So if you could wake up tomorrow...

[Jenise]

...with the skills of any chef on the planet, who would you want to be?

Steve Edmunds

What a fun question. Can I be two?
Susur Lee and Rick Bayless. Mainly because their skill sets are way outside of the bubble of food I'm familiar with. So to gain the knowledge of Asian and Southwestern styles, plus all of the obscure ingredients of those cuisines would be a dream come true. (Not to mention Susur's knife skills. Yowzer!)

Hmmm. On second thought, how about Sandra Lee.

Howie got it in one!

Eric Dela Cruz! He says "Food is art and Google is my playground".

[David M. Bueker]

Probably Mario Batali - I love Italian food, my wife loves Italian food & he seems so happy doing great work.

I'll pass on the shorts and Crocs though.

Is creativity a skill? I ask because I suspect that most well-known chefs are fairly equally skilled in the kitchen, having probably passed through various line stations during their ascent to the top. I'd love to have the knowledge of Thomas Keller, Joël Robuchon or Paul Bocuse, but I'd guess that they are all about equally adept with a knife or a sauté pan. I'd be happy to be proved wrong by any more knowledgeable than myself.

Mark Lipton

Jacques Pepin.

Actually, I'd just be happy for decent knife skills, mine are rubbish.

You all are overrating these knife skills. A second year culinary student should have them down pat.

You all are overrating these knife skills. A second year culinary student should have them down pat.

No, you don't understand. I never went to cooking school. And I regularly shave/cut/grate/burn/destroy my fingers. Do me a favour and post an online tutorial Chef, and I'll practise...

[Jenise]

Is creativity a skill?

Absolutely; in fact I'd say it's the greatest of them all. Anyone can learn technique, but innate creative talent and an unerring palate, that has to come from within.

I'm with Celia; Jacques Pepin; I'll only need to change my last name and I'm convinced the guy can cook anything.

You all are overrating these knife skills. A second year culinary student should have them down pat.

Or someone who has been cooking for over 50 years. My knife skills are very good, maybe not as fast as those great chefs, but they are still good! My daughter-in-laws tell me so.

For out-and-out talent it would be Escoffier but I pass on "being him" for he was far too stuffy for my taste. I would, nevertheless have to go back in time, choosing to be Adolphe Duglere, the chef at the Cafe Anglais who, in addition to being a superb cook and chef had the privilege of knowing and serving such luminaries as several Tzars and Tzarinas, well over 14 Kings and Queens, a host of Princesses and Princes, and, of course the incomparable Anna Delions. Not of course because they were luminaries but because they were people of exquisite taste. And the Cafe Anglais, after all, was and at least in my heart was "the place to be" and that either as chef or diner.

I think part of my decision also relates to the reality that both during his time and since, no-one has had a bad word to say about Duglere as a person and nothing but praise for him as a chef/cook*

Best
Rogov

*Basing my comments about being both chef and cook on Alain Ducasse's comment that "the most important role of any chef is to be a fine cook".

Brian Voltaggio because 1) I wouldn't have to move from the house I'm in and 2) he's in his early 30s.

[Jenise]

Brian Voltaggio because 1) I wouldn't have to move from the house I'm in and 2) he's in his early 30s.

And he's not half-bad looking!

I want to be the guy who put four and twenty blackbirds in a pie. People are still teaching their children all about that dish -- must've been grand!