By back the basics, I don't mean lets go cook over a wood fire in an open fireplace.* What I mean is cooking from raw ingredients. When my parents were still alive I would often go down at Thanksgiving, and cook. The last time I did it, my sister was living with my parents providing care of them, and we went grocery shopping for the goodies to prepare dinner. When I wasn't looking my sister put the mushrooms in the cart, pre-sliced mushrooms. Now this is better than pre-cooked, or some prepackaged mix, but when did chopping a box of mushrooms become to much work?
About 30 Saturdays a year I go the local farmers market and buy fruits and vegetables. I focus on a few vendors that I know grow all or almost all of the fruits and vegetables that they sell. Another vendor that I buy eggs and cheese from represents a community of Amish farmers (he also has dairy, and some frozen meats.)
When I want to bake bread, I start with water, flour, yeast, salt, and maybe a little melted butter or olive oil. I could start with frozen dough, but where is the fun in that. I can be creative, varying the ingredients and the proportions as I wish, you can't do that with frozen dough.
I read cookbooks, like many people read novels. The best cookbooks include history and social context in addition to ingredients and technique. I enjoy reading them, collecting them, and sometimes referring to them when I feel like making something new. Though often I just wing it based on what I know, and make up anything I don't know as I go along.
That is creativity in the kitchen.
* We spent a few days without electric power in the house in Lexington one winter after and ice storm. The kitchen was all electric, I cooked in the gas fireplace quite successfully. I was surprised what I could do when I tried.
