( intro music )
 Barton: The guiding hand of
 natural selection in our world
 is quite firmly
 holding a fork.
 How we eat largely describes
 how this world is used.
 Food nourishes a lot more
 than just our bodies.
 It creates community
 and brings us together
 and it certainly nourishes
 our soul and brings us health.
 Not only does food describe
 to a great extent,
 the biology of our existence
 here but through food
 we are able to write the
 biography of our existence.
( applause )
Barton Seaver: So, the first
thing we want to start off with
is just basic stories of
sort of restaurant madness.
Now restaurants are
a difficult business.
Each and every single
one of us in this industry
have experienced our
fair share of ridiculousness.
What sort of stories would you
like to share with us?
Jamie Leeds: Well, actually I,
when I first opened
Hank's Oyster Bar in Dupont,
you know,
I wanted to open a restaurant
that was small enough
where I could do
pretty much everything myself.
 In our first couple of weeks
 being open,
 we were very busy
 and my manager quit,
 and two of my shuckers
 didn't show up for work
 on Saturday night.
I have to cook the line,
I have to expedite,
I'm going to have to
seat people, and I am going
to have to shuck.
And I am thinking
'what was I thinking?'
( laughter )
So, fortunately, a guy named
Tony walked in the door,
looking for a job. Not only
was he looking for a job
he could start that night
( laughter )
and he was a shucker!
( laughter continues )
So, It was like
a dream come true.
So, you know, from
one extreme to the next,
and that's how the restaurant
business is for me.
Michael Curtin: I think what
Jamie is saying
is in that business,
and I think you have to be,
those of you out there
that are in it,
know that you have to be
a little crazy
to get in in the first place.
Right? And you work
really hard to be lucky.
Like Jamie felt
she was that night
but she had worked
really hard.
But I think that is something
that we all share.
When I had worked for a
dozen years to get to a point
where I was going to open up
my own restaurant
and I thought this was
the culmination of my career
and this was, it was going to be
easy from here on out. Right?
I refer to my four plus
years now
owning and operating
my own restaurant
as my first experience in the
non-profit sector. ( laughter )
Before I got to the kitchen
but, the thing that,
the recurring thought
that I had everyday
when I woke up was
'whose job am I
going to do today?
Am I going to be waiting tables?
am I going to be tending bar?
am I going to be cooking?'
But the beauty of it was,
it was all about that
creating that community
and that service.
And so whatever job you are
doing had meaning and importance
and, it brought something else
to other people
and I think
that's a common theme
that we'll probably talk
about a lot tonight.
But certainly,
we use through food,
in the power of community
that it creates.
Rock Harper: I remember at
B. Smith's one year,
busiest weekend of the year
is Mother's Day weekend
with Mother's Day
on Sunday, of course
and all the graduations.
My pastry chef,
her daughter,
her children worked there,
her husband
was the food runner,
her daughter-in-law was,
it was like seven of them
that... were in my kitchen,
out of 27 people.
So, that's a
significant amount.
Saturday morning,
busiest weekend of my life,
that year,
they weren't there.
I found out that it was
because their visas had expired
and what we did, I spent
a quite a bit of money
and time at Costco that
morning and that weekend.
And, I got to tell you, they got
some great chocolate cake
and some nice rolls.
( laughter )
I am telling you!
It was a southern restaurant
and so rolls, corn bread,
huge for us
and, I, you know,
people didn't miss a beat!
I mean all those people,
they had no idea.
We got compliments and
we kept Costco
until we replaced the sous chef
but I mean, you know.
We did, and I got to be honest
with you, Costco doesn't,
we'll talk about
preservatives and sustainability
and GMOs, but...
They do an excellent
corn bread!
Everything,
they do a great corn bread!
I don't know what's in it.
( laughter )
Sorry, Barton, sorry.
I know that doesn't
fit in with your
whole shtick, but...
I am sorry.
I had to do what I had to do.
- It takes all kinds.
- Five minutes in and
we are already off the rails.
That really proved something
to me and my cooks at work,
the people that really
hung in there with me.
It was, you know,
I slept there that night
and I opened up the next.
All three nights,
I slept in my office.
My wife was not happy.
But I did it,
and I was proud of myself.
I am still. I love that...
I love it because
I know I can do it. And if
another pastry chef decides
she wants to
you know, her visa expires,
I can do it again.
