Cheftimony Episode 003 – Caffeinated
Cheftimony Episode 003 started with an early-morning coffee meeting at Bosa Foods in East Vancouver where I met with Surrey, BC-based lawyer Andrea Rasmussen. Andrea is a partner at Wilson Rasmussen LLP and focuses on helping her clients - including restaurants - achieve their business goals.
I met Andrea through a mutual friend, and our talk at Bosa Foods was the first time I’d met her. Andrea is one of those people you just feel better for talking to, and it was a delight to hear about her work both in law and in the culinary field. Andrea grew up not too, too far from where I did in the small Northwestern Ontario town of Kenora. It was in Kenora that Andrea first worked in the culinary field herself, at a local restaurant in a Best Western motel.
From Kenora, Andrea traveled west to study law at the University of British Columbia, and she continued to work in the culinary field upon her arrival in Vancouver. Andrea reflected on her time as a bartender at the famous pasta and jazz bar Rossini’s in Kitsilano, sadly closed now, and she talked about the joys of tasting wine in a structured way through her coursework with the International Sommelier Guild. Like me, Andrea sees parallels between cooking and law, and she commented on just how important the people we work with are - we simply spend most of our lives with our colleagues.
But Andrea recognises the importance of a life outside the office, or the kitchen, too. She took some time away from legal work to travel and live abroad with her husband, making long-term stops in Turkey, Greece and Italy. I loved Andrea’s reminiscences about her time in the small Italian town of Campodimele, between Rome and Naples. Andrea’s connection with the locals through food in that small town led to a restaurant experience (including dancing in the fields!) that she describes as the best day in her life.
Andrea loves the social nature of food, from classic dinner parties to enjoying the diverse cuisines available in restaurants in Surrey, BC. One spot in particular that Andrea points to is in South Surrey, Tap Restaurant, a great place for both food and wine. Thanks very much to Andrea for taking the time to meet with me and to share her thoughts, experiences and passion for food on Cheftimony.
After my talk with Andrea, I took myself to Vancouver’s Platform 7 Coffee for some more coffee and to do some editing work, and later the same day I met my good friend Jacob Deacon-Evans at Nemesis Coffee for yet more coffee and another interview. I met Jacob years ago at Vancouver’s Bishop’s Restaurant where I first started out as a stagiaire and where Jacob worked as a cook and later as Sous Chef. Although he’s younger than me by a fair few years, Jacob has been a mentor of mine for the better part of a decade, patiently teaching and giving freely of his time when I come to him for help with charity dinners. Beyond cooking, I have learned history from Jacob too. More than any other chef I know, Jacob has a passion for the history of his industry. He is the first and only chef to have brought a book to work to lend to me, because he thought I might like to read about a 19th-century chef he finds fascinating, Alexis Soyer. Jacob was right. I thoroughly enjoyed the biography he’d lent me, and I’m now a fan of Chef Soyer myself.
Jacob began his own career in the industry at the age of 15 as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Naramata in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. Later, Jacob worked at a series of restaurants in both Vancouver and in London, England, and he talked about years of very long hours in the kitchen. For Jacob, the long hours were welcome, but he sees changes in the industry aimed at giving cooks a better quality of life as a good thing.
In Vancouver, Jacob points to Cioppino’s and West as great learning environments for him, and in London, he developed his skills at the Ambassador Restaurant and later at L’Autre Pied, sister restaurant to London’s iconic Pied à Terre. Jacob also thought back fondly to his time at Bishop’s, working under Chef Andrea Carlson, a position he found incredibly rewarding, not least because it was “confusing in a good way.” Prior to Bishop’s, Jacob had done classical French cooking and then classical Italian cooking. At Bishop’s, he found a very creative chef with menus that reflected not a specific cooking style, but the best of local products. Jacob credits his time at Bishop’s with cementing for him the path he wanted to take with his own food. Jacob loves to tell stories through his food, and at Bishop’s he found that stories improved when you make sure that every layer in a dish is the best it can be and that every person involved - from farmer to forager to chef - is engaged in a meaningful way.
Today in his own kitchen at Nemesis, Jacob continues to tell stories, and he does it by interpreting seasonal ingredients through café culture. Jacob loves cafes – roadside Vietnamese cafes, fancy Parisian cafes, greasy spoon English cafes, American diners and North African cafes with really strong coffee and really sweet sweets. Take a look at the Nemesis menu and you’ll see influences from North Africa, Italy and Scandinavia. You’ll also see the influence of Jacob’s three year-old daughter Frances in the item Nut Butter, described as “Frankie’s blend of hazelnuts, cashews & almonds.”
At Nemesis, the food complements the coffee, and vice versa. One simple but profound thing I learned in my talk with Jacob is that coffee, just like every other product farmers grow, is seasonal! It’s plain and obvious that it would be so, but I had honestly never thought of it before. A consequence of living in a society with too much abundance, perhaps. In any case, at the time of my interview with Jacob in April, Nemesis had just finished buying its coffee beans from African producers, who were at the end of their season, and the café was starting to import beans from South America.
At the end of our interview, I asked Jacob to recommend a book for Cheftimony readers. He picked The Third Plate by Chef Dan Barber of New York’s Blue Hill farm and restaurants. I found the choice very interesting. Jacob, a voracious reader and serious student of culinary history, recommended a book by the chef behind Row 7 Seeds, a company Chef Andrea Carlson had mentioned on Cheftimony Episode 001. I haven’t read The Third Plate yet, but it’s now definitely on my list. Jacob, thanks as always for accommodating my requests, for the laughs, coffee and shakshuka, and for sharing your thoughts on food and history on Cheftimony.
To the interviews now. Please join me and my guests at Bosa Foods and Nemesis Coffee, for Cheftimony Episode 003.