The Pig Project

Interview with Brian Wilke, OCI Executive Chef and Director of Education

What exactly is the OCI Pig Project?

Chefs Wilke (center) and Brophy (right) at Heritage Farms

We decided to purchase three red wattle piglets in the spring from Heritage Farm Northwest. “The Pig Project,” as it came to be known, was conceived out of a desire to introduce our students to several concepts at the same time. The first is the concept of sustainability, and how this concept can affect them as food service professionals. The second concept is an awareness of and interaction directly with the local food farm and food purveyor community – not just the pigs, but also the connection with the brewer and the winemaker that we are partnering with. The third concept is from an ethical standpoint – we are introducing them to a way of raising animals that is much different from the way a pig would be raised on an industrial farm. The fourth concept is flavor. All three are genetically almost identical (see next question). We brought two of them to Sweetbriar Farms to be pen-raised and left the other one at Heritage Farm Northwest to be pasture-raised. One current hot button in the food and farms debate is the more common grain fed practice vs. pasture-raised, (which, by the way, is the way all farm animals were raised until the 20th century). We will prepare the rendered product from, again, nearly identical pigs and in the exact same manner -- the only differences between the finished dishes will be the manner in which they were raised and their diets. Again, two pigs are being pen raised and grain fed, while the other is being raised the way pigs were raised in the past, roaming around and foraging for food.

What can you tell us about the red wattle pig?

Interviewing red wattle piglets

The red wattle is a “heritage” breed. There are only two registered breeders in Oregon, one is Heritage Farm Northwest, where we purchased these pigs. The folks at Heritage Farm Northwest are on a mission to help make this breed popular again because, in terms of flavor, it is a remarkable pig. In the late 1990’s the breed was down to about 45 pigs. It had fallen out of favor because the breed doesn’t respond well to confinement. Now there are about 1,200 registered red wattle pigs in the U.S. The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy lists the breed as “critically endangered” still. When Jim at Heritage told me this, I was concerned about buying them to be raised for consumption, but he told us, on the contrary, that this is the way to create demand for the breed, ensuring its preservation. If there’s no demand, no one will care to create the supply, and the breed could die out. I believe you can get more information on the breed at www.redwattleproject.com.

How is this project a reflection of the school’s philosophy regarding community and education, and what educational outcomes are you trying to create for the students?

From a community standpoint, our students have made a couple visits to Sweetbriar Farm, where two of the pigs are being raised. They are getting to know the farmers and their standards for raising their animals, as well as some of the business and marketing strategies employed there. Additionally, the farmers from Heritage and Sweetbriar will attend the dinner party at the school when we celebrate the pigs.

OCI students and Chef Brophy at Sweetbriar Farm.

From an educational perspective, there are ethical, technical, and financial outcomes that we are seeking.

Ethically, having the students go to a local farm and meeting the farmers and seeing how the animals are raised should make an impression that stays with them. As industry professionals one day, they will have to make choices about where their product comes from, and we want to make sure that they understand the ethical considerations of such decisions.

On the technical side, the students will be involved in the fabrication and production of the hogs. They will use the skills, various cooking methods, and techniques that we are trying to teach them in school every day. Additionally, there will be a lot of attention paid to “snout to tail” use of the animal in production, meaning that the students will be learning how to use as much of the animal as possible.

And using as much of the animal as possible makes financial sense, which ties very neatly into the third education outcome we are seeking for this project -- teaching the students about the economics of food. It is important to me, and to the other chefs here, that our students understand, from an economic standpoint, what it means for a food establishment to get all of their product from within 50 miles. These hogs will be considerably more expensive than what you’d get from an industrial farm. If one of our students wants to go out into the industry and open a restaurant that serves only local or organic product, they had better understand not just the ethical considerations of doing this, but also the financial ones.

Tell us about the dinner.

The Pig Project comes to fruition at OCI on Tuesday, November 9th and Wednesday, November 10th. We will host dinners on both nights, with identical menus engineered by OCI Chef Instructor Josh Blythe. We are getting all vegetables from the Wealth Underground Farm (we did a project with these guys before and really like what they are doing), and Chef Blythe and the students will feature various pork dishes with vegetables that have just been harvested.

In terms of the bigger picture, we are excited to give industry professionals and food enthusiasts the opportunity to taste various pork dishes, side-by-side, from pigs that are genetically almost identical, but raised and fed very differently. “Pen raised” versus “pasture raised,” for me, has only been a theoretical debate in terms of flavor, but now we get the chance to actually test to see if those two farming styles truly make a difference in the flavor. I can’t think of a better way that we could have done this than the controlled environment that we used.

Why did you decide to partner with a brewer and a vintner? How did you choose who to partner with?

