Generally I write and post about politics, often regarding some pretty nasty things done by the Trump administration and his MAGA crew. Today I’m posting about something considerably lighter that I hope you’ll find interesting. In 2003 I applied for, and was accepted to, the Professional Chef Program  at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. What follows is the essay that I wrote as part of the application process. As an interesting side note: I was late my first day of classes. It was also my daughter Juliette’s first day of kindergarten.

“After you’ve been in this program you won’t look at food the same way again”.  After I heard this at the CSCA information session, I couldn’t help but wonder what it really meant.  After all, I suspect that I already look at food a lot differently than the average person.  My first thought was that I’ve viewed food until now as sustenance.  I realize there are differences in dining experiences and food quality, but my cooking has been geared toward increasing the level of pleasure as I provide for my needs and those of my family.  My views on food will be different after I’ve trained and begun to work as a chef.  Instead of providing for my family, I’ll be cooking for others.  That may be part of how my view of food will change, but I’m sure there is more.

I recently started working at “Radius” as a “stagiaire”.  Part way through my first day the Chef de Cuisine gave me a copy of the menu.  As I read it that night I started to see a menu in a whole new way.  Previously it had been a search for the one or two things I’d prefer to eat for my meal.  Now my thoughts were “how do they prepare this?” and “what does this taste like?”.  I found myself searching for things that I never would have previously considered ordering and looking forward to the day I would try them.  I started thinking about things that I would not normally choose to eat and the ways I could prepare them so that others would enjoy them.

The core ideas on my approach to cooking have been about intensity of flavors and melding different tastes to provide either a contrast or a consistent whole.  My changing views on food have lead me to the idea that food, as a hedonistic experience, is about more than flavor and smell.  That food without the tactile experience is incomplete.  After all, something would be missing if good caviar were ground into a paste and served like a tapenade.  The feel of the roe bursting as it presses against the tongue would be gone.  The eruption of flavor as each egg splits open is as much a part of the enjoyment as the taste itself.  I’ve thought about how simple changes in preparation can change an entire meal.  After all, a rib eye grilled and served with a Bordelaise sauce will provide an entirely different experience if the meat were ground, molded into a patty, and then cooked and served the same way.  I’m left to wonder how many different ways a sushi chef can cut the same piece of tuna and how the dining experience changes with each cut of the knife.

I am a computer programmer by training.  It was in some ways a ‘career by accident’.  I attended a technical high school in Fitchburg, MA.  Over the twenty-five years of my career, I’ve followed a path that lead from junior programmer/analyst to a middle management position at Fidelity Investments.  My career included time off to complete a Bachelors Degree at the University of Massachusetts.  Perhaps the highlight of my Information Systems career was managing a portion of Fidelity’s project to convert and test the brokerage system for Year 2000 readiness.  I helped build a team from seven members to a peak of forty-three.  Throughout my career as a manager I’ve developed a passion for creating a vision of what the team can achieve, working toward a plan, and building the team to ensure success.  The Y2K project allowed me to thrive in this role.

After leaving the Year 2000 project I moved into Fidelity’s eBusiness area.  Like many Internet companies, it grew fast, perhaps too fast.  Funding for the projects I was hired to manage decreased along with the decline of the stock market.  As a result, I was included in the downsizing Fidelity completed in October of last year.  The separation from Fidelity allowed me time to reflect on my career, what I’ve enjoyed and what I haven’t liked.  In the past few months I’ve come to the realization that I like managing people, having the opportunity to build a team, to set goals, and to get everyone going in the same direction to achieve our goals.  What I don’t like is the corporate politics.  Working in Information Systems falls somewhere in between.  I don’t dislike it, but I no longer feel the same passion toward it that I once did.  My career in Information Systems has afforded me the ability to do many things including owning a nice home, traveling, and enjoying fine food and wine.  Nearly twenty-five years after entering the field it is time for something new, time to take the opportunity to explore and enjoy another passion.

