thekitchenman.

Since a very young age I was fascinated with food and cooking it beside my dad. Learning became my passion and my life! Here is an image of me at three years old in my first set of kitchen whites from my dad Chef Conrad in 1952. Today I find after 50 years of cooking in the hospitality industry that I’m still keen on learning and enjoying the new exciting experiences with a gusto. These days I still keep my cooking skills honed by working along side other chefs and publishing my many recipe columns in the Cambridgetoday.ca Taste of the past for all to enjoy. As a youngster I was taught to forage. My first shore lunch was Garlic and Ramp Frog Legs.

The Galt Ontario Iroquois Hotel kitchen where my dad was the head chef from the 1940’s 1975. I started my cooking career. In 1968 I landed my first kitchen job as a breakfast cook at the Banff Springs Hotel and carried on my apprenticeship being lunch cook at the Hotel Vancouver in 1976. I had lots of fun experiences honing my skills cooking with the many famous celebrity chefs over the years. I found I needed much more theory to forge ahead and went back to school at Conestoga college enrolled in the Hospitality Course with Peter Basin as my instructor. Right out of college in 1979 I took on the executive chef position at Panorama Resort in Invermere BC.

I wrote initial concept recipes and developed the program menus to the theme and tastes the owner/operators were trying to achieve. Many long hours spent with the inception owners, designers, builders and the cooking staff during the many projects I was involved with and for me that’s the fun part about in being a chef. Later on in my cooking I did lots of Remote Location for Michelson’s Food Services for the movie industry cooking with 45 foot Mobile Kitchen capable of feeding 125 meals three times a day on set. Here with Canadian Iconic Star Al Waxman and my trusty right-hand Ian Cox.

In 1996 I relocated back in Vancouver as an executive Chef with Planet Hollywood and later 1999 in White Rock BC opened my first business named after my sweetie “Degelman’s Purveyor of Fine Food”. The first Delicatessen in town that served artisan organics, all natural non medicated protein and consumables. During that time I was involved with several new restaurant projects coming on line for corporate franchisers across Canada both as a working chef and consultant. I performed Executive and Corporate Chef duties on many premiere projects that started from the original conception and went on to be a multi-site restaurant locations. As I gained the practical experience, I was offered more chef positions that put me into new cutting-edge projects. I developed initial concept recipes and the program menus for the theme and tastes the owner/operators were trying to achieve. Many long hours spent with the inception owners, designers, builders and the cooking staff during the many projects I was involved with and for me that’s the fun part about in being a chef.

Here at thekitchenman.ca site we can explore the proper procedures for preparing food using smart ingredients that will help promote a healthy diet. Topics about foraging canning and preserving during the growing seasons. In my daily ramblings, talk about food grown by the local farmers and about the farms and suppliers that I have recently visited here in Oxford county. Meetings with new talented chefs that I will be having one on one discussions that I meet on my travels. My original recipes are from the source including pit roasting, shore lunches, back woods foraging, baby food too senior cuisine and lots in between. I am still learning the new ways and techniques as my passion for food evolves.

How the handle thekitchenman came about; In 1984 I was Chef at the famous Village Gate for a touring turn of the century musical Called One “MO” Time. The Lead singer Sylvia ‘Kuumba’ Willams sang this song to me each performance as the patrons of the musical were dinning on my Jambalaya which was first sang by Bessie Smith. She would call me to the stage and sing out the tune thekitchenman which has stuck as my working chef name since.