it has come to this.

As a home cook that takes particular joy in technical recipes, such as those found in Thomas Keller cookbooks (and the anxiously-awaited Alinea cookbook), I’m fascinated by kitchen culture and have relished the wisdom in Anthony Bourdain’s writing. I was interested to see another nod to the culinary scene in an account of a 37signals talk at Web 2.0 Expo.

11. Follow the Chefs - Lagasse, Batali, Flay, Child, Oliver. What they do is they outteach, out share, and out contribute their competitors. They’re out there saying “hey look, I’m a chef, I’m going to give you all my secrets, here they are.” Not afraid to put their ideas out there and let people learn from them. Not afraid that people will take their ideas and build a restaurant right beside of them.

-Jason Fried, 37signals (via Kris Jordan)

Personally, I’m more fascinated by the ability of top restaurants to churn out consistently good product while conditions in the kitchen are anything but calm and consistent.   Great insight into coping with chaos and approaches to creative problem solving.