Every day Great Chefs searches the web for news about our celebrity chefs, here’s an article we hope you’ll enjoy.

Renowned Chicago restaurateur and southwestern cuisine master, Rick Bayless, made it through the initial competition and was set to compete in “Top Chef Masters” finals as I attended BlogHer. I enjoyed watching Bayless compet

Source: http://www.midwestguest.com/2009/11/top-chef-master-rick-bayless-cooks-with-confidence-in-chicago.html

Every day Great Chefs searches the web for news about our celebrity chefs, here’s an article we hope you’ll enjoy.

Modern Southwestern cuisine is a fusion of several influences, so when chef-owner Vincent Guerithault of Vincent on Camelback restaurant in Phoenix imagines a harmonious McCain-Palin menu, he envisions rack of lamb with spicy

Source: http://www.zdnetyou.com/?p=483

Every day Great Chefs searches the web for news about our celebrity chefs, here’s an article we hope you’ll enjoy.

Make your reservations now for the Modern Thanksgiving and Holiday Entertaining Cooking Classes taught by Chef Stephan Pyles, a pioneer of New American Cuisine and legendary founding father of Southwestern Cuisine. …

Source: http://sidedish.dmagazine.com/2009/10/21/stephan-pyles-announces-holiday-cooking-classes-in-dallas/

Every day Great Chefs searches the web for news about our celebrity chefs, here’s an article we hope you’ll enjoy.

Make your reservations now for the Modern Thanksgiving and Holiday Entertaining Cooking Classes taught by Chef Stephan Pyles, a pioneer of New American Cuisine and legendary founding father of Southwestern Cuisine. …

Source: http://sidedish.dmagazine.com/2009/10/21/stephan-pyles-announces-holiday-cooking-classes-in-dallas/

Every day Great Chefs searches the web for news about our celebrity chefs, here’s an article we hope you’ll enjoy.

For years American has relied on Southwestern cuisine chef Stephan Pyles and his Dallas colleague Dean Fearing to plan its in-flight menus. More recently, United began working with Charlie Trotter to devise healthy meals wit

Source: http://tealite.buddyslim.com/2009/10/12/the-lowdown-on-airline-food/

Every day Great Chefs searches the web for news about our celebrity chefs, here’s an article we hope you’ll enjoy.

Modern Southwestern cuisine is a fusion of several influences, so when chef-owner Vincent Guerithault of Vincent on Camelback restaurant in Phoenix imagines a harmonious McCain-Palin menu, he envisions rack of lamb with spicy

Source: http://www.zdnetyou.com/?p=483

Every day Great Chefs searches the web for news about our celebrity chefs, here’s an article we hope you’ll enjoy.

For years American has relied on Southwestern cuisine chef Stephan Pyles and his Dallas colleague Dean Fearing to plan its in-flight menus. More recently, United began working with Charlie Trotter to devise healthy meals wit

Source: http://www.traveljab.com/?p=317

Robert Del Grande
Cafe Annie
Houston TX
http://www.cafe-annie.com

No one can accuse Robert Del Grande of not knowing what goes on in the pan or on the plate. After all, he picked up a B.S. in chemistry and biology in 1976 and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry five years later. Yet he is best known nationally as the chef-owner of Cafe Annie in Houston. It was the epicenter when Southwestern cuisine shook up the American dining scene.

Considering that he counts Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell as two of his primary influences, it should come as no surprise that Del Grande is both scientific and philosophical about what he does.

“Each dish on the plate should be a manifestation of one single thought,” he explains. “It all fits exactly like a puzzle — and a tight, singular thought squeezes errors out. The main item, the technique, the vegetable, and the sauce equal the whole. So the more complicated you make the sauce, the simpler you make the vegetable.”

Del Grande is a native of California, and he points to a dinner at Michael’s in Santa Monica in 1980 as another major inspiration for his cooking. The excitement of that dinner began to turn Del Grande’s mind toward a career in food. In the summer of 1981 he went to Houston to visit his future wife Mimi. He had worked in restaurants a bit while getting his Ph.D., but nothing had prepared him for the epiphany he would experience at Cafe Annie. It was a French bistro at the time, and Mimi’s sister and brother-in-law were general partners. And they needed a cook. Del Grande’s plans included starting post-doctoral work in the fall, but the summer flirtation with Cafe Annie took hold. After a year, he was executive chef, slowly evolving the menu toward new American cuisine, with an emphasis on the Southwest. Del Grande approached cooking as a scientist goes at science, reading about and mastering his subject, then pushing out the boundaries on his own.

