The 1% Rule of the Kitchen
how to level up 37% every year OR the Champion's guide to cutting onions
I don’t know anything about cycling, but I just joined Cycle for Survival to defeat rare cancers like the one that took my best friend a year ago. The only reason I am confident in my ability to pull this off is because my old Chef is a bike guy.
So everyday now I go to a gym for the first time in my life. I don’t know any workout routines, I don’t have any good apps yet. But I go in with one goal: 1% better. It all starts with technique. (6 fingered knuckle-tat TECH-NIQUE t-shirt available here.)
Years ago I reached out to Chef in a panic. I had met a Quality Human on a train and she told me she wanted me to teach her how to cook.
“What else do you know about her?”
“She’s training for some kind of bike race.”
“Oh, now you’re speaking my language.” I forgot that Chef can be found some weekends in embarrassing shorts and a bike that weighs less than my laptop.
“Look up a bike trainer named Dave Brailsford. He has a belief that if you improve every day by 1% you will start creating compound interest. 1% per day will improve your cooking 37% over the year. You just have to ‘never miss twice.’”
“Forget your mistakes and move forward. You won’t become 1% worse each day from practice. You work on your technique by 1% and if she’s as green as you say, you’ll be able to get her moving forward at 1% and get ahead of yourself by the time she makes those big leaps. But you should start now.”
Yes, Chef!
I started digging into Brailsford—now Sir David Brailsford—and thought of how the 1% rule can apply to plenty of things. Especially groups. In the kitchen we aim for perfect, whether we’re trying to recreate Gramma’s recipe or live up to a great chef. That breeds a lot of disappointment. But if we aim on getting 1% better every day we can give ourselves some encouragement along the way.
Take the humble jar of pasta sauce and dried noodles. Let’s make it 1% better. I made this for myself all through college without salting the pasta water once. It never occurred to me or anyone else to do so. But I let that 1% kick in every year. The first time I did it I made it way too salty. But even that helped improve on next time.
And the fun thing? It’s never just the same old jar of pasta and dried noodles.
A few years ago I saw a friend dump some pasta water in the sauce. Another friend swears by adding a nice hunk of butter. My usual go-to is to slice an onion and sauté with garlic until the pasta is done. Even the onion slicing has its own meditative 1% margins built into it. Can I get my knife sharper? Do I need a better cutting board? Should I pick bigger onions next time?
If anyone has any recommendations for getting 1% better at the gym let me know. And please share my team’s link to raise money for Sloan Kettering’s Cycle for Survival.
Until then: Be Excellent to One Another.