Interview with Mark Bazer
>> Wednesday, March 16, 2011
I recently sat down with Mark Bazer, a Chicago-based syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services, on the Interview Show at the Hideout in Chicago. It was a lot of fun.
Some random, out-of-context excerpts from the clip:
MB: What does 'graceful, intelligent ingredients' mean to you? Does that mean it's got to be local? Does that mean it has to be sustainable? Or is it something different?
CD: It's special. We spend a lot of time sourcing out ingredients from small farms surrounding the Chicago area and the surrounding states of Illinois. So it's special for us to obtain some of those really fine ingredients that, I mean, we spend a little bit more money on it, but the end result is a higher cuisine.
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MB: I believe that if you were cooking me a meal using canned vegetables and canned beans from Jewel, it would still taste great.
CD: Sure.
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MB: Is it true that you could go around this city -- you could go out to the Department of Fleet Management and find a meal for yourself?
CD: I don't know if I'd be searching there. But, yes, you certainly could. You probably have stuff in your front that you don't even know about that's probably on the menu. Not that I've picked it, but it's certainly there. Purslanes -- it's a weed. It grows all over the city. Oxalis, the same thing. It grows all over the city. You guys walk on it everyday. You don't know what it is. But as a chef you're aware of it.
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MB: Can you picture in your mind before you make something -- before you put two ingredients together -- what it might taste like?
CD: Yes.
MB: Really?
CD: We can, because we reach what we call as a chef a 'mind's palate.'
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CD: And the teacher would see me light up and get very excited about cooking. And we would just boil pasta and just make tomato sauce, and I was just very excited and happy about that. And she suggested maybe, have you ever thought about being a chef. We're going into that field of hospitality. And I'm like, "I'm thirteen. No way."
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MB: Did you stop to breathe during your 20s?
CD: You know, at the time when I realized that I had potential to becoming a great chef, I immediately put my blinders on. And 100% focus went towards what I wanted to do and what I believed it, and didn't let anything deviate me from my path, because it was very important to go where I wanted to go and get what I wanted to get. So I had to my blinders on and really focused on solely food and finding the path to where I wanted to be and that path being working towards being the best chef in the country.
MB: I should have taken that approach when I was in my 20s.
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CD: Touch the vegetables. Touch the fruits. Have your hands on everything. Learn how to cook.
MB: You wash your hands before.
CD: Of course. Of course.
MB: The meal was very good. A little earthy, but ...
CD: It's the terroir.
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