Soup to Nuts

I lead two professional lives. I’m a chef, author, educator and clean eating advocate, but I also run a sales team for The Accurate Group of Companies, a company my uncle started 45 years ago. Yep, that’s right. On top of everything you see, my food, classes, pop-up restaurants etc., I also help run a company. And you know what? I bring as strong a passion to selling nuts, bolts, injection molded parts, furniture components and screws, as I do to creating clean, delicious food.

15 years ago, I never would have thought that could be possible.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

If you’ve read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, then you’ve had a glimpse into the underbelly of the culinary world. If you’ve never worked in the business or have yet to read Bourdain’s book (you should!) then let me be the first to tell you, the restaurant industry is one of the worst in the world. There’s no glamour, the money sucks, and having a healthy personal relationship is next to impossible.

It’s also a world that operates on it’s own time zone. One that’s vastly different from the rest of society. When my friends went out for an evening on the town, I was just beginning my dinner service. Having Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath dinner) with my family on Friday nights was always out of the question; Fridays are one of the busiest evenings in the restaurant biz.  Holidays were busy times too. Mother’s day, Father’s day, St Patrick’s Day, and Christmas. The list goes on and on. In short, when the world was on vacation, the kitchen was always working.  Period.

In the early 2000’s, Tamar and I moved to Colorado Springs so I could become Executive Chef of The Cliff House, a gorgeous boutique hotel located at the foothills of Pikes Peak. I had a beautiful flower and edible herb garden, exceptional local produce, and foragers would bring their daily pickings from the mountain to the kitchen. It was the perfect job and a chef’s paradise.

When I was brought to The Cliff House, I was given one mandate; get the hotel a AAA 4-Diamand accreditation. That became my mission, and one year later, The Cliff House received the coveted accreditation and was chosen to be the host hotel for the AAA awards. Around that time, I was also nominated for a James Beard Award, which is as prestigious in the culinary world as wining an OSCAR in the film world. It was a tremendous honor. I was flown to New York City to cook at the famous James Beard House and it’s a moment I will never forget.

When I returned to Colorado, I was called into the General Manager’s office where my world began to unravel. I was told they could no longer afford to pay me and I had two options. Accept a 50% pay cut or leave. I thought about it, did my homework, and discovered there was no legal recourse. Things just plain sucked. It wasn’t the first time the culinary world proved to be so heartless. But for me, it would be the very last.

My dad, the comedian

There are moments in life that you never forget. I’ve had quite a few, including the time my father called me from his office at Accurate Fasteners to ask, “so, are you done screwing around yet?” It was clear that after selling screws for decades, he’d worked some of that material into his poor sense of humour. But more importantly, his statement was a wake-up call.

I began to ask myself some serious questions. What did I want from my life? Was sending your sous chef to ski with your wife because you’re too busy to be with her, worth it? Would having kids mean I’d never have time to attend a school assembly? My parents would never have missed one of my assemblies. Ever. I doubt they missed Adam’s, Ryan’s or Jennifer’s either. How would I possibly manage a life, a family and the world of a chef? I just couldn’t see it.

It was time for a change. It was time to create a normal life, for both me and Tamar. So we decided to move back to Toronto, where I hung up my chef whites for good.

Heading into the family business, my father made me promise one thing for my success, to put in the same effort at Accurate, that I had put into cooking. I did. From day one, it was sink or swim. Thankfully, I was taught to swim well at a very young age.

Fast forward

In the 15 years since ‘retiring’ from the culinary world, I have learned a new business and worked closely with family and friends. Today, my father, mother, uncle and aunt are all retired and my cousin Shawn has taken over the family reigns. With Shawn’s tremendous leadership and an exceptional cast of characters, we run an amazing family business.  I couldn’t be prouder of the fact, that I work for my family.

The culinary world instilled a tremendous work ethic in me. I have always said that there’s definitely people in this world that are smarter than me, but there are very few whom I believe, can out work me. Whether I have ten pans going on the stove or I’m juggling ten customers, I don’t get overwhelmed. When you’ve worked in a successful restaurant on any given Saturday night, you come to know the true definition of being overwhelmed – or as I used to refer to it, being ‘in the weeds’. These days, I rarely find myself in that place.

I love what I do for Accurate. I love the relationships I’ve built both in and out of the office. I also love the flexibility that working in the family business has given me. It’s allowed me to write this blog, author cookbooks, teach classes and pursue all of my culinary aspirations.

I guess you could say, my life really is ‘soup to nuts’.