Thread by @kevinleeme

1/ There's a fascinating story of a normal guy named Allen Hemberger who became obsessed with the Alinea cookbook. He spent 5 years re-creating all 107 recipes.

There's an extremely valuable lesson in this process for anyone thinking about taking the leap to become a creator.

2/ Alinea is a 3 Michelin star restaurant known for molecular gastronomy. This is no easy feat.

Allen not only re-created every recipe, but he straight up even went to metalworking and woodworking classes to create the actual dishware for platings. Talk about dedication.

3/ Him and his wife Sarah document his entire journey in his own book called The Alinea Project. Super meta.

Over 5 years, he struggles to complete this and he's so hard on himself. It affects his relationship with his wife and she questions why he needs to continue with this.

4/ With each recipe mistake or failure, he criticizes himself even more. He thinks he's at fault - he tells himself that he's not a professional chef and he isn't living up to the cookbook's standards.

5/ There's one specific recipe that requires gelatin to create two spirals. He follows the Alinea cookbook recipe exactly.

But despite his precision, he just can't get the gelatin to roll and it keeps falling apart.

This guy is killing himself about this.

6/ After countless failed attempts, he decides to "cheat." He breaks off the recipe, and adds an extra proportion of gelatin to thicken it just enough to properly roll.

It works. But when he finishes the recipe, he's devastated. He knows he "cheated." He didn't follow the book.

7/ Now throughout his process, he had been sending cold e-mails to Grant Achatz, Head Chef and Co-founder at Alinea, to ask for help on recipes. Grant always sends him quick 1-liners and he assumes Grant is too busy to be interested.

8/ But after "cheating" on this recipe, he sends one more desperate e-mail to Grant asking for tips on how he can do this gelatin recipe the right way.

And after a few days of no response, Grant sends him one line: "Can you fly to Chicago and I will give you a demo?"

9/ He flies there on a whim, thinking that Grant will have prepared the dish and will spend 5 minutes showing him the right way to make the dish.

But when he arrives, Grant spends the entire afternoon with him making the dish from scratch.

10/ Allen has already made most of the recipes at Alinea from scratch so while they wait for the gelatin to set, Grant even lets him plate a few dishes going out for dinner service.

Allen is elated. But he came to learn about the gelatin dish and he's eager to get started.

11/ As the gelatin sets, Grant starts to roll the gelatin and lo and behold. It breaks.

Same thing as Allen's home attempts.

They try it a few more times. Same result.

And you know what Grant says?

12/ "Well hm... well that recipe could be wrong. It could just be wrong."

And Allen is shocked. He just spent the past few years of his life assuming that everything in this cookbook was right.

He treated it like a Bible.

13/ So he asks Grant, "well how do you fix this then?"

And without stuttering, Grant says, "well, you probably just have to add a bit more gelatin."

This is the EXACT modification that Allen tried in his own home kitchen.

14/ And it was this beautiful moment because this whole time, he had been punishing himself mentally. Thinking that he had cheated and that he wasn't good enough to make this recipe or that he was just a hack.

15/ But he made this decision on his own, off the book and off the rules. And it was right. As small as it felt, it was right.

And from that day forward, his entire mentality changed.

The book became a guide. But he learned to trust himself. His confidence changed.

16/ There's a line in an interview where he says "I'd always regarded creativity as you go to sleep at night and you're struck by inspiration. But maybe it's a willingness to keep doing something until you've gotten it honed and then being ready for the moment."

17/ I love this story so much because it's an example of one person's journey into becoming a creator.

You can spend your whole life following a system and telling yourself negative stories.

"I'm not good enough to do this myself. My original ideas are probably wrong."

18/ But if you just keep trying and pushing yourself and making these mistakes, you'll wake up one day and realize that the rules of society that you think you're meant to follow are just made up.

Someone else put them there and it's 100% okay to question them. To break them.

19/ You know what Allen and his wife are doing today?

They were personally invited by @nickkokonas and Grant (co-founders of Alinea) to create the entire cocktail book for The Aviary, a James Beard award winning / World's Top 50 Best Bar. They quit their jobs and made the book.

Well this took off. If you loved reading this, please follow Allen, the real MVP behind all of this: @dhemberg. I'm not sure if Grant is active on Twitter but also follow @nickkokonas (Co-owner at @alinea)! And support your local restaurants during this time!