Here is how can we adapt  Leonardo da Vinci’s Seven Spiritual Principles in our everyday culinary adventures.

1. Curiosità: “Seek the truth”. Develop an insatiable curious approach to life (cooking) and pursue an unrelenting quest for continuous learning and discovery. Curious cooks learn something everyday.

2. Dimostrazione :” Take responsibility”. A commitment to test (culinary) knowledge through experience, persistence and willingness to learn from mistakes. Most cooks ‘piece-de-resistance’ are products of numerous experimentations.

3. Sensazione : “Cultivate awareness”. A continual refinement of the senses, especially sight (food styling & presentation), as the means to enliven the experience. Sight, sound, taste and smell are all the keys to open the doors of experience. Good food badly presented is not enticing to eat.

4. Sfumato : “Engage the shadow”. To go up in smoke. A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox & uncertainty. Remember the excitement when you baked your first ever cake and not know what the outcome will be?

5. Arte/Sciènza :” Balance the masculine & feminine”. Develop balance between science & art, logic & imagination, establish a whole brain thinking. i.e. A well rounded cook is a master of recipe formulation as well as good food presentation.

6. Corporalita :” Integrate body and spirit”. Cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise. The best culinarians are the combination of being a brilliant scientist and great artist much like Da Vinci.

7. Connessione :” Practice Love”. Recognition and appreciation for the interconnection of all things and phenomena A good person appreciates God’s bountiful creation in terms of food and the environment from where it is sourced.

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