As I also teach at the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office. I have a special place in my heart for individuals who face challenges in their lives and figure out ways to overcome them and for organizations that help them do it.
NECAT offers job training and employment support to people who have been involved with the justice system, new immigrants, and others for whom getting and keeping a job may be a challenge, and if this event was any indication, they do a great job at it!
At the event, staff and students showed off their beautiful facilities (which include a fully-stocked auditorium/demonstration kitchen and art gallery that will soon be available to rent) and showed how they both offer and deserve community support.
While the food, drink, and music were terrific, the highlight was an impressive cooking demonstration, during which Boston Jerk Fest champ Chef Chris Faison threw together a sauce that I insisted he throw in bottles and sell while Chef Niurka LeBron decimated an onion in mere seconds with her superior knife skills.
Before and after the sushi-grade showcase, program supporters were invited to mingle, dance, and enjoy some of their students and alumni’s most creative creations, including community-minded oysters and freshly-baked s’mores cookies.
Many NECAT alumni have gone on to great culinary careers, including NECAT Instructor Michelene Desmoreau, who has her own catering business and line of spices and is about to open a restaurant in Quincy!
It’s a great way to help people who are motivated to help themselves while supporting the community.
I know that there are few people we talk about more than Steve Peljovich of Michael’s Deli in Brookline. However, as this meat-minded mensch just ran through another Relay for Life to raise funds for the American Cancer Society and is also celebrating his 13th year as the King of Corned Beef, I wanted to wish him a mazal tov on his personal passion and productivity and his business bar mitzvah.
In addition to offering the best in traditional deli in the area (including meats that are “imported” daily from Brooklyn), Steve has maintained a menu of masterfully mishegas-ed knishes that have offered ingredients that have ranged from traditional potato and kasha to Fruity Pebbles and Nutella, with the only consistent theme being their deliciousness.
While it is always fun to drop by and be treated like family at Steve’s Coolidge Corner location, my family always loves it when I bring things home and we have often asked Steve to use his favorite family recipes (including Auntie Bev’s noodle kugel and his mother’s heavenly homestyle meatloaf) to serve and satisfy our family and many others. From finger sandwiches to yard-long subs, Steve has everything you need to bring more flavor and fun to all sort of events – including bar mitzvahs!
When not supporting his friends and neighbors with food (which he also readily donates to area shelters and sports teams, including the Boston Bruins and the Shawn Thronton Foundation), Steve also supports cancer patients and other neighbors and is always ready with a warm smile and friendly greeting, which somedays is more sustaining than even his delicious food.Thanks again, Steve!
While serving as an active member of the Air Force, Jeff Fritz has learned how to slice through the air with the utmost precision. As a chef and the owner of SilverWolf Private Assistance LLC, he slices fresh foods and amazing centerpieces, taking every opportunity to serve every colleague and client as best he can. Among his most successful events have been a recent dinner at the Warrior Retreat with Willing Warriors and an event that hosted Wounded Warriors from Walter Reed Medical Centerthat involved chefs from each of the branches of the military and offered 10 courses complete with wine and beer pairings. Chef Fritz has recently added to his impressive resume by signing on to serve as the Executive Culinary Director for the Table Foundation and Plating Grace, and for the Plating Grace and Grub food truck.
Fly-Fight-Win, Chef!
Matt’s Meals: How did you get into cooking? Who inspired you?
How I got into cooking was the long way. I grew up very poor and, like a lot of people, I worked at McDonalds as my first job in the food industry, I also worked at Quizno’s at Coors Field while I was in high school. My passion was in working with my hands, I worked as a cabinet-maker for about a year and a half before I joined the military and I really enjoyed it! But I felt the need to move away from home and find a way to support me wife to be and myself and the military was the easiest choice.
