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most intoxicating aspects of being in a kitchen for me (besides, of course, being intoxicated while in the kitchen) is the vast opportunity for creative common-sense problem-solving….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwfL0-tt","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allenhemberger.com\/alinea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}