I have to admit, I didn’t grow up wanting to cook or having a lot of interest in food.  My family background is primarily French Canadian and I grew up exposed to fairly bland food.  Our main “spice” was a heavy dose of salt and, occasionally, pepper.  Exciting meals included “pig” in a blanket (hot dogs broiled with American cheese wrapped in bacon), “hamburg” and gravy (browned ground beef with a gravy of water thickened with corn starch), and veal cutlets (ground veal pressed into an oval shape, coated with eggs and crushed “Ritz” crackers, fried in vegetable oil, served with pasta cooked well past “al dente” and tomato sauce heated straight from a can, topped, of course, with “parmesan” cheese from a green can, wilted gray asparagus as a vegetable).  On special occasions we would have sirloin steak on the grill with a good dose of “A-1 Steak Sauce”.  As for vegetables, for a good part of my formative years I believed that spinach came from a can, was gray, and needed to be served doused in vinegar.

I first started to cook at about the age of thirteen.  My parents had divorced and, as the oldest, one of my chores was to cook for the family on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  My mother taught me our family’s staples including the meals mentioned above as well as new additions including “china men’s pie” (more commonly known as shepherd’s pie), and tacos using the recipe and spices from “Old El Paso”.  I did enjoy cooking at this point in my life, but probably more for the sense of accomplishment of having prepared a meal rather than from a sense of achievement that I now feel when I create something new.

I graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1986 with a B.A. in Legal Studies.  It was after graduation that I started to be exposed to a more diverse cuisine.  My first food epiphany occurred in the early summer of 1987.  My then girlfriend and I traveled to a friend’s wedding in Gaithersburg, MD.  We stayed at the Vista International in Washington.  Having arrived late on a Friday evening, we decided to dine at the hotel restaurant.  I believe the restaurant was called “American Seasons”.  It was a “prix fixe” menu that allowed me to experience foods that I wouldn’t have otherwise ordered.  The soup was asparagus and I learned that day that not only was asparagus a green, rather than gray, vegetable, but there was a white variety as well.  Our soup came in two ladles, one green, and the other white.  This was mixed together in a bowl and opened me to a new understanding of dining.  The other memorable course was dessert, a white chocolate ice cream served in a praline basket with fresh raspberries.  Fresh raspberries in June!  This was something new to me.  I learned from our waiter that they had been flown in from Chile.

After the Washington experience I returned to Boston determined to explore fine food.  Naturally, I began to explore wine as well.  Of course, we did have wine growing up, but only on rare occasion, and, my recollection is that it was something like a Mateus Rosé.  The exploration of food and wine took me to many places, from Joseph’s Aquarium, to Grill 23, and finally, Aujourd’Hui.  It was at Aujourd’Hui that I had my wine epiphany.  The bottle was a Cabernet from Stags Leap Wine Cellars, the Cask 23.  I ordered it because Stags Leap sounded like such an interesting and romantic name.  It stood out on the wine list because it was in the midst, my recollection suggests, of a Joseph Phelps vertical.  Based on when this experience happened, it is likely the vintage was a 1984 or 1985.  Only later did I learn that Stags Leap was the winery that helped put Napa Valley on the world wine stage at a 1976 tasting in Paris.

My early exploration of wine involved mainly California cabernet.  It was easily accessible and even easier to understand.  Further forays lead to zinfandel.  The costs continued to rise as wine became a more regular part of my dining experience.  I was paying around $25-30 for the top California cabs knowing that out of ten bottles, one might be less than spectacular.  I knew that I could find wines as good for less, but how?  This led to my first wine course.  The course was at Boston Center for Adult Education and provided a six-session overview of the major wine regions and varietals from around the world.  During the course I was lucky enough to taste a 1964 Gevrey-Chambertin and discovered a love for pinot noir has continued to grow.  Of course, learning about Burgundy is extremely confusing, so many producers making so many wines from an abundance of vineyards.  To make matters even worse, multiple producers create wines from the same vineyards in very small amounts.  Unlike California or Bordeaux where producers make 15-20,000 cases of the same wine, I had to learn about a place where production was as small as 80 cases.  Clos Vougeot, the largest vineyard, has over 80 owners and an uncounted number of producers.

Burgundy came into better context in 1994 when I traveled there with the woman I have since married.  We visited Paris first and were lucky enough enjoy an incredible meal at Lucas-Carton.  Our travels took us through the Champagne region and then into Burgundy.  It was only after we drove through the narrow paths among the vineyards and saw the towns in the region that I could begin to see how it all fit together.  Today my dining room walls are adorned with two very large maps of the Cote d’Or that allow me to further develop my understanding.