In the military, we like to come together as a group to create what we call “Esprit de Corp” to build our [cameraderie] with each other since we deploy and spend so much time together. I always volunteered to cook for these events since I really enjoyed working with my hands and food. This lead me to my time stationed in Phoenix…where I decided I wanted to pick up a trade so that I could do something out the outside of the military. Initially, I chose [to be an] auto mechanic since my whole life that is what my father has done [and because] it’s a great skill to have when you are poor since it’s cheaper to fix a car yourself than taking it to an shop. I signed up for a new hybrid course at UTI in Phoenix and, about a week prior to my class starting, the school canceled the program which left me scrambling for something else. A coworker of mine was teaching at the local culinary school near me (Scottsdale Culinary Institute – Le Cordon Bleu) and told me I should check it out. I met up with him at the school later that week and he showed me around. I was hooked within minutes and signed up that day! That is how I started cooking for real. Since [that] time, I have cooked in three countries, at the Taste of the NFL, Blue Hill At Stone Barns, and several culinary competitions around the country and won several medals.
Who inspired me is a tough question. I think what inspired me to really love cooking at food was the original Japanese version of Iron Chef. My wife and I watched that show all the time while we were stationed in Korea for two years. I really loved the way they cooked and the creative things that they made. Chef Morimoto was a big part of that for me, but all the chefs on the show had such passion for their food it really stuck with me.
Matt’s Meals: Where was your first professional kitchen experience and what lessons did you learn that continue to educate how you work today?
While I was in culinary school in Phoenix, we had a group of chefs that told me to get involved with the American Culinary Federation chapter. I did that and it lead me to my first real cooking job which was for an upscale caterer in Scottsdale. I remember that my first day of work was a large event at a millionaire’s home in North Scottsdale [where] my one and only job was to pick arugula stems for hours. It was a bit of a humbling experience since I was in the military and had some major real world experiences, but it was an amazing job and the event was awesome….. This really fueled my passion for more, and I started looking at other jobs I could do that were also closer to my house. At this time, I was doing 20-hour days Monday through Friday and 10-hour days on the weekends. What I found in the end was Skye Supper Club in Glendale. This was a fine dining establishment and was where I cut my teeth in the fine dining world. Chef Scott Tompkins was the Chef/Owner and he really took me under his wing. We cooked amazing food with French/American influences. The only reason I left Skye was due to the military. I received orders to move to a small town in Idaho. But Chef Tompkins forever left his mark on me for continued passion and to never stop learning. He’s the person who got me my first culinary books and magazines. He got me to look at food in a completely different way.
Matt’s Meals: What have been the biggest challenges you have faced and how have you handled then?
My biggest challenges have been due to my military life and having to move every other year or so. Every time I got settled in and found amazing chefs and places to work at or stage at, I would get orders to move to my next location. This has also presented me with many new opportunities, but it’s also hard to start over ever time. The American Culinary Federation has helped me so much in this regard. I have always found a chapter near the new location I would move to and my chapter president at each place helped me connect to that new chapter each time. After my time in Idaho, I was selected for a position in North Bay, Ontario. My chapter president and mentor made some calls to the National ACF president and he got in touch with the Canadian Culinary Federation and connected me with the closest chapter near me.
Matt’s Meals: How has your cooking and business style changed and how has the industry changed?
My cooking style was strictly based on classic French cooking but, as I moved and found new foods and styles of cooking, my style…adapted and evolved into a more modern style. I love molecular cooking, but at the same time I love classical techniques as well. I have figured out a way to combine those styles together along with open-fire cooking. I think that the industry has continued to evolve along with the trends that we see and how chefs and customers react to those trends. I’m rooted in classics but understand that things change and that if you don’t change with them you will be left behind.
Matt’s Meals: What are you most looking forward to this year, in terms of your career?
This one is easy! I retire from the Air Force this year which will give me more time to focus just on culinary projects like the cookbook I’m working on [and] possible TV shows. But I’m realistic as well. COVID has devastated much of the hospitality industry and I’m lucky enough to have other job skills from my military time that I can use as a bridge to get to my culinary dreams. My ultimate goal is to have a brick and mortar restaurant and we will see if that happens in the next year or two.
