Hundreds of years ago in the city of Kaifeng lived Longwei, a man who wanted to buy himself a pair of new shoes. His old ones were worn out and so he went to the town fair. But before he left his house he first measured his feet and marked the size.

When Longwei arrived at the market he found many shoes he liked. Suddenly he noticed that he had forgotten the size. Turning to the shopkeeper he blurted out:

“Hold these shoes for me, I’ll be right back.”

Then he turned on his heel and ran back home. By the time he had returned back at the market after collecting his measurements, he found all the shoes had been sold out. Longwei was upset because he did not manage to buy his favorite pair of shoes.

A young lady standing next to Longwei witnessing all this curiously asked him:

“Why didn’t you use your feet and try the shoes on right on the spot here in the shop?”

Longwei gave the lady a puzzled look and replied:

“I’d rather trust the measurement than my own feet!”

What can we learn from this little story? In most cases there are many ways to figure something out. We need to be flexible and keep an open mind. If you are too stubborn and inflexible then it can lead to failure or even harm you.

As a Chef you need to be very flexible and open minded. It is not always either your way or the highway.

 

I give you an example: It happened on occasion that I tried out new recipes in my kitchen. I took these recipes either from books or even YouTube videos. But still, after many times of trying the recipe did not work out. I was furious! Damn, what the heck was wrong with it? Was it my mistake? Did I use all ingredients correctly? After reevaluating and tweaking a bit here and there I managed to find a way to make the recipe work. Cooking sometimes feels more like experimenting in a laboratory than preparing food in the kitchen.