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ex, drugs, and rock & roll” excitedly exclaims the general manager of an infamous 5-star South Beach, Miami party hotel abundant with A list celebs and bikini models. Enthusias- tically he implores, “…this confer-
ence needs to showcase that we CAN be and ARE great at so much more than that…” One year prior, I was a guest at the very same
hotel for “trufflepalooza”; a fully decadent tasting dinner co-hosted by Andrew Carmellini, a James Beard Award winning Miami/NYC chef, and a very close friend of mine who owned the truffle company cosponsoring the event. After a phenomenal meal brought to completion by an ever so balanced umami laced black truffle par- mesan ice cream and a cappuccino graced with freshly grated white alba truffles, we retired to my friend’s loft in downtown Brickell. Have you ever seen $30K of fresh truffles in a glance? I did that night. In a not so large refrigerator lay very carefully packed containers of “product” adjacent to the “clean room” used for repackaging indi- vidual orders of these very delicate and costly fungi. This was a very different and interesting experience to say the least. Fast forward to the day this farm boy from
parts unknown of Hawaii was having a surreal moment filled with excitement, wonder, humili- ty and anxiety. I had just started as the resort’s executive sous chef, overseeing 6 different food outlets and banquets at a hotel which consistent- ly rated as one of the top 5 hotels in a city that is among the top tourist destinations in the world. Little did I know that wacky truffled evening, I would soon be back here helping to run the place. Preparing and conceptualizing for the aforemen- tioned conference (a national summit of event directors) we were instructed by a VP of the hotel group to be innovative…to exceed expectations! For me to do this, I needed to first ask some
questions. What are the expectations placed on chefs? What is in the core/the roots of what we are doing? It all has to start somewhere. Who are we? What’s in our “genes”? What’s guiding us? What fuels our passion? What’s going to make us better than great? To answer these questions, we need to first
ask about the freshness, quality, ethics, ecology and sustainability from where our food comes. How does the ever-changing perception of food affect our choices? How do our choices affect the perceptions of the communities which we serve, our health and local/global ecosystems? How do we make better choices for a better future? Over the years that I have evolved in, out and back in to being a chef I do often ask myself these
questions. It boils down to what does it mean to be a ‘chef’. It is a vast myriad of abilities and respon- sibilities to be sure and it certainly is not the “sex, drugs, and rock & roll”. For me, I find it incredibly humbling and exciting that as chefs we have the ability to educate, to connect communities, to affect perceptions and choices, and to actually initiate real significant change. It is more than an ability, it is an imperative responsibility. If we as chefs are neglecting this, we are not only NOT doing our jobs, but we are doing a disservice to society. This brings me to my current journey. 2020
was certainly a year that blessed us with hard- ships that afforded us the opportunity to rise to the occasion with openness, positivity and innovation. In such, I was able to start the Sunday Supper Club, using my educational background in cultural ecology to connect the often times behind the scene farmers and family owned food producers of SWFL to the broader community in a very personal way. While on this journey, I have met so many inter-
esting, passionate, brilliant and innovative people, many of whom started out in other careers, but through their love of their craft they became self- taught amateurs who reinvented themselves into new professions. Let’s meet a few of them!
23
Russell Hollander of Care2Grow Artisan Mushrooms
Russell is a truly “fun guy” whose entrance to the mesmerizing world of mycology began as a hobby. While in his “day job” he makes custom cabinetry, over the last year he has been setting up a pretty impressive small scale mushroom farm. Fungi, be- ing decomposers, presented themselves as an ide- al carbon neutral food to farm. They require very little energy to grow/harvest and sawdust from his wood working (typically a refuse) became a perfect repurposed resource as a growing medi- um for many of his mycelium (the “root mat” so to speak that produces the fruiting body which we know as a mushroom). Using a storage tote, some fans, and vent materials to create a scaled-up humidifier for one of his grow climates, Russell is still very concise in all the details. He uses a clean room to clone his various fungi strains in custom
ESSENTIAL Naples
WINTER 2021
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