Toqueland

Bocuse d’Or USA 2010: Private School

Jeremie Tomczak Is Learning Plenty Every Day
[Between now and the Bocuse d’Or USA finals this Saturday, February 6, Toqueland will profile as many of the finalists as possible. For profiles of the other candidates, click here.]

There Is No Finish Line: Jeremie Tomczak
(photo courtesy Jeremie Tomczak)

Jeremie Tomczak, Executive Chef, Event Operations, at the French Culinary Institute, first began thinking about applying for the Bocuse d’Or USA in the summer of 2008, when he witnessed his colleague, FCI instructor Rogers Powell, training for the US team selection event held at Epcot Center in Orlando that year.

“It was pretty cool that he was so dedicated to it, and putting in this time,” recalls Tomczak. “You can see the contestants learning.  When you put that level of commitment in, you probably get more out of it in one day that you normally would in a week.  That’s why I got into this field.  Because you never stop learning.  You never get bored.”

Tomczak, 33, grew up in Wisconsin and has always been around the restaurant business in some way or another.  He didn’t know he’d make it his career, or move to New York City, until he attended cooking school in Madison.  One of his instructors was from New York and had worked at Picholine.  The teacher arranged a trip for 15 students to Manhattan and it was a revelatory jaunt for young Tomczak.

"We just went to a whole bunch of restaurants—Picholine, Windows on the World,” he remembers today.  Of the dear, departed Windows, he says:  “I’ll never forget it, just being in up in that space, seeing the whole city.  It had a big impact on me as to where I had to go next.  Automatically, I said, ‘I’m moving to New York City.’”

After he finished school, Tomczak externed for Laurent Tourondel at his since shuttered jewel box, Cello, on the Upper East Side.  Tourondel offered him a job, but Tomczak couldn’t afford to stay in Manhattan just yet.  He returned home to Wisconsin and an old part-time job with UPS, while also working at Nadia’s restaurant in Madison.  Eventually, he socked away enough dough to move back to New York City in 2002, but didn’t have a game plan.  He showed up with a backpack and checked into a hostel, but couldn’t land a job.  As the last of his dollars was draining from his back account, he scored an interview with Aquavit’s Marcus Samuelsson.

"If I don’t get this job, I’m going to move back to Wisconsin,” he told the chef.

The Red Cat's Jimmy Bradley Cooks Dinner...In Your Home!

All You Need to Do is Place the Winning Bid

This Saturday night, my kids' shool, The Carroll School (aka PS58), will hold its annual auction.  Champion pal that he is, Jimmy Bradley--Chef/Owner of The Red Cat and The Harrison--has generously offered an irresitible item for the bidding festivities:  dinner for six, cooked by Jimmy himself, in the home of the winning bidder! 

If you know anything about Jimmy's food, then the thought of serving it in your home should be irresistible.  If you know anything about Jimmy himself, then the prospect of having him there to cook and crack jokes, should be doubly enticing.

The auction will be held at the school this Saturday night, February 6, and is closed to the general public. But through the wonders of the internet, the preliminary, silent auction is now underway, and open to the general public, and you can place a bid now.  (You can also place a "maximum bid" to be deployed if necessary at the live auction by proxy - see the Absentee Bidding link on the auction page.)

 
Bring a LIttle Red Cat Home... and support a humble blogger's school.

Yours truly will be acting as Jimmy's sous chef for the evening, and we'll be bringing along 3 signed copies of the book we coauthored a few years back, The Red Cat Cookbook, as souvenirs for each of three attending couples.  As if all that weren't enough, if the dinner goes for more than $900, wines will be paired with each course. 

The menu will be set according to the season in which the prize is claimed, but one thing's for sure -- it'll begin with everybody helping themselves to one of my favorite things on the planet, hunks of country bread dunked into the restaurant's justly famous Baked Fontina with Garlic, Rosemary, and Thyme:

 We're just getting warmed up!
 

So come on!  Get bidding on this item and treat yourself and some friends to an unforgettable, and unforgettably fun, evening.  Or get three couples together and bid as a group... you'll be glad you did!

- Andrew

PS  In the Fine Print Department, this prize may only be claimed in Brooklyn or Manhttan...

Bocuse d’Or USA 2010: The Long Road Back

John Rellah, Jr. Will Be Following His Own Vision This Weekend

[Between now and the Bocuse d'Or USA finals this Saturday, February 6, Toqueland will profile as many of the finalists as possible. For profiles of the other candidates, click here.]

 
Going Back to Basics:  John Rellah, Jr.

In September 2008, John Rellah, Jr. drove himself and his cooking equipment all the way down from the Tri-State area to Orlando, Florida, to compete in the Bocuse d’Or USA team selection event at Epcot. 

The drive down was fine—Rellah had cooked for some of the best chefs in the country, like Gray Kunz at Lespinasse, and had been an executive chef in his own right for years, and was full of optimism.  But after failing to win, place, or show, or even to nab one of the booby prizes like best meat or best fish in Orlando, his drive home was a long, solemn affair, and his thoughts were consumed with what had gone wrong.

The thing that nagged at him the most was the feeling he’d been given bad direction by some of the Bocuse d’Or USA advisors, who urged the finalists to “cook American.”  Personally, Rellah didn’t believe that was a solid foundation for success in Lyon, at least not based on his own research, and that it was a bad way to go in Orlando. “I don’t think [chef and Bocuse d’Or judge] Philippe Rochat wants to taste maple syrup,” he said at the time.  But he went with the suggested plan of attack, preparing an American themed menu, and as he autopsied his loss, he thought that had a lot to do with what went wrong.

On that same drive, he decided he wanted to try again, and that he would stick to his own instincts the next time and present what he thought would do well in Europe.  By the time he pulled up in the driveway of his home, where he lives with his wife and two young children, he already had ideas for what he wanted to cook in 2010, if he made the cut and was selected as a finalist again.

Bocuse d'Or USA 2010: Timing Is Everything

Twelve Years After His First Bocuse d’Or USA, Christopher Parsons is Back

[Between now and the Bocuse d'Or USA finals this Saturday, February 6, Toqueland will profile as many of the finalists as possible. For profiles of the other candidates, click here.]

  

Christopher Parsons in the Kitchen at Catch

(photo by Roger Galburt)

For a sense of how much the Bocuse d’Or USA has changed over the years, look no further than the case of Christopher Parsons, executive chef of Catch restaurant in Winchester, Massachusetts, who will be competing this weekend at the Bocuse d’Or USA finals at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York.

Parsons competed in the Bocuse d’Or USA once before, at the regional semifinals at the CIA in St. Helena, California, in 1998, when Parsons was in his late 20s.  Back then, the Bocuse d’Or USA was much less well-funded than it is today, and candidates had to finance their own travel to the contest.  Parsons, then working at Arizona 206 in midtown Manhattan, was short on funds, so his dad pitched in, buying the young cook a plane ticket with his frequent flyer miles.  His father also made a much larger contribution to the effort: although commis (assistants) must be no older than 22 in the international competition in Lyon, there was no age limitation for the USA event at the time.  So Parsons bought Dad a chef’s coat and deputized him.

“He’s a [surgeon],” remembers Parsons.  “So I had him do all the butchering.”

This time around, the choice of commis was anything but a last-second decision.  Parsons had always wanted to go back to the Bocuse d’Or USA, but his schedule didn’t align well with the biennial team trials.  Now that he has his own restaurant—with all the support that provides—and is still, by his self-evaluation, young enough (39) to cook fast, he thought perhaps the time was right.  The only impediment was identifying a wingman.