Too many times other restaurateurs have come to this city and failed because the concept which is just being duplicated here loses its sharpness and nobody in Chicago wants a bad copy. We are proud of our original restaurants and the owners being in them to ensure quality. If the consistency is not as good as the original, Chicago residents usually won't go, and if they [the out-of-town chefs] just plan to stop by to check in every once in a while that won't fly either.

As a rabid gourmand, I'd be lying if I said my stomach didn't leap a bit at their coming. And yet, because we have worked so hard to earn our own culinary place, there's also a parallel constriction of my heart, a burning twinge of protectionism.

Aren't Ducasse and Robuchon culinary carpetbaggers taking advantage of our Midwestern hospitality and standing upon the labor of our pioneers? Despite our success, the Tribune's Good Eating section still features a syndicated column from Wolfgang Puck. Hasn't Charlie Trotter or Paul Kahan at Blackbird earned a voice in our local pages? Legends, especially French demigods, cast long shadows, ones that may shroud our own identity.

The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.

The home and family have vital roles in cultivating and developing personal faith and testimony. The family is the basic unit of society; the best place for individuals to build faith and strong testimonies is in righteous homes filled with love. Love for our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ is greatly enhanced when the gospel is taught and lived in the home. True principles of eternal life are embedded in the hearts and souls of young and old alike when scriptures are read and discussed, when prayers are offered morning and night, and where reverence for God and obedience to Him are modeled in everyday conduct. Just as the best meals are home cooked, the most nourishing gospel instruction takes place at home. Strong, faithful families have the best opportunity to produce strong, faithful members of the Church. The recent proclamation to the world on the family issued by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles makes very clear that the family is ordained of God. The proclamation warns that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.

I realize this is a very un-American concept, but it does seem to work. The French way is not about deprivation. Their main dishes are bathed in lush sauces, their desserts are irresistible culinary masterpieces. They make the effort to make sure their food is fresh and flavorful, with the payoff that their satisfaction — and most importantly, their satiation — will come from quality instead of quantity.

I met Roland Henin on the beach in Narragansett. He was chef af a place called the Dunes Club, a big hotel; he commanded a kitchen the size of a football field with a crew of forty cooks, and he needed someone to cook staff meal.

The staff meal cook is low man in the kitchen hierarchy. You cook meals from scraps for people who work in the kitchen. But the Dunes Club was a high-end kitchen and Henin was a classical French chef, so our scraps might be the butt from a tenderloin, and with that I learned how to make beouf bourguignon. We'd have the legs left over from butchered chickens and with these I'd learned to make coq au vin. I turned lamb scraps into lamb navarin...

Staff meal was about the fundamentals of cooking and how to work with by-products, using scraps to make something tasty, eye-appealing, and satisfying. But the message underlying that was "Can you be passionate about cooking at this level?" Staff meal. Only the staff sees it. If you can make great food for these people, create that habit, have that drive, that sincerity, and keep that with you and take it to another level in the staff meal, then someday you'll be a great chef. Maybe.