And I had one time
when I was running Hook,
we were really known
for serving
a huge diversity of seafood.
We had a lot of
different fishermen
that we just dealt with.
And, if you catch it,
we'll buy it, you know.
That's great. We had more
Audubon guides
in my kitchen than we had
cookbooks because every day
I had to figure out just
what the hell it
was that I was serving.
And, one day
we had 600 reservations
on the books, Thursday night,
I mean, we were busy.
I was already stressed out,
the fish didn't come.
So finally the box
shows up
and I call up my fish purveyor
and I was like, 'Michael,
what exactly did
you send me?'
My language was of course
perfectly gentlemanly,
proper and prim.
And he said,
"Well, you know,
we had a bad day of fishing
but, you know, I didn't want to
leave you in the lurch, so,
we just sent you
all the left over bait.
I hope you can do
something with it".
- Jamie: Oh my God!
- ( laughter )
Oh my...
Pulled all my cooks off
the line and hey!
You know, flying fish!
Why not, we can, we can work
with this, you know,
filleting fish is already
an art form!
Why not throw a winged bone
structure to it.
No problem!
You know what
I told my servers?
I told them the absolute truth.
I took that flying fish,
filleted it up,
little bit of tarragon,
lemon zest, olive oil,
rolled it up like rollmops,
rosemary skewered it,
two little things smoldered it
over an orchard wood fire,
250 smoky, sexy,
seductive degrees,
put it over Vidalia onion
and juniper broth
into which was
braised zucchini
and summer squash, laid it
there with a little bit of
herb salad on top of it.
I hope you all have had
dinner already.
We sold out of flying fish
that night by seven o'clock.
And to this day
I still have people asking me
'Hey, when are you getting
more flying fish?'
I can't even get the fishermen
to send it to us but
the next topic
that I sort of want to get on,
because we are in the
midst of celebrity here,
is the rise of the
celebrity food culture.
And this has radically altered
the shape and nature
of our industry and
I want to point out first off
that Rock has really been one
early adopters of this
who has really been able to
take advantage of it.
But also then to talk about how
this has changed our industry.
What it has done is given us
a larger voice,
so we have heroes
that can work at Harvard.
I mean
that's pretty freaking cool.
And talk about food and
how it impacts the globe
and how we can sort of
take this thing back
and really have some
huge impact.
And 15 years ago,
you tell someone that you
made something with cilantro,
they were amazed.
Now it's just like, listen,
I got an immersion circulator
in my basement, buddy.
When you come out
to the table
you better talk about to me
some real food.
People are more educated,
they are informed,
they are empowered.
So, that's the one thing
I appreciate
and I am
extremely grateful for,
about the television aspect is
that it has given us a voice.
And now what we do
with that voice
once we get on the stage
is totally up to us.
Michael: What's fascinating
for us at the kitchen, is,
 I think,
 it's very fair to say that
 the kitchen was really built
 on the back of
 hospitality industry,
 restaurants,
 in particular chefs.
 That's really how
 the whole thing started
 and if it wasn't for the
 incredible support of that
 community and the belief
 in what we were trying to
 create at that time,
 we would not be where
 we are now.
 And what's been incredibly
 rewarding for us
 is to see these chefs,
 as their celebrity has grown
 so too has their commitment
 to the community
to really create good,
to create change
in the community in a way
that I think benefits us all.
Barton: My interview process,
you know, I'd ask
potential cooks
to cook something.
Right? That's a pretty
reasonable expectation.
I was getting kids cooking
deconstructed beef stew with
sous vide beef with
carrot foam and
celery gelée and onions,
a spectre of onions!
Jamie: Real food.
I was like 'What?
What is this? Wait.
Do you know
how to construct beef stew?'
Not that there is not value
in that food
but it's sort of all based
on foundation
and I found that,
that could be a detriment
and sort of that willingness
to step over
some of the such
fundamental processes of
building beef stew
before you learn
how to deconstruct it.
Along those same lines,
chefs in the limelight
really have the opportunity
to create
incredible influence.
And I think the ultimate food
hero, Alice Waters.
 40 years ago, Alice Waters
 began to ask
 a simple question,
"what is the food
that we are eating,
and what is it
doing to us?
What is it doing
to our community?"