Traditionally, in fine dining, it’s normally a winemaker that you’d partner with. But Portland, being the brewing capital of the world (in my opinion, the quality and quantity and diversity of beers supporting this) is as interesting as pairings you might get from a food and wine dinner. There are better pairings in terms of styles and varietals, whether it’s wine or beer. And pork, in particular, lends itself well to both wine and beer.

Our commitment to being as local and sustainable as possible informed our criteria for choosing our beer and wine partners. We brainstormed options for local wineries and brewers that were committed to the environment and sustainability, and consistently produce products of a superior nature. This lead us to Chehalem Winery, and Upright Brewing, both of whom we are really excited to partner with.

Will this be a charitable event? With who? How did you decide?


Yes! We will be partnering with Ecotrust and the Farm to School charitable effort on the night of the wine dinner, and the following night we will be partnering with Chef’s Collaborative. Regarding the “Farm to School” initiative, we believe strongly in educating children about the food chain, not to mention nourishing them with nutritional and healthy foods. The fact that it all supports local farms and farmers makes it a “no-brainer” for us. And the Chefs Collaborative is an amazing organization. All of our chef instructors are a part of it. The Chef’s Collaborative has been connecting chefs to farmers for a long time in Portland now. We are training and educating our students every day to be food service professionals, so we wanted to include industry professionals in this event.

Starting with children and finishing with industry professionals made sense to us.

Any idea what the next food source that OCI adopts in the same manner?

Well, the Pig Project isn’t really the first time we’ve done something like this. In varying degrees of student involvement and execution, we’ve done this with goats, Narraganset Turkeys from Sudan Farms, and line-caught Oregon albacore tuna.

So what’s next?

Maybe reptile charcuterie. Just kidding. We have some ideas, but no big announcements just yet.

Food Ethics and Social Responsibility: My New Class

by Chef Instructor (and Goddess Omnieffectus) Melinda Casady

More than a year and half ago, I started thinking about how great it would be to have a class on food ethics. I found myself in a conversation about it with an old high school friend of my husband’s, and he got excited about the idea as well. He told me I should go ahead and write the curriculum and then maybe an occasion would happen where I could use it. I like that mentality.

So I started taking notes on things that excited or frustrated me, and things I wanted to learn more about. I am fascinated by the sociological change that grocery shopping for most people now has become not only a decision about what they can afford, or what’s healthy for their family, but also now full of ethical dilemmas. That inorganic apple from Peru is killing the planet and causing wars! (That’s just an example, by the way, please don’t start writing letters about how apples don’t come from Peru), But our political system is restoring the economy of the Peruvians by purchasing their apples. This is what I’m referring to, and it’s a heated subject, and people get really excited about it.

Free range chickens voicing their opinions on the food ethics debate

When Brian and Eric, our Executive Chef and our President, sat me down and asked me to write a sociology class, I suggested that a class on Food Ethics might be a popular one. They were thrilled by the idea. All that time I spent tinkering with ideas for a class and stashing away my notes was about to pay off.

The “Food Ethics and Social Responsibility” class, starting next month, will take on many of the hot button issues in this industry today -- food labeling laws, how we raise our food, organic vs. local, food in schools, food lobbying, and consumer’s perception of what terms like “pasture-raised” means, as opposed to what the legal definition is. One of the really exciting things about this class is how dynamic it is. Laws are being passed, food borne outbreaks are occurring, and new ideas about where our food industry is heading are changing every day. This class is going to have to keep up with things that are happening in the news and in politics in order to keep our students educated and informed. The way to be successful in this industry is to be aware of -- even ahead of -- new trends, and what the customers are demanding.

I can’t wait to get started. I have been up to my ears in food politics, new events, and making sure I write rules of engagement for the class debates that I know are going to ensue and that I will be encouraging. I am determined to make sure my students understand the importance of being informed on industry trends and the growing ethical concerns intrinsic in the food industry. If they get this, then no matter which side they take, I’ll have done my job.

Find Your Fuel

by Ramona White, First Term Culinary Instructor

Chef White teaching fresh pasta making

One of the things I try to get across to my students is my belief that people can taste the intention with which you prepare their food. I know it’s a tall order, but I tell them to cook each dish as if they are cooking for the person they most love and admire in the world. I tell them to try to let their time at OCI be a vacation from work and home and all their daily struggles that try to interfere. Because I believe that the two most important qualities to be successful in this business are patience and dedication, I know that if my students can focus and enjoy what they are doing in the time they are in my kitchen, then they are taking steps towards success. This is the root of my teaching philosophy. I’m not interested in having my first terms students split the culinary atom -- but they do need to develop their chops. They should not spend their time and energy trying to impress their peers and their teacher, when what I really want is for them to show me that they can perform a basic skill three times perfectly before we move on to creativity.

