Battman & The Banana Boys
January 8, 2022
Gerard Van Staden
April 3, 2022
When I was a kid I wanted to be an Artist or Architect
How do you deal with the stress?
Meditate, Meditate, Meditate – it’s the only thing I’ve ever found that works.
Your current and/or most recent restaurants
Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Center, Omni Hotels
When and where were you born?
1960, Medford Mass.
What was your first job in food?
Dishwasher at the Big Wheel Restaurant, Hammon Inn, when I was 15
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Artist, Architect
What is your favorite thing about being a chef?
Connecting with my associates and fellow chefs –
Did you have an “aha” moment when you knew you wanted to be a chef?
It was a gradual climb up the career ladder.
Best advice you ever got?
You’re the leader you are seeking.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?
Uni
Your favorite ingredient.
Citrus of all types
The ingredient that turns you off the most.
Blackening Spice – primary becuase so few know how to use it.
Your favorite tool.
Hasp and a Dalstrom 12″ Chef KNife
What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not cooking.
Make Cheese, Hot Sauce, Podcast and riding my road bike.
What would you like to do before you get too old to do it.
Write another book.
Tell us a deep dark secret (doesn’t have to be food related).
I was addicted to doctor-prescribed opioids after my second back surgery for 5 years.
How do you deal with the stress?
Meditate, Meditate, Meditate – it’s the only thing I’ve ever found that works.
How did becoming a chef change your life, your direction.
It led me all over the world and gave me critical skills that are valued outside of the industry.
Who would you like to meet?
In Person or Virtually
Who would you like to cook for?
My peers
What was the hardest thing for you to learn? Or is there something you just can’t get right?
Leading a diverse team of millenials – it requires me forgetting everything I was ever taught about how to lead a team.
Is there some little something you do for your family to make up for the time you’re not with them?
Letters, poems, flowers, cooking for them
Please give us a cooking tip that people might not know like “adding a little bit of oil to butter so it doesn’t burn.
Reduce your use of High PUFA Oils in all applications – they cause massive inflammation in the body.
Tell us a funny story from the kitchen
I once visited a chef friend at his new restaurant in Denver with my cousin and her mother. Halfway through dinner, I saw a bus pull up in front of the restaurant and about 40 people come into the restaurant. A couple of minutes later, a server came to our table with a kitchen apron and said to me, ‘Sir, the Chef requires your presence in the kitchen’ and he told me to get on the wheel and expedite them through the push – which I did even though the saute cook thought that it was madness. ‘What the hell is he gonna do? He doesn’t even know the menu Chef!” she said. He turned to her, looked her straight in the eye and said in a level voice, “He knows how I cook.”
And he was right, my timing was impeccable and the line worked beautifully. The after-party at his house became legendary that night and the saute cook even gave me some props!