On this trip to France we were exploring wine as well as food.  As I mentioned, we dined at Lucas-Carton in Paris, one of, at the time, five Michelin three star restaurants in Paris.  Not only do they have an extensive wine list, but their entire menu is geared toward wine sold by the glass that is matched to each menu item.  In Beaune, we dined at Auberge St-Vincent, across from the Hospice de Beaune.  Perhaps the greatest wine I’ve ever tasted, a 1978 Bonnes-Mare from Georges Comtes-de-Vogue accompanied a fantastic meal.

Throughout my study of wine I have taken numerous courses and attended many seminars.  My early studies of wine were at programs held at either the Boston or Cambridge Centers for Adult Education.  The highlight of my wine education is passing the Wine and Spirits Education Trust Higher Certificate program.  I passed the examination in March 2000 and was awarded a certificate “with distinction”.

As my love for wine grew so did my cooking skills.  I learned to make a béarnaise and suddenly a grilled steak was so much better.  I discovered that the brown stuff left in the bottom of a pan was actually more than a difficult substance to clean, that it could be deglazed with wine and that the food/wine match would be enhanced.  I learned to taste something in a restaurant and then to try to make it at home.  There have been some failures, but more successes.  Over time I have learned to cook more by smell and feel than by recipes.  When cooking something new I often smell the various spices I have available and use the ones that have the qualities that will meld into the dish I am trying to prepare.  Most of my training is self taught based on either what I learned from my mother or trying techniques gleaned from cookbooks.  I have taken a couple of courses at Boston Center for Adult Education.  They included a class on Tex/Mex cooking and one on chocolate.  I am currently enrolled in two classes at Boston University that start in late March: “Cheese Certificate with Ihsan Gurdal” and “Chocolate Daze with Albert Kumin”.

My long-term goal is to open a restaurant of my own and provide the creative aspects of the menu.  My focus will be on developing a menu that will highlight food and wine pairings demonstrating how food and wine can complement each other, increasing the overall pleasure beyond that which can be derived from each alone.  In the short term I am hoping to continue gaining practical, real world experience by working at “Radius” as a “stagiaire”.  I am hoping that this will eventually lead to a paying position either at “Radius” or at another of the top kitchens in the Boston area.  I plan to broaden my knowledge and experience by participating in and receiving certification from a formal chef’s program.

I have several reasons for applying to the program.  First, and foremost is that, quite frankly, I currently can’t cook well enough to open the kind of restaurant that I’d like to own.  I need to learn better techniques and to improve consistency.  Much of my cooking now is done through smell and imagination.  As I mentioned earlier, when I first try a new dish I’ll often start by smelling various spices to get a sense of how they will combine to form what I’m looking for.  I don’t document the process, which has lead to inconsistency in my preparation from one attempt to the next.  I understand that this approach will not work in a formal setting.  After all, how many customers would continue to order “Radius’s” signature main course, the “Slow Roasted Prime Rib Eye” if the preparation were to vary each time they came in.

Another reason for applying is my desire to broaden my understanding of cuisines from different areas.  I am looking for more exposure to new ingredients, spices, and combinations of each than I would gain by working in a commercial kitchen.  I also need to learn more about how to find and choose the best ingredients and about seasonal availability.  I am seeking exposure to meat, fish, poultry, game, and vegetables that goes well beyond what I can find by shopping at my local market.

My understanding is that approximately 60% of new restaurants fail.  I’m looking to learn the business well enough to increase my chances of success.  Various reading I have done suggests that many of the failures result from an owner opening a restaurant under a romantic notion of the service that they will provide.  Often the new owner doesn’t understand the way the business works and the issues that arise in a restaurant.  I’m working to gain the experience and education that will increase the chances of success for the restaurant I plan to open.

A final thought…  I was walking down Summer Street earlier this week on my way to catch an Orange Line train home.  I had just finished an eight hour shift at “Radius”.  I was tired.  My feet, knees, and back hurt.  I realized that I was smiling and couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this way after leaving work in my prior career.  I felt a sense of accomplishment and realized how lucky I am to have the chance to pursue something I love.  I see a passion for food in the kitchen at “Radius”.  I am working with cooks eager to share, teaching me what they love.  I want to open a restaurant where I can share my passion with others.  I am hoping to have the opportunity to attend the Professional Chef’s Program at CSCA to continue to explore my passion for food and wine.