Personally, it’s taken me a long time to figure out that I didn’t have to be Thomas Keller to be good at what I do and to properly perform a service to the community. And that’s what cooks are, public servants. And we are crafts people more than artists. Crafts are important, and can be just as uplifting as art, but what separates them is that the crafts rely upon consistency, whereas art has the freedom to be more whimsical. When I realized that to be good at what I do, I needed to be a craftsperson and not an artist, it allowed me to add structure and discipline to my approach. When I started a booth at a farmer’s market years ago, I had so many ideas about what to put on the menu. So I created boundaries. Now, I have six criteria that have to be met:

1. It has to be something I want to make
2. It has to be something customers want to purchase and eat
3. It has to be something I’m able to produce consistently and in a consistent manner
4. It has to be of high quality
5. It has to turn a profit
6. The ingredients should be procured locally (whenever possible)

The last item is especially near and dear to my heart. Working with local farmers is my raison d’etre. It fuels and motivates me. I LOVE Oregon. I’ve lived in multiple places -- New Orleans, Maine, New York, Washington DC, Maryland, and Colorado -- and I can say from experience that there’s no place like Oregon. The quality of the food grown here is mind-boggling. The love and the dedication that the farmers I’ve worked with have for the growing environment and the food is remarkable. When I started here in 1997, hardly anyone was growing things like arugula. The Chef’s Collaborative, and specifically Greg Higgins, brought farmers and chefs together in Portland and created this lovely, workable environment for chefs and farmers to be able to communicate their needs to each other. With his encouragement, chefs started to make commitments to farmers to purchase the whole lot of what the farmers would grow, so it’s not all on the farmer to take on the risk. Cathy Whims was instrumental in this as well. Those two are my heroes, foodwise, in this town. I was so moved by what I was learning from the farmers that I became more interested in the food itself than what I was going to do with it. I really wanted to support them as much as possible, but I didn’t have a restaurant. So I made a commitment to produce value-added product for farmers. For example, I make hot sauce from peppers from Gales Meadow Farm and give the sauce back to the farmer and she sells it at her booth. Customers sample the sauce on burritos at my booth and we send them to her booth, where they purchase the sauce, thereby supporting her efforts and her farm. This completes the circle. It’s my way of making a commitment to the farmers to support local farms.

In my first term kitchen, when we talk about vegetable cookery, I’ll often bring in a local example of a vegetable that was picked when it was ripe within the last day or two versus something that was shipped – it’s something I want them to understand. The carbon footprint is a lot smaller when you buy things locally, and the flavor value is way higher when it was picked while ripe. Plus, the nutritional value is greater. Being able to support the local economy ensures that we get local product. In the end, so much of what makes good food is about the quality of the ingredients, and knowing how to prepare them in a way that honors the food you are preparing. Add proper technique and skills and the intention to nourish the one you love, and you are guaranteed to make your friends, guests, or customers pleased and nourished.

Ice Ice...Maybe

by Christian Haldeman, 2nd Term Lead Chef Instructor

10” x 20” x 40” and 300 pounds. Although no one, to my knowledge, has written any songs about these dimensions, and fashion magazines have no interest in dressing them up to adorn their pages – to a certain group of people they couldn’t be more perfect. Those are the standard measurements of a single block of ice, and to an ice sculptor, they hold the inner beauty of their imaginations -- most of the time.

As many paths in my career, ice sculpting was not a planned path, or even something I dreamed of, but it happened. I can recall attending The St. Paul Winter Carnival as a child -- sitting curbside in sub-zero weather to watch a parade I did not understand. After the adults were certain the children had reached a pre-hypothermia state they would march us to the carnival’s center in one of the many snowed-in parks. I remember watching other kids playing hockey on one of the ice patches in the park and thinking how great it would be to be warm. Instead, I would wander behind my family and kick ice chunks at my sisters as they watched guys with chainsaws and chisels turn ice into shapes that got “oohs” and “ahhhs” from the crowd. I did not understand. And I was cold.

Only one year, in 1986, was the whole trip worth it -- for about three minutes. This was the only year, to my memory, that they actually built an ice palace; one that you could walk into. They had apparently done this before, before, decades earlier, and those had been simpler snow packed structures. So this was a big deal. I wanted to enter the palace. 9,000 blocks of back-lit ice, erected into a 128’ 9” x 90’ x 90’ castle, complete with rooms and ice furniture. Unfortunately, there was also a small patch of ice just inside the entrance that my sister would slip on, sending us all to the medic tent and home before I had my chance to actually see any of it. Once again, I did not understand. And I was cold.

Of course, I no longer live in Minnesota. I’ve acclimated to milder climates. I enjoy winter sports, but only those where motion is involved and warm refuge is an option. I still have yet to understand the purpose of a parade.