With a mission of making the world a better place, one recipe at a time, multi-talented, multi-media star Laura Theodore has topped the charts in music, books, and TV and is also considered tops by many vegetarian and general chefs.
Having started her career as an award-winning Jazz vocalist who released six solo albums (including “Tonight’s the Night,” which received a Musician Magazine Award, and “Golden Earrings,” which was on the GRAMMY® list for Best Jazz Vocal Album) and performed at the Night of 100 Stars and The American Film Awards as well as in many off-Broadway plays (including the titular role in the Janis Joplin biography, “Love, Janis” which won her the Denver Critics Drama Circle Award as Best Actress in a Musical), Theodore is no stranger to the spotlight. On her TV show, however, she shines a light on the healthy benefits and delicious possibilities of vegan cooking. The show is so popular, that it has won Taste Awards for Best Health and Fitness Television Program (Food and Diet) and was inducted into the Taste Hall of Fame! In addition, Ms. Theodore was a recent winner of the Top 100 Vegetarian Blog Awards.
As she prepares the latest season of her hit TV show and to continue to appear on many others (including programs on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and even in the Netflix documentary Food Choices) and as she also looks forward to the release of her latest cookbook, Theodore continues to sing the praises of the vegan diet and to show how it can be integrated into any lifestyle to make it and the person living it healthier and more…well…Jazzy!
The Jazzy Vegetarian at work
Matt’s Meals: How did you get into cooking? Who inspired you?
As a child, visiting my grandma and watching her prepare delicious food fascinated me! Plus, helping my mom serve tasty meals and eating her yummy dinners every night was something I looked forward to.
When I was three or four years old, I remember standing on a stool in my grandmother’s kitchen, stirring apples for her yearly batch of applesauce. On Sundays or holidays, I looked forward to entering my Grandma Cook’s kitchen. (Yes, Cook was her real last name!) Grandma’s kitchen was always filled with the intoxicating aroma of a big pot of simmering spaghetti sauce or some other wonderful culinary creation that she was preparing for us to feast upon. At home, I remember being fascinated when my mom took beautifully trimmed and cooked artichokes out of the pot, or when my great aunt came to visit and made homemade pasta noodles.
Many years later, when I became interested in cooking while living a healthier lifestyle, I started by recreating the traditional recipes from mom and grandma’s kitchens. Grandma shared handwritten recipes with me weekly, and I started preparing vegetarian then eventually vegan versions of their classic recipes. These are some of the recipes you see in my cookbooks and on the Jazzy Vegetarian television show today.
Matt’s Meals: Where was your first professional kitchen experience and what lessons did you learn that continue to educate how you work in your kitchen today?
I began my professionalcareer as a recording artist and actor. Ten years ago, we combined my love of cooking and experience behind the camera into a hit television show! I find that being a television chef is a very different challenge than working as a recording artist. Over 10 years ago, during the first season of filming the show, I needed to focus on presenting each episode in an entertaining manner, including step-by-step recipes and menu plans – all wrapped into less than 25 minutes of camera time! Developing my own on-camera style and making certain every detail for the camera was viewer friendly wasa challenge! Script management and scheduling each episode around produce availability was a learning curve that I have honed over the years.
Matt’s Meals: What have been the biggest challenges you have faced and how have you handled them?
When the Food Network premiered in the late 1990’s, I became determined to have my own plant-based cooking show on television. I would say that the biggest challenge overall was launching a plant-based show on nationally-broadcast television. We started shopping Jazzy Vegetarian to the networks around 2006. The series was finally picked up by a PBS distributor in late 2010. That was a long process! We heard a lot of “nos” along the way, but I was determined to make it work. So, in 2011, we launched the first season of the vegan cooking series Jazzy Vegetarian on national public television.
When the show premiered all across the nation in 2011, I was told that, since it was a vegan cooking show, it might last for two seasons and reach 45% of U.S. television households. Ten years later, we are getting ready to premiere season nine ofour three-time Taste award-winning cooking series on May 15th, 2021. The program has regularly been available in nearly 90% of U.S. television households each week, touching the hearts and kitchens of our thousands of loyal fans all across America.
Matt’s Meals: How has your cooking and business style changed and how has the industry changed?
Since my main gigs these days are television chef, recipe developer, and cookbook author, my business style has certainly changed. Coming from a background in the entertainment industry, I was able to parlay some of my skills.
Matt’s Meals: What are you most looking forward to this year, in terms of your career?
Season nine of Jazzy Vegetarian premieres on national public television in May. The companion cookbook to the season – Easy Vegan Home Cooking: Over 125 Plant-Based and Gluten-Free Recipes for Wholesome Family Meals – will be released in October. Both the new television season and cookbook feature vegan recipes that require eight ingredients or fewer and focus on bountiful breakfasts, light lunches, satisfying suppers, and delightful desserts, designed to please vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike.
This delicate, rich dessert is based on a recipe my grandma often made. When I was a child it was my favorite dessert, but it was packed with eggs and heavy cream. Every year, on my birthday, I was allowed to choose the dessert for my special dinner, and I always chose Grandma’s chocolaty, rich pudding!
Here’s a maple-y vegan variation of my original rendition, based on my grandma’s chocolaty recipe. This pudding is so creamy, your guests will not believe that it’s based in (shhhh) tofu!
Bonus: It takes only 10 minutes to prep!
INGREDIENTS
¾ cup unsweetened nondairy milk
14 ounces firm or extra-firm regular tofu, drained and cubed (see note)
2 tablespoons maple syrup (I like Anderson’s Pure Maple Syrup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup vegan chocolate chips (55% to 65% cacao)
Fresh raspberries, for garnish (optional)
Mint sprigs, for garnish (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Put the nondairy milk in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat.
Put the tofu, maple syrup, and vanilla extract in a blender, and then add the chocolate chips.
Pour in the simmering nondairy milk and process for 45 seconds to 1 minute, or until completely smooth.
Spoon or pour the mixture into eight to ten mini dessert glasses or espresso cups (or six to eight small dessert bowls) and garnish with a raspberry and mint sprig, or a single chocolate chip.
Born with a passion for food that he believes is “programmed in his genes,” Peruvian-born chef and owner Jose Duarte moved to Venezuela with his family as a child, but returned to Peru many times in order to maintain and strengthen ties with his family and friends. This family-oriented style is evident in his cooking ands hospitality. It may even be why he named his latest venue – Tambo 22 – after the little huts that lie along the major roads in Peru to welcome travelers and to allow them respire from their weary travels.
After pursuing a degree in tourism in Venezuela, Duarte moved to Florida to study hospitality, management, and of course, food preparation. After marrying his wife Anna who had come from Boston’s, famed Italian neighborhood, known as “The North-End,” Duarte moved to Boston as well so she could keep ties with her own family. It was here in 2000 that he opened his legendary Peruvian-Italian eatery Taranta and soon debuted his famed Gnocchi di Yucca and calzoncini, which represented a fusion of Italian calzones and Latin empanadas
After reading an article about climate change, in 2006, Duarte joined the Green Restaurant Organization and began to undertake a long list of changes that would improve his venue’s environmental impact. Arohd this time, he also opened an eco-lodge in Peru called the Santa Cruz Lodge that serves the same Andean Agave as Tambo22 and may have served at least partially as the inspiration for his Boston-area hospitality spot. He travels regularly across the United States and Peru educating restaurant owners and others about the importance of sustainability and ways to achieve it.
Sourcing locally and sustainably, Duarte is dedicated to bringing the best to his guests, Though Tambo22 was open and shut many times during the pandemic, he is now looking forward to providing a comfortable, delicious, welcoming, and unforgettable place to relax and enjoy his food and hospitality for many years to come!
Matt’s Meals: How did you get into cooking?
I always enjoyed food. Since I was four4 years old, I was fascinated by food markets in Peru. When I was 10, an uncle in Lima invited me to go for lunch to a house where the chef prepared meals only for people he knew. His name is Javier Wong. When we arrived, he pulled out a large “Lenguado” (summer flounder) and asked if we wanted ceviche (raw fish that is “cooked” in citrus acid) or tiradito(Peruvian sashimi) and then a saltado(stir fry) with tausi(fermented black beans). In matter of minutes and right in front of us he transformed the fish into multiple memorable dishes. I had one of those epiphanies realizing that that was one of the coolest things I ever saw and I wanted to do something like that in the future!
Matt’s Meals: Who inspired you?
My grandmother Paulina, Chef Javier Wong, and Chef Jhon Mondone
Matt’s Meals: Where was your first professional kitchen experience and what lessons did you learn that continue to educate how you work in your kitchen today?
My first professional kitchen experience was during a holiday break in Venezuela when I helped an chef with New Year’s eve dinner. That evening, many of the kitchen staff did not show up to work. I was a guest at the hotel and I volunteered to help in the kitchen. One of the lessons that I learned that day is that, if you do a job [that] you enjoyed, and had passion for it, you have to always try to be the best and keep learning.
Matt’s Meals: What have been the biggest challenges you have faced and how have you handled them?
As a chef and owner, one of the biggest challenges has been dealing and adapting with COVID 19. I have used creativity, ingenuity, adaptation, and hard work.
Matt’s Meals: How has your cooking and business style changed and how has the industry changed?
My cooking has changed a bit with the use and implementation of newer techniques such as sous vide. The industry if going through a deep change towards the digital world. We soon will be developing and writing recipes and formulations that can be sold as data for food printing machines for people at home. The future of food is towards a digital era from production to consumption.
Matt’s Meals: What are you most looking forward to this year, in terms of your career?
Travel. I need to travel to keep learning about food and culture.
Founder, Boston Wine Festival (www.bostonwinefestival.net)
For over 30 years, Chef Daniel Bruce has been pulling more than his weight in maintaining and improving the Boston’s only Forbes Five-Star & AAA Five Diamond waterfront hotel- The Boston Harbor Hotel at Rowes Wharf. Among his many initiatives was the creation the Boston Wine Festival, which has brought hundreds of vintners and thousands of oenophiles to Boston and become America’s longest-running such event!
Making the most of Boston’s seafood bounty and other locally-sourced ingredients, Chef Bruce’s preparations are as beautiful as they are healthy and work as perfectly for romantic dinners as they do for corporate events.
After graduating with honors from Johnson & Wales University (the first of many accolades which has also included being named Vice Consellier Culiniaire, Bailliage de Boston and being honored twice as one of the “Best Hotel Chefs in America” at the James Beard House), Chef Bruce studied in Italy and France before returning to the United States to serve in New York’s legendary 21 (where he soon became the youngest executive chef in the venue’s vaunted history!). As a native New Englander, Chef Bruce could not shake his desire to return home and bring his international talents to friends and neighbors.
Now the world comes to him!
Matt’s Meals: How did you get into cooking? Who inspired you?
My mother said she always knew I would be a chef. I used to try making foods by pushing a chair over to the cabinets when I was three to try and recreate anything she made that I liked. My grandmother, who was an amazing cook and was always was canning, baking, and making everything from scratch in the kitchen, was really the foundation for me. She brought such joy to everyone with everything she made and the smells and flavors are still with me today!
Matt’s Meals: Where was your first professional kitchen experience and what lessons did you learn that continue to educate how you work in your kitchen today?
My first job in a restaurant was in a small central Maine town of Skowhegan, where I was fortunate enough to work for the owner/chef Florence Blaisdell at her restaurant the Candlelight. The thing I learned most from her was her dedication to the craft and how hard she worked. She was truly an inspiration and it was she that convinced me to go to Johnson and Wales and also assisted me in securing a debt consolidation loan navy federal. I owe much of who I am as a chef to her, as I try to set the example to all that work for me and that is a direct result of that first job.
Matt’s Meals: What have been the biggest challenges you have faced and how have you handled them?
Of course, the past 11 months have been the hardest and most challenging ever for our business (and I have been around a long time!). The most difficult aspect is the furloughing and laying off of so many of our team. They are family to me and it breaks my heart to have had to make these decisions that honestly we had no choice in making because of the pandemic, I make it a point to check in with them to stay connected. . I truly look forward to the day when I can call them back to be even better than we were before.
Matt’s Meals: How has your cooking and business style changed and how has the industry changed?
Ha, which decade? There have been so many changes throughout my career- So many great changes! We live in a remarkable country where we all are constantly changing and facing new challenges. Currently, I am very impressed at the concern more and more of our population has for eating whole, organic, healthy foods and moving away from all the added processes that have been detrimental to our overall health. We as chefs can do much to inspire and encourage this and I believe we are. I was raised in a very remote region of New England where the respect for nature and eating off the land was a way of life. I am thrilled to see this as widespread as it is becoming today!
Matt’s Meals: What are you most looking forward to this year, in terms of your career?
Getting back to the days where we can create memories and hiring my team back and building our business is of utmost importance.
Growing up in a Cuban-Jewish family in Miami, Steve Peljovich had a lot of flavor to bring to Boston. Having been introduced to the Hub of the Universe by way of the legendary (and lately late) Durgin Park, Peljovich liked the family way of the place, but knew that there could be more to Boston fare than prime rib and Boston’s famed baked beans.
Eager to capitalize on his background and familial feel, Peljovich did stints at John Harvard’s Brewhouse in the misnomered Harvard Square and the Hard Rock Café in downtown Boston before heading out to the semi-preserved Brookline neighborhood known as Coolidge Corner. There, he took over a legendary deli that was known far and wide for its corned beef and has since not only reigned as the new “Corned Beef King” but supported the community with food, familial fun, and financial support to organizations that range from the American Cancer Society to former Bruin Shawn Thornton’s Foundation.
Matt’s Meals: How did you get into cooking? Who inspired you?
I was definitely influenced and inspired by my family. Growing up in a Cuban-Jewish home, food was always central in our lives. Aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents were always cooking something up and the recipes were always a mix of cultures.
Matt’s Meals: Where was your first professional kitchen experience and what lessons did you learn that continue to educate how you work today?
I was a prep and line cook at a Hooters in Miami. It was fast-paced, crazy, and always hot. The biggest lesson I learned was how not to treat staff. I feel like an old-timer saying this, but the management used a demeaning and demoralizing philosophy to motivate staff. Employees were pawns and tools, not people. As I continued in my restaurant career, I knew that i would never treat my teams that way.
Matt’s Meals: What have been the biggest challenges you have faced and how have you handled then?
My biggest challenge was making the leap from a weekly corporate check to running my own business. At the time that I transitioned into my own business, we had three very young children and the risk of being an independent operator scared the life out of me. As they say, “failure was not an option,” so I tackled everyday as a new challenge. I strive everyday to win new faithful customers with great food and a welcoming environment. Being a small business, I make it important to learn who my new guests are and encourage them to make a relationship with the business. I want them to be a part of the experience, not just an end user of my food.
Matt’s Meals: How has your cooking and business style changed and how has the industry changed?
I would like to think that I haven’t changed much. I learned many lessons in some very different corporate restaurant environments and have worked to mesh those with my own personality. I think folks now are looking for fresh, quality food made with care and I think I provide that daily. I would like to think that the foodservice industry has made a turn to recognizing the independent chef/restaurateur over the corporate chain. Over the last 10-15 years, it has been restaurant personalities driving this change and media that have given an avenue for independents to thrive.
Matt’s Meals: What are you most looking forward to this year, in terms of your career?
I am looking forward to welcoming folks back in to dine at the tables in my deli and to hang out to chat. Hopefully this will happen in 2021! I miss the connection with our guests and the atmosphere the deli takes on when it is full of guests. It reminds me of going to the great delis of Miami Beach as a child and being with my family, seeing other families getting together over great food that is a huge part of my culture.
Since I last recorded for WBZ, I have been promoting my new book on the Ivy League called Lions, Tigers, and…Bulldogs?(which is available at lionstigersbulldogs.com, by they way). I have hosted events around Boston, and in Harvard Square and am looking forward to bringing the book and the story of how it came to be to more places.
Wherever I have gone, many of the friends I have made through doing these spots have generously donated their wares for my guests to enjoy and I wanted to take a moment to thank them.
First and foremost is the team behind Q’s Nuts, who have always sent me their latest and greatest to share with family and friends. I was also allowed to debut new fruit bars from Zego snacks at my Harvard Square event, In addition to supporting my book presentations, Elaine Peterson of Lark Fine Foods has also supported my daughters in their efforts to knit scarves for the homeless. On the beverage side, Maple Mama Beverages, Pricklee, and Waku have all helped slake the thirst of voracious readers throughout the region.
As an independent writer and now author, I feel a strong need to support my fellow independents and entrepreneurs and am very grateful for all they do to help me. And as a help to my fellow entrepreneurs I recommend that if you need seeds to grow your tree (entrepreneurship) you can always access quickly and easily through no credit check loans.
Please join me in support these and other independent producers and purveyors.
As Boston Harbor is one of the greatest sustainers of the world’s fish supply, It mat come as no surprise that the new chef on the famed Odyssey cruise and dinner boat (www.entertainmentcruises.com/boston) is so dedicated to sustainable food.
Before serving at Boston’s famed Liberty Hotel, Parise helped raise the food service bar at such tony locales as Aspen, CO, AND Delray Beach and Boca Raton, FL. The fact that he worked at a yacht club in Boca may also make his move to the Odyssey more sensible. Whatever the reasons, however, the ship is more shipshape thanks to his joining the crew. So whether you want a romantic cruise, a night out with the family, or just a great meal with an amazing view, drop anchor on the Odyssey and see what Chef Parise has caught that day.
MM: How did you get into cooking?
AP: Cooking isn’t something I got into, I always cooked since I was little. My family was very centered around cooking. When I started college, I couldn’t choose a major but I knew that I loved everything. I ended up as an English major until my final semester where I chose to cook only because I was already doing that as a job but it was exciting and offered me so many things to learn and teach.
MM: Where was your first professional kitchen experience?
AP: It was at the Charlotte Country Club in Charlotte, NC. I had no experience and they were the first group of Chefs that took the time to invest in me.
MM: What is your favorite dish to prepare?
AP: I don’t particularly have one dish! I love making food that I have never made before, creating and learning. If there was a dish that I am very particular about it would be making stocks and sauces. You kind of have to be that way to make them perfect.
MM: What is the best part of your job?
AP: Teaching and mentoring. Through the years I have watched many chefs just turn people away and judge others who can’t or are not at the “CALIBER.” I don’t believe in it and never will.
MM: Who is your favorite chef in Boston?
AP: I don’t have one, I have never been much of a groupie. I do things the way I feel they need to be done and I follow those who have good hearts and truly believe in food.
MM: What do you usually make for yourself at home?
AP: I like using my cast iron so anything I can sauté or baste. But I love sandwiches usually mortadella or cured meats that I find in farmer’s markets.
MM: If you could dine with any three people, who would they be?
Growing up in her grandmother’s Cambridge, MA-based Japanese restaurant, Tokyo, Tracy Chang knew her way around a kitchen and around Asian cooking traditions from very early on After serving at Boston’s award-winning O-Ya and then moving to Paris to study pâtisserie at Le Cordon Bleu, Chang landed alongside chef Martín Berasategui at his three-star Michelin restaurant in Spain. Back in Cambridge, she served as a fellow with Harvard Science + Cooking, working closely with chefs such as Ferran Adria, Jose Andre, and David Chang. All of these people, places, and flavors are now combined in the Chang’s Cambridge-based collaborative creation known as Pagu (www.gopagu.com).
From squid ink Bao buns stuffed with fried to a familial (and deliciously familiar) twist on fried rice to Nantucket Bay scallop sashimi that combines Chang’s heritage and home state (and even adds the olive oil she grew to love in Spain), Pagu’s menu is intended to not only invite and entice but also engage guests from the Cambridge area and far beyond and to draw on the many diverse skills and expertise that the Cambridge area is known for, from academics and biotechnology to music and design.
MM: How did you get into cooking?
TC: When I was in grade school, both of my parents worked full time, and so my brothers and I had a nanny who took care of us. I’d cook with her on the weekdays, learning to make baos and dumplings (she was from Northern China), as well as how to sew, knit, and speak mandarin. I cooked with my parents, my grandma and my aunties on Sundays because that’s when everyone had time to get together. Thankfully we all lived within five minutes of each other. We’d make fried rice for Sunday lunch and on Sunday evenings, we’d either go to Grandma’s restaurant, Tokyo, or to go her home to cook dinner together. Grandma made Taiwanese food; my Aunt Jin made Malaysian food. I’ve always considered myself extremely lucky to have been exposed to such variety of food and flavors from a young age, and only having to travel ten minutes round trip!
MM: Where was your first professional kitchen experience?
TC: I first cooked professionally at O Ya, a contemporary Japanese restaurant in Boston. My friends lived around the corner and recommended I check out the new Japanese sushi restaurant that was doing things no one else did. I was intrigued and went twice with my mother to check it out; I loved it. It was during my senior year of college, and I realized with each year of school, I was spending more time in the kitchen, than in the library. With the encouragement of friends, I decided to apply for the hostess position, but my heart and soul was always set on the kitchen. I didn’t know what standard procedure was for restaurant interviews. My resume looked and sounded like a finance resume. Thankfully, my buddy Josh was working down the street in advertising and helped me throw together a 23-page photo portfolio of foods I enjoyed cooking. I showed up with dessert, portfolio and an attitude, ready to wash dishes, clean toilets, host guests, schedule reservations, anything. Tim and Nancy, the owners, let me come in twice a week to prep, which months later led to a full-time position.
MM: What is your favorite dish to prepare?
TC: I love to make fried rice. Anywhere I am in the world, I cook some version of fried rice–with baby squid in Spain or jambon in Paris. It is the first dish I ever learned to cook, before I was tall enough to reach the stove. It’s also the dish we made most often on Sundays with my parents. We’d even have competitions with my cousins to see whose fried rice was the best. Somehow my cousins were allowed to judge, and I was left to compete against my uncles and aunties!
MM: What is the best part of your job?
The best part of my job is spreading joy and nourishment through food, community and collaboration. I get to work with some of my best friends, to create every day, something that sustains and satisfies others. I get to inspire, enable, take action, and see immediate results. It’s not every day, every profession that one can do all these things.
MM: Who is your favorite chef?
TC: It’s hard to pick favorites…but I suppose others wouldn’t be upset if I said my grandma. She was a generous, motivated, detail-oriented, leader of our family, as well as of her restaurant, Tokyo. She would spend countless hours at the restaurant during the week, and still want to cook family dinner for us on Sunday nights at her home. I’ve adopted this practice similarly; it must run in the family. My chef in Spain, Martin Berasategui, used to laugh because I’d go home after 15 hours of work, and still have the energy to cook. When my family visited me in Spain, he told them he had never met anyone with as much energy as I, and more energy than he!
MM: What do you usually make for yourself at home?
TC: I love to make omelets. They are simple, quick and satisfying. I also love that when I make them, even though I’ve made hundreds if not thousands over the years, I still push myself to do better each time. “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” ethos.
MM: If you could dine with any three people, who would they be?