Del Grande has been quite satisfied with his career choice. As far as he’s concerned, you can create much more exciting things in the kitchen than in the chemistry lab. Others agree that at least Del Grande can: he has won the James Beard Award, an Ivy Award from Restaurants and Institutions, is in the Fine Dining Hall of Fame from Nation’s Restaurant News, has a DiRoNA designation, is in Cook’s Magazine’s Who’s Who of Cooking, on the Honor Roll of American Chefs from Food and Wine Magazine, and has been featured on three Great Chefs series.
 

Mark Haugen
Bar Ablene/Tejas/Franklin St. Bakery, Cuisine Concepts, Minneapolis MN
taped at Teja, Minneapolis
http://www.barabilene.com

When Tejas opened its doors in 1987, Mark Haugen was in the spotlight. As executive chef, he was responsible for introducing the first authentic Southwestern cuisine to the upper Midwest. It — and Haugen — made a big splash. Cited by Esquire as one of 1988’s 10 most exciting new restaurants and featured in Cosmopolitan, Cook’s Magazine, U.S. Restaurant News, and Food & Wine, Tejas has consistently won raves.

Haugen’s distinctive cooking style spans the world. He traces his early interest in cooking to his grandmother’s kitchen, where he would help her prepare old world dishes from her native Greece. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in geography, working at several restaurants during that time. He joined the staff of 510 Restaurant, then in 1984 was promoted to chef and general manager. He brought a creative background in classical French cuisine, and applied this to Southwestern styles and ingredients at Tejas. He enjoyed using smoked foods and making creative salsas and relishes.

Haugen’s expertise and reputation have led to many opportunities. In 1990, he was a key member of the team that prepared the state dinner at the Governor’s Mansion in St. Paul to honor special guest Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1993 he worked with nine other top chefs to revamp the menus for Northwest Airlines. He was featured in the “Taste of the NFL” in 1993 in Los Angeles and in 1994 in Atlanta. In addition to frequent local television appearances, he has taught cooking classes at Key Largo’s Ocean Reef Club and worked with the Mondavi Vineyards cooking series. Haugen is also active in community organizations, including Twelve Baskets, Taste of the Nation, and Meals on Wheels benefits in Los Angeles and New York City.

And more opportunity: With partners John Dayton, Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, and Wayne Kostroski, Haugen now is part of Cuisine Concepts, operating Tejas in Edina plus Bar Abilene and the Franklin Street Bakery in Minneapolis in addition to their consulting business.
 

Kathy Ruiz
Landry’s Seafood Restaurants, Houston TX
taped at Bistro Garden, Houston
http://www.landrysrestaurants.com

Kathy Ruiz was a hometown girl sharing the new Southwestern cuisine in her restaurant when taped for Great Chefs of the West in the late 1980´s. Her Houston restaurant, Bistro Garden, was at the front edge of the growing wave of chefs and suppliers working closely together — ‚“I have local fishermen, and a commune of aging hippies to grow my herbs, and I let the suppliers dictate to me. If Bob, my fisherman, shows up with a shark a few hours out of the water, that´s what I´ll create for dinner,‚” she said at the time, an approach now nearly standard for all fine chefs.

Ruiz grew up with traditional foods that she has incorporated as basics in her restaurant. She recalls her grandmother making tortillas, and the Mexican maids in her house rolling tamales. ‚“I loved the food at home, and when I went away to New York for college — afraid of the horror stories about those Yankees — I couldn´t wait to come home for vacations and eat pinto beans for dinner,‚” she says. At Bistro Garden, the tamales are likely to be filled with venison or duck, and the pinto beans appear in Corn Pasta Ravioli with Pinto Bean Sauce.

Ruiz graduated from Manhattanville College with a degree in biology. Her father is an eye surgeon in Houston, and her initial decision was to follow him into medicine. ‚“I really wasn´t that dedicated, and my real interest at the time was scuba diving. I still feel guilty when I cook fish,‚” she said.

After a year´s flirtation with science, Ruiz followed her love of cooking back to the kitchen. She had worked in a few kitchens in New York before returning to Houston, and took a job at Hilltop Herb Farm as chef. ‚“I had to teach myself the ropes, and I knew I´d found what I wanted to do.‚” Her next stop was Cafe Luxeford, the dining room of a newly opened hotel next to the Astrodome. She changed the menu daily and began developing her connections with suppliers, policies she continued at Bistro Garden.

For chefs, growing in their profession often means progressing through working in a series of fine restaurants with outstanding chefs as mentors, then opening their own place. And then‚Ķ. Some expand their restaurant base to include catering, prepared foods, and other ‚“sidelines.‚” For Kathy it has meant moving into the world of corporate cuisine. She is now corporate executive chef for Landry´s Seafood Restaurant.