In early 2000, I was introduced to the ice block. I was helping a friend teach ice sculpting classes -- mostly gathering tools and making sure students didn’t cut through power cords, themselves, or each other. I would dabble in pieces every once in awhile and even created a few originals in my early years:

1. Angry Bird Defiling Pineapple (I believe the template was an elegant swan);
2. Crooked Oil Derrick (Eiffel Tower);
3. Totally Unintentional Phallic Golf Bag and Pull Cart (that was the design, minus the phallic part, I swear).

The early carvings were buffet pieces, but they got me to thinking about those childhood experiences and I realized that I enjoyed this mostly because I understood. And I was no longer cold. Around this time, this friend talked me into flying to Canada to compete in a team ice sculpting event. For some reason, I agreed. Perhaps the mild climates and lack of parades in my life had lowered my guard and weakened my faculties to make sound decisions, for I did not account for the weather in the Canadian Rockies in January, or the fact that we would be participating in The Winter Festival in Banff.

But I had committed, and I did not allow myself to back out. We designed a piece that would require 15 ice blocks. We found a third teammate. We practiced in cozy and spacious professional kitchens. We gathered our tools, booked our flights, and headed off to Calgary. After the gathering of luggage and a few mishaps in customs (for some reason, giant aluminum plates, chainsaws, die grinders, end mills, angle grinders, and propane nozzles tend to attract security personnel…), we boarded a bus for the mountains. We stayed at the Chateau Lake Louise, which features stunning views of the Rockies all around.

Chef Haldeman next to his team's ice sculpture from another year

The event was a 32-hour competition over the course of three days. Days One and Two would go from 8:00am to 10:00pm. Day Three would be from 8:00am to Noon of actual carving time. On Day One, we woke nervously before 6:00am, forced breakfast down by 6:30, and were set up by 7:00. We then endured an anxious hour, all by ourselves, of waiting. As the other carvers trickled in, I stood in our work station and watched them walk by. An old familiar feeling was creeping into my very being -- I was watching a parade. And I was getting cold.

The same scultpure lit up at night.

Day One wasn’t exactly a failure, as we were not sure what to expect from ourselves. We had designed a life-sized river raft, holding two rafters, going over rapids. I believe the height requirement that year was seven feet, which we just met. The rapids and raft dimensions were about 10’ x 5’. My job was to block out, fuse, build, and shape the rapids. Simple enough, I thought. I soon realized, however, that I was not very good at my job. Despite all of the practice, I had not planned properly. When the clock started, when the temperature dropped, when it mattered, I realized I would need to create an actual plan of action. After a solid half hour of wasted efforts, I had destroyed one whole block of ice. We were now in a 14 block completion and in the middle of some serious redesign. My mentor (and still, at least for the moment, friend) turned to me and asked: “Don’t you see the wave? Look into the block, visualize the wave, and remove everything else.” I didn’t say a word, but my expressions said it all: “I see ice. 10” x 20” x 40”, 300 pounds of ice. One big block of ice.” I also didn’t add: “I don’t understand. And I am cold.” Nevertheless, he sent me on an unscheduled break.

I went back to the room in hopes that I would be able to pull myself together. Then it dawned on me. He was an artist, a sculptor. I was a carver. I needed angles, templates, numbers -- that was how I learned. I drew out a few sketches, took them back to the site, we reviewed them, and off I went measuring, scratching templates, and tracing shapes on the ice. Although we were a little behind for Day One, the efforts to catch up really helped. We enjoyed the next two days -- I drew up the plans, my teammates saw the inner beauty of the ice, and we finished somewhere near the bottom of the final results.

In the seven subsequent trips, we would work our way as high as a third place finish. The third place finish was the only time there that I wasn’t cold, but at least on all of the other trips – I finally understood.

The Sugarbaker

by Robert Parks, Baking and Pastry Lead Instructor

I got into this industry, probably like a lot of people, by chance. I wanted some spending money at the age of 14 I got a job as pot washer in a restaurant. Six months later I was on the broiler cooking steaks. Through high school and college I could always get a job in a kitchen. I always enjoyed it because it is hands-on, and for me, that’s very rewarding. I wasn’t the greatest cook in the world, but I stuck at it. (I believe that the race is not won by the person who runs the fastest, but who runs the longest).

Somewhere along the line, in my mid 20s, I realized that this was something that I wanted to do as a profession. I knew that if I was going to succeed, I needed some education, some training. I spoke a little French at that point (not enough as I found out later) and studied up on numbers and measurements before enrolling at cooking school in Paris. That was the best in year my life. I was young, in Paris, becoming a chef. The school taught French cuisine. It was geared towards the European palate, but technique was such a part of the daily training that you could take the education and go anywhere with it. The course itself was about one-third pastry. Every day we made a dessert. We came out really prepared to work anywhere, and I accepted the job as the sous chef at a place in New Mexico called La Posada. They put me on desserts, too. I wanted to get back to the Bay Area, and a pastry chef position opened up at the Fairmont Hotel. To get the job, I walked in the back door and talked to the chef. Times were different back then -- you didn’t go through Human Resources, you just walked in through the door and talked to the chef. He hired me on the spot. The Fairmont is a high end hotel with great cuisine. We did a lot of banquets in the restaurant. It was enthralling, but hard work. I always felt I had an aptitude for the work. For me, it came pretty easy and I always enjoyed it. I worked my way up to be the head pastry chef in my ten years there.

“The Petit Four Incident.”

One day the new Executive Chef, a big, gruff, German guy (he wasn’t very well liked, I remember someone once threw a cocktail table off the roof onto his car), came in to the kitchen. He called out to see who knew how to make petit fours, but he was looking right at me. I’d only made them once in school, but I volunteered. He hit me with an order of over 5,000 petit fours a week -- 700 a night. I was floored. I didn’t know what to do. I realized the chef was trying to get me to squirm, to knuckle under. He was trying to get the better of me. He went on to tell me that he wanted to pipe the name of whoever was performing at the hotel every night on each petit four (Liza Minnelli, Tony Bennett, and Joel Gray were frequent performers at the Fairmont around this time). Again, I was floored. But he wasn’t done. After telling me this and seeing the deer in the headlights look on my face, he asked: “Don’t you want to know the next name of the next star?” I was just trying to come to terms with this project, but I cautiously answered, “Yes…” He responded: “Bernadette Peters.” Oh my God, a 10 letter first name! I had no idea if I could pull it off. It was overwhelming just to hear about it, but the kitchen helped me out, and I did pull it off, so it was a confidence builder. I was learning that if you challenge or push yourself, you’re going to achieve more.

I eventually moved on to the Pan Pacific Hotel, also in San Francisco. It was modern, nouvelle, upscale. It gave me the chance to be more creative with high end desserts. At the time, architectural desserts were en vogue. These were “highly manipulated” desserts, Eiffel towers or abstract pieces teetering on the plate. The crew at the Pan Pacific was young and cutting edge and we were able to make some pretty amazing desserts.

I enjoyed working in the industry, but I had always wanted to teach, and I thought I’d be good at it. The final step in learning, I believe, is to teach. So I took the job teaching at a culinary school in the Bay Area. I really enjoy teaching, and it has made me a better chef. I have a real empathy for the students and what they’ll need to navigate the challenges in this industry. It’s very rewarding for me. Teaching is not just about explaining food, it’s about explaining the profession and ushering people into the fraternity and sorority of chefs. Maybe it’s a legacy thing because you’re passing the baton on, to some extent. These are the people who will be running the industry.

I get asked what my favorite thing to bake or favorite pastry item to make is. The truth is that I like it all. That’s the rewarding part of this business. You don’t have to specialize. There’s no end to it. You can stay fresh in many areas. My style is pretty traditional. Sometimes I question where people are going with food – blending flavors that maybe shouldn’t be together, or putting garish colors in food. I’m all for pushing the envelope, just not for getting out of the envelope completely. Food can’t be just art – it’s something you eat. You have to be objective about some things. People have palates and they are going to taste it. You can fool some people some of the time, but innovation has to come at a slow pace; it has to be carefully undertaken. So many of our clients are meat and potatoes people, we have to give them what they want, but we can do it in a way they didn’t expect it. Sometimes the concepts outstretch the flavors.

To wrap up my story, I eventually made my way up to Portland for another teaching job. The culinary education industry has changed a lot, but this school is a throwback – it’s about food more than money. I’m so glad I found this niche working with people who care about food and the students.

When I think back on my career and what is taught in our kitchens today, I’m amazed at how much has stayed the same. The things I was making 40 years ago are still being made today. Through all my experience, the techniques don’t change. Styles, recipes, ingredients, and palates change, like fashion and clothes, but how you build and construct the food doesn’t. The basic laws and techniques will always be there.

Chef Cronwell's Excellent Adventure

by Chef Instructor Randall Cronwell

(Chef) Bikram (Vaidya) and I teach together in the first term of the culinary program. We have a connection, we found out, that goes a long ways back.

Let’s start with my humble beginnings. I am from Detroit Michigan, where there was nothing going on in terms of food when I was growing up. So I went to the Culinary Institute of America in New York. I ended up returning to Michigan and found a supper club type of restaurant in East Lansing to work in that was right up my alley. Around that time, a family friend I knew from living in Argentina as a kid (which is another story entirely) named Steve Vranian, called me up. He had moved to California around 1978. He said “Randall, get your butt out here, right now, I’m working for this guy Jeremiah Tower…there’s something about him. I swear, he’s going to be famous someday.” Now, nobody at this time was talking about chefs as celebrities – there was no Food Channel or food blogging, if you follow. But it sounded good to me, so I packed my bags and headed for the Golden State.

When I got to Berkeley, there was this intersection (Shattuck and University) with all these restaurants that was referred to as the “gourmet ghetto.” Alice Waters was running Chez Panisse, Mark Miller would open Santa Fe Bar and Grill, which Jeremiah Tower would later take over. These chefs were developing this concept of “American regional cuisine” using ingredients that were indigenous to where you lived and worked. Believe it or not, although this is all the rage now, at the time, this concept in America was revolutionary. I started with Jeremiah Tower at Santa Fe Bar and Grill, but moved with him to two other restaurants in a span of four years.

In late 1983 or early 1984, Jeremiah brought his crew, including me, into the city and we opened up Stars restaurant in the Opera District. It was a huge success from the moment we opened the doors. I thought I knew what busy was, but I was wrong. We’d do 250 cover at lunch at Stars, then turn around and do another 350 covers for dinner. This was every day. People were lined up out the door. You had to make a reservation weeks or months in advance. It was THE place to go.

Chef Cronwell at Stars doing prep work while writing menus, from  the book American Bistro.

This is the era of Wolfgang Puck, and the concept of “Celebrity Chefs” was starting catching on. Jeremiah wrote a book called “New American Classics,” which came to be the label for this culinary movement – the “New American Cuisine.” Magazines were coming in and writing stories and taking photos all the time. “The Great Chefs of the West” television series had started and he had been featured. And this movement wasn’t just a show. I’ve never been around people so passionate, intense, and dedicated about something in my life. Let me give you an example. The restaurant had a garden up in Napa Valley. We’d get up at three or four in the morning to go up there. We’d write the menus in the back seat of the car after picking whatever was ripe. We’d get to the kitchen and prep, still finishing the menus as we worked. After turning over whatever ungodly number of covers we’d do each day, we’d sit around after closing and talk about food.

Every day was like that, the focus and intensity was palpable. You could touch it. We were in the eye of the storm. That experience changed my whole way of thinking about food, cooking, and eating. We would seek out the best product that we could serve, and prepare everything very simply. It was all about the ingredients. I learned so much about how to simply prepare and serve food -- don’t mess with it, and you’re going to have a nice product and very happy customers. That was the most rewarding time in my life in cooking – it changed me fundamentally.

So – back to (Chef) Bikram. Jeremiah’s faithful Sous Chef all those years was a guy named Mark Franz. As Jeremiah’s empire grew and he moved into his phase of franchising his “California casual” concept, Mark Franz opened Farallon in San Francisco. He hired a young Nepalese cook in 1997 named Bikram Vaidya, and almost 15 years later, here Bikram and I are, teaching students how to cook. And when we figured out this connection, everything from that point on -- he understood where I came from and I understood for where he came from. The mutual respect was immediate. We learn from each other all the time now. He’s Yin and I’m Yang. The students think it’s funny as hell. When we introduce each other at the start, we always talk about the shared background. We don’t dismiss it as chance, there’s a reason this happened – I don’t care what you call it, karma or whatever. Those were formative years for both of us, and it changed my life, and I think it changed his too.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Bobby Atterberry: The Most Interesting Man in the World

Interview with Robert Atteberry, OCI Maintenance Man 

by Kevin Richards, Community Relations Director

Where are you from?

I’m originally from Great Bend, Kansas.  I left there when I was five years old.  I moved in with my grandparents in Los Angeles.

Then what?

I finished high school, got married, and worked in Los Angeles for several years.  We decided to move to Oregon to slow down.   We had three kids. 

What did you do when you got to Oregon?

I worked for Cal Roofing putting on aluminum siding.  I wanted to buy a house, but didn’t have the money.  One day I’m going down the highway and see someone taking the roof off of a house that had a ‘for sale’ sign on it.  Every day I’d drive by, and that house just sat there.  I finally talked to the owner.  He wanted the house off the property, so I bought it for $1 to make it tax deductible, and took the whole house apart.  I took everything back to the house I was renting, figuring that if I got my own lumber, and bought a piece of property, I’d build my own house.  Then I saw in the paper that an old Victorian apartment complex was being demolished.  I went by and got some flooring from the owner, who asked if I had any experience taking anything apart.  He asked if I could take apart a barn that was three stories high and 400 feet long.   He gave me a year to take it down -- it took me eight weeks.  I sold the lumber as fast as I was able to take it apart.  This was my training to become a demolition contractor for almost 20 years.  The biggest building I demolished was fourteen stories.  Most of my competitors were “crunchers,” crane and ball operators, but the interest rates at that time were so high that people started rethinking the idea of demolishing perfectly sound structures.  Instead, they moved towards gutting the buildings and putting in new interiors.  They’re still doing this today.  And that’s how I got so many jobs – I did it all by hand.  I understood how to take apart different systems in a delicate manner.  I learned a lot about being self-employed and hiring people and managing people.  I tried to keep the jobs coming so my employees would have work and money for their families.  It was a big confidence builder for me.  There’s no room for error in those jobs, there were life and death situations.  People falling was the biggest risk.  We’d have to take out stairs and elevators and there were all sorts of crazy situations when someone could get seriously hurt or even die. 

What is your job here?

Nothing in particular, a little bit of everything.   I see myself as a “Caretaker.”  I care about what I do.  I I try to be a “jack of all trades, a master of none.”  I like being pretty good at a lot of things, not just an expert at one thing.  I walk around and see if something needs my attention.  Stuff that needs cleaning, it shouts out “it’s my turn!”  I get sidetracked because I’ll see something that needs my attention and I’ll get involved with a new project, then have to remember what I was working on. 

How did you get the job?

I think, another strong belief of mine, over the years all these things I’ve gone through to save a little money for rent here and there, and my wrecking business, was like going to school.  I learned a lot.  All the things I’ve ever done have got me to this point.  (Chef) Wilke and (President) Eric (Stromquist) know I like to keep busy, and they knew me from the other place we worked together.  One day we came to get pizza across the street and I saw those guys and they told us about their new school.  A couple days later my boss said Wilke called and wanted me to come to OCI for an interview.  When I worked with those guys they were good to me.   I came over to talk to them and they offered me a job.  The application was really a formality; I just had to say “yes” or “no.”  I was grateful at the offer.  I took it as a compliment because they knew what kind of worker I am.  It was the first time in my life I didn’t have to go begging for a job (and that’s what we do when we put on a suit and write a fancy letter and get all gussied up).   I told them to give me a few days.  I was concerned about making the change at my age, and it’s a good practice to sleep on big decisions anyways.  But I agreed to come here. 

What is your favorite thing about working at OCI?

The people.  And that I don’t have to punch a time clock. Wilke lets me set my own hours.  It goes according to need.   And I like the variation of my job. 

What is your least favorite?

The hardest part is getting up early in the morning.  (Bobby arrives between 3:30 AM and 4 AM every morning).  But there’s no other way for me to do the job right unless I come in a couple hours before anyone else. 

What is the “Magic Closet”?

I don’t know!  (laughs)  I think Lori put that on there.  It’s kind of a conversation piece.   Our vendors come in and see it.  The nickname is something one of the chefs saw in a movie.  So for names, I’ve got “Robert,” “Bob,” “Bobby,” and now “Ricky Bobby.”

Do you get to know many students?

I’m a semi-outgoing person.  I like people.  But there’s so many of them, it seems like they’re just slipping through here.  But I get to know some of them a little bit.  Every now and then I throw them a story about how I notice the changes between their terms.  I see the confidence growing.  That’s not something you can put in your hand.  You see it on their faces.  There was one girl some time back who was having some kind of difficulty, and she really had to struggle to get a grip on things.  Everybody liked her because she was persistent, but it was mentally challenging for her.  I watched her each step of the way.  The teacher would go over it a few times, and you’d see her get it, that accomplishment of mastering whatever point it was she was learning.  I wasn’t quite sure she was going to make it, but she never gave up.  It was a delight to see that fighting spirit.  She never gave up. 

If you had to pick an OCI chef to cook your meals for the rest of your life, who would it be?

Probably Wilke. 

Who would you least want?

Bikram!  (laughing, as Chef Bikram walks up right behind him).  He makes the garbanzo beans curry(chole).  I love it.  He’s the only one that I always get food from. 

Final thoughts?

Whatever you are doing, you try to learn.  Life, to me, is a classroom.  I’ve developed an attitude of gratitude.  I’m pretty well informed about a lot of the worldly things, world events, and I see what we have over here and what other people don’t have, and a lot of people don’t take a look in this country about how lucky we are.  That’s why I don’t have this need to get rich or have a big mansion or car -- we all strive for those things at one time, but for me it’s the simple things that are the most precious – friends, family, good people to work with.  Do the best you can with what you’ve got at the time. 

What is your favorite food?

A nice salad.

Really?

Your whole being is a combination of a lot of things, your being, awareness, I read this book by a guy who was 103 years old, he started eating raw food at age 60, and he looked like he hadn’t aged at all.  He had a sparkle in his eye.  He said we should eat things that go forward, because we go forward. 

What do you mean by “go forward”?

If you throw a piece of meat away, it decays, but a piece of fruit has a seed and it will grow a new plant….

But I also eat potato chips sometimes! (laughs)

Baby I Was Born to Cook

by Melanie Hammericksen, Chef Instructor in Culinary Arts and Baking and Pastry

I started cooking in the first grade with my Mom.  I’d make Jello for dinner, or anything that involved a mix, like muffins.  I could handle these on my own.  Before long, I was pulling out her cookbooks and going through them on the couch, looking for recipes I wanted to make.  I was promoted quickly by Mom to help her with dinners because I have seven siblings (Mom is Catholic and Dad is Mormon – go figure).   On the weekends, my brothers and sisters would wake me up with their breakfast orders.  There was a stable of recipes hanging from the inside of the cupboard that I’d make over and over again, things like cinnamon roles and pancakes.

   

By the time I was in fourth grade, my Mom started paying me an allowance to make dinner five days a week (she hated to cook).  We’d meet on Sunday to talk about it and plan it out.  I’d make tacos, casseroles, mac and cheese, or I’d find recipes in the “Made in Oregon” or Betty Crocker cookbook.  One day I’d be cooking, the next I’d be baking -- it was never one or the other for me.  Through junior high and the start of high school, as my siblings got jobs, all I wanted to do was get a job cooking.  Mom called a local catering company and pretended to be me.  She got me the job, and I worked there for two years, cooking and baking.  I was only 15 when I started, but trust me --I screwed a lot of things up.  In fact, on my last day on the job, I did a barbeque event for 300 people.  The owner was out of town that day, and her recipes looked like chicken scratches.  I had trouble reading the baked bean recipe.  It said something about adding four cups of corn starch.   I made the mistake of adding the corn starch when the beans were hot, and immediately the whole batch turned solid.  I ruined a lot of pots and pots that day, and the owner took it out of my paycheck.  I quit that day.  I was 16 at the time.

 

My next job was at a natural foods restaurant in downtown Medford.  I was in charge of making salads when I started, but I slowly moved up.  After seven years there, I was managing the restaurant and running my own catering business on the side. 

I was 23 years old, and people kept telling me that if I wanted to be taken seriously, the next step for me was to go to culinary school.  I moved up to Portland and did just that.  My plans were to move home and open up own catering business after school, but I got a job waiting tables full time at the Multnomah Athletic Club and then got an externship at Oba doing prep and pantry, which lead to a job offer.  Even though I had attended a culinary program, I got to know the pastry chef, who made me her assistant.  I learned a lot from her and when she left, they made me the pastry chef there, which I did for three years.  There were days that I felt like I had no clue what I was doing.  I had to create a new menu with six new items each month.  I found myself going to other restaurants to see what other pastry chefs were doing.   One time I went to Roux, where Chef Josh Blythe introduced himself to me while I was eating the coconut shortbread grilled pineapple sorbet.  Little did he know I was planning on “borrowing” his dish for inspiration, but little did either of us know that we’d end up working together at OCI.

A co-worker of mine was an alumnus of the same school I went to and he told me about OCI.  I stopped by later that week to say hello to Executive Chef Brian Wilke and we talked about the program.  He asked if I’d be interested in teaching.  I hadn’t thought about it, but after doing so I told him I would be.  It was August, and he said it wouldn’t be until closer to Halloween that the position opened up.   One day in early October I had a really bad day at work.  I was on my way home, driving and crying, and Chef Wilke called and said they needed someone sooner than they thought and asked if I could come down the following day to interview.   So the next day I was put through a bunch of drills, like flipping eggs and a knife skills test (I found out later I was the only one they made do that).  I swear I only made it through because Chef Ramona White talked to me the entire time and that helped me to stay calm.   Then they took me into one of the classrooms and I was grilled by a panel of the OCI chefs. 

Chef Brophy:   “What’s your favorite cooking method?”

Me, nervous:   “Uh, pan fry.”

Brophy:  “Why?”

Me:  “Crispy and crunchy on the outside, moist and delicious on the inside.”

Brophy:  “Sounds flaky to me.”

 

I’m pretty sure to this day that they were just messing with me.  But even when I had Brophy in school, he did nothing but pick on me.  He gave me a ‘B’ but was never able to tell me why I didn’t deserve an ‘A.’  When I got the call from Chef Wilke with the job offer, it was the best day of my life.  When they told me that I’d be working with Chef Brophy, it also became the worst day of my life.  Although, he has since told me that he’s changed it to an ‘A’.

 

I never was able to fully commit to just cooking or baking, and now I teach in both the culinary and baking programs at OCI.  I am still learning new stuff every day.  I work with the most amazing chefs and people I could ever dream of.