And I think that's a question
that has certainly influenced
each and every person
on this stage
and I would love to ask
each of you to speak to
how she has influenced us
and how you in your own way have
sort of carried on that work.
So, what I do is,
I work very closely
with my oyster farmers.
We sell, we go through
thousands and thousands
of oysters a week
and I offer six different
kinds of oysters every night.
We change them every night.
So, I have a lot of
different oyster farmers,
there are
a lot of local farmers,
small farmers that farm
just specifically for me.
So, for me, she has
influenced me in that way
where I am really looking
at the local product
and trying to maintain
a sustainable
product and the fish, we try
to always use local fish
as much as we can.
Abide by the Monterey Bay
seafood Aquarium
guidelines for
sustainable fish,
which I think is
very important.
At one point in my career
it was just like, listen,
people want steak,
they want steak,
they want beef,
they want chicken,
they don't care
where it's coming from.
I don't want to hear that.
Then, I am like,
'whoa, Monsanto is nuts.'
I am not serving any of that
and I have done a lot of stuff
with the, Pew Charitable Trust,
antibiotic free and organic
and so I teetered.
And now, right now,
where I am now,
I was speaking about
buying organic.
I was in a greater
Southeast Hospital
and speaking to people that
you know, food stamps
are being cut
and talking about health week,
I was promoting my book,
and talking about
healthy cooking for kids.
They bought a
bunch of my books
and I went to, because
I was out of butternut squash,
I went to the 'yes organic'
or one of the organic,
right on Pennsylvania Avenue,
east of the river
and butternut squash was
like $8 for four ounces.
And I went back to this demo
and I'm just like,
'you know what,
you know, ok, we got to relax
for a moment here.'
Local, local, local,
it's great, awesome,
but we can have strawberries,
California strawberries
because of advances in
transportation and
refrigeration.
and things of that nature
and it's not a horrible thing.
I know it can you know,
carbon foot print,
I get all of that jazz.
But we have made
probably scientists are like
hey, you know,
we changed the world.
So I'm sort of, we have to
do it responsibly.
And I know I'm, you know,
you're probably like,
Barton's over there like,
'I am going to beat this guy up
when we get back to the
green room ( laughter )
But I think that, I am saying,
you know,
I feel like we got to feed
a bunch of people.
and Americans, or people
in general need to eat,
like to eat at the kitchen.
Being the director of the
kitchen operations for
a little bit am I going to say,
you know,
'no thank you' to
5000 pounds of ground beef
from a beef grower in Texas
that had an overrun?
No. Because we got
5000 people to feed.
I wish I could serve organic
beef and chicken all the time
but you all aren't paying
$42 for a chicken sandwich
at my restaurant.
So, I think Rock is right
that it it's all about balance.
We started a couple of
years ago a program
where we're putting local,
alright not local
but fresh fruits and
vegetables,
whole vegetables,
value-added cut products
into corner stores
in the city's food deserts.
We are servicing
64 corner stores
now mostly in wards seven
and eight east of the river.
And sales are increasing
every month in these stores,
where people thought
that would not happen.
You know, people would say,
'those people won't buy
fresh fruits and vegetables'.
Well, if they are not
on the shelves,
they will be right
100 percent of the time.
No one will buy that
no one will buy
what's not there.
And I was so excited
to tell Alice about this
when I saw her last January.
I just thought
she would be thrilled
that this was happening.
And without missing a beat
she turns around and says,
'And now we have to
make it all organic.'
You are killing me!
It's that, that is
It's an admirable goal to be,
to go towards but a lot of
what we're buying locally
isn't organic.
And we certainly want to create
opportunities not only here
in the urban community
but extend
that to the rural communities
that we are supporting
through this local
purchasing program.
So, again I think its balance
and really figuring out
your impact
in the community.
When I was just starting off
I was, you know,
passionate young man,
I loved food,
I was travelling
all over the world and
you know, just loved food.
I mean, it was fun.
And then I was presented
the opportunity to take--
go run Café Saint-Ex
over on 14th street.
So, I got on the phone,
'send me striped bass,
send me blue fish,
I want oysters,
I want blue crab, woo-hoo!
This is going to be fabulous and
the guy on the other line said,
'Kid,
what are you talking about?
We ate all those.
What else do you want?'
