What Chefs Can Teach Authors About Working with AI

The surprising parallels between kitchens and writing desks in the age of artificial intelligence

Last week, I was listening to the Hard Fork podcast from The New York Times when something fascinating caught my attention. Food writer Pete Wells was discussing how some of America's most famous chefs are quietly using AI in their kitchens, and there were striking parallels to conversations we have every day in the writing community.

The resistance, the breakthroughs, the creative collaboration, the accusations of "laziness" — it was all there. It turns out that creative professionals across industries are grappling with remarkably similar questions about AI, and there's a lot we can learn from how other fields are navigating this transformation.

The Grant Achatz Revelation

The story that really grabbed me involved Grant Achatz, the renowned chef behind Alinea in Chicago, one of America's most innovative restaurants. When Achatz was opening his new restaurant focused on flame-cooking techniques, he asked ChatGPT about unusual cooking fuels from around the world. The AI suggested everything from avocado pits to corn cobs — some familiar, others completely new to him.

What struck me wasn't just that such a prestigious chef was using AI, but how he was using it. Achatz already had a long-established practice of collaborating with his sous chefs, gathering after service to brainstorm ideas and ask "What if we tried this?" For him, incorporating AI into this creative process wasn't a departure from his methods. It was a natural extension. (Something I talk a lot about in my podcasts at the Brave New Bookshelf.)

This mirrors exactly what I see with authors who adapt most successfully to AI writing tools. The writers who embrace AI fastest are those already comfortable with collaboration — authors who work with critique partners, writing friends, or co-authors, rather than necessarily the most tech-savvy ones.

These authors immediately understand that AI can be like having a creative partner who never gets sick, never misses deadlines, and is always available for a 2AM brainstorming session about plot holes.

Breaking Out of Creative Ruts

One chef interviewed mentioned using AI to get "out of the box" ideas because, under the pressure of nightly service, chefs naturally fall back on proven formulas. They know tomatoes and basil work together, so they use that combination repeatedly. But if you rely too heavily on your go-to moves, you stop seeming fresh and exciting.

This hits so close to home for the author experience. I constantly see AI helping writers break into new genres they'd always wanted to explore but never had the time or confidence to research properly. It also helps established authors put fresh twists on familiar territory by offering different perspectives on subjects they've been writing about for years.

The AI becomes a way to push beyond your comfort zone without the traditional barriers of time, research, or fear of failure.

The Resistance Pattern

Perhaps the most telling moment in the podcast came when Pete Wells mentioned running into food writers at an event. One walked up to him and said, "I hate that AI piece." Not the writing itself, but the reality it reported, the fact that respected chefs were using these tools at all.

This made me laugh because it's exactly what we see in writing communities. There's a subset of people who simply don't want to hear about AI adoption in creative fields. They prefer to keep their heads in the sand, hoping this will all go away.

The resistance seems to stem from a fear of obsolescence. If computers can do what we do, will anyone care about human creativity? (In my head, I imagine people picketing on the street with signs that read "NO TO AI!") But I believe this fear misses the point entirely. AI art doesn't make human art less valuable; it makes thoughtful human art more precious. And when humans work with AI? That's where the next-level creativity happens.

The people refusing to experiment are setting themselves up to be left behind while others are learning, adapting, and improving their craft.

The Iteration Imperative

The podcast highlighted something crucial about working effectively with AI: the first response is often generic, but if you keep pushing — asking "can you do better?" or "what about this variation?" — you start getting genuinely interesting results.

Pete Wells demonstrated this by asking ChatGPT about dinner ingredients, then iterating through multiple refinements until he got creative suggestions like adding Turkish flavors to a fennel salad. The key was specific follow-up questions and persistence.

This exactly mirrors what I teach about AI prompting for writers. Many people try AI once, ask a generic question like "write me a romance novel," get a generic response, and conclude that all AI output is worthless. Then I sigh and roll my eyes. These people never learn the skill of iterative prompting: drilling down, being specific, and challenging the AI to think differently.

The gold is found in the conversation, not the first exchange.

Addressing the "Lazy" Accusation

One of the most frustrating aspects of the creativity-and-AI conversation is the persistent myth that using these tools is somehow lazy or cheating. The food world faces this too. Critics assume that incorporating AI into the creative process diminishes the artistry.

Here's the reality: Working effectively with AI requires enormous skill and often more work than traditional methods. People imagine we type "give me a sci-fi romance with aliens" and get a publishable book. That's pure fantasy.

Collaborating with AI is like carpentry. You could build a rough table quickly, sure, and it would be serviceable. But craftsmanship shows in the sanding, the perfect angles, the attention to detail. My writing has become richer and more nuanced because of AI collaboration, not despite it. I see my stories from new angles and can present ideas to readers in ways I never would have discovered on my own.

The Human Element Remains Essential

The chefs using AI aren't letting it cook their food. They're using it for ideation, then applying their expertise, taste, and judgment to create the final dish. Grant Achatz might get fuel suggestions from ChatGPT, but his team still has to figure out how to use avocado pits or whatever in a way that creates an unforgettable dining experience.

Similarly, while AI can help draft, brainstorm, or edit, the stories that truly resonate with readers are the ones guided by human creativity, choice, and taste. The AI provides assistance, but it's the author's vision, preferences, and artistic judgment that bring the story to life.

Universal Patterns Across Creative Fields

What's striking about the Hard Fork discussion is how universal these patterns are. Whether you're a chef, writer, animator, or musician, the questions are remarkably similar:

• How do we maintain creative authenticity while using AI assistance?

• What's the difference between helpful collaboration and lazy dependence?

• How do we push past generic outputs to find genuinely creative insights?

• How do we handle resistance from traditionalists in our field?

The answers seem consistent too: embrace the collaborative potential, develop sophisticated prompting skills, maintain creative control over the final product, and don't let others' resistance slow your own experimentation and growth.

The Future of Creative Collaboration

Perhaps most encouraging is seeing how established, successful creatives like Grant Achatz are quietly integrating these tools into their work. They're not replacing their creativity with AI. They're amplifying it.

This gives me hope that the future of creative work isn't about humans versus machines, but about humans working with machines to push creative boundaries further than either could go alone.

The chefs are showing us that you can use AI and still create work that's distinctly yours, that serves your audience beautifully, and that pushes your field forward. As writers, we can learn from their approach: stay curious, keep experimenting, and don't let resistance from others prevent you from exploring new creative possibilities.

After all, whether you're crafting the perfect dish or the perfect scene, creativity has always been about combining existing elements in surprising new ways. AI just gives us more elements to work with.

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You can listen to the full Hard Fork podcast discussion about chefs and AI here. And if you're interested in learning how to collaborate effectively with AI in your own writing, check out our courses at the Future Fiction Academy.