I realized right then and
there the guiding hand
of natural selection in
our world
is quite firmly
holding a fork.
And the way that we eat
largely describes
how this world is used.
And so I set off in my career
to really think about
how I as a chef,
as an individual
buying one case of
organic chicken,
buying one fish that
was new and different
and interesting, that
flying fish whatever it was,
how we could have an impact
on our community.
How I could have an impact
directly on the oceans.
But also just in terms of
revitalization
of neighborhoods.
We are not just talking about
the environments
that sustains us,
but also the neighborhoods
in which we live.
The neighborhoods
that sustain us.
You know this really is
almost the redemption
of neighborhoods.
I am sure there's issues
with gentrification
and other political issues
as well but
there's really
a huge opportunity here
and that's what
I want to close on.
When I was First Chef
at Café Saint-Ex,
a man named Robert Egger
walked into my restaurant,
introduced himself.
And he said,
'Hey! We are neighbors.
And wanted to meet you.'
He was the founder of
DC Central Kitchen.
In the course of 20 minutes
he convinced me
that a chef is more than
just the sum of the ingredients
that he or she puts
on the table.
That a chef can be more,
the chef can be part
of a community.
A chef can be uplifting,
revitalizing
and can bring opportunity
to those people
everywhere around us,
not just those we serve.
And that's what got me
introduced
to DC Central Kitchen.
 I've went as far as taking
 everything from my family.
 I've held people up
 at gun point.
 But you know,
 I had decided in my life that
I didn't want to live like that
 anymore. I was just tired.
44 years old, I had been
doing drugs for 32 years,
I smoked crack for 23.
I've had two heart attacks.
 I just decided that, you know,
 enough was enough.
In other words this is like
a second chance for me
to get my life back
and I will do so.
 First day of every class,
 you look out at the men and
 women who are coming in.
 And they can look
 as hard as nails.
 You know,
 but it's just a mask,
 they're terrified of
 what's ahead.
Hey, welcome everybody
this is going to be the
21st anniversary
of the kitchen this week.
 So much of what we do
 in America in charity is about
 the redemption of the giver
 not the liberation
 of the receiver.
 We wanted to turn it around
 so that everybody
got liberated.
And that's what the kitchen
is about every day.
 Everybody who comes in here
 gets served.
 Everybody!
( music )
Woman: This is the
 first time in my life
 that I actually came and
 done something with myself.
 I am a changed person.
 And this little bit of time,
( sobbing )
my family they love me.
But they welcome me now!
 And all blessings are coming
 to me that I cannot believe:
 People,
 places, things for me,
 for me.
Barton: So with that I would
like Michael to talk about
what DC Central Kitchen is
and some of the opportunities
it presents.
Well, thank you Barton,
again for allowing the kitchen
to be part of this.
I think we are
so incredibly blessed
again to be part of this
community.
We are serving close to
12,000 meals a day,
in this city.
But we could be serving
30, 40, 50, 60,
70 thousand meals a day.
And people will still be
hungry tomorrow.
What the kitchen is about
and what we are using food
as a catalyst for
is to create opportunity.
To put people in a place
to break this incredibly
destructive generational cycle
of violence, addiction,
incarceration,
hunger, homelessness,
and ultimately poverty.
And we just started our 98th
culinary job training class.
Since the recession hit
in 2008,
we've graduated over
600 men and women,
formally unemployed and homeless
who are now employed
in the city's restaurants,
hotels, catering operations,
institutional food systems.
You go to the museum downtown,
you are going to see
one of our graduates.
We have graduates
working at the NIH,
in law firms around town,
in schools.
 Now, they are part
 of this community
 in a very powerful
 and economic way.
 Many of these men and women
 that you saw in that video
cost this city millions and
millions of dollars
in incarceration costs,
halfway house visits stays,
shelter stays and what
we are trying to show is that
with just a small investment,
not charity,
investment in this community
using food as that tool
we can create
economic opportunity
and economic growth
and inclusion,
inclusion for a vast majority
of the men and women
that want to be part
of this community.
It costs $44,000 a year
to incarcerate someone in DC.
It costs $12,000
to train them once.
At which point they
become contributing
members of the tax-base.
They will take themselves out
of the welfare net of the city
and actually begin
to contribute to it.
For a $12,000 investment,
you get all of that, in return.
And that's the redemption story
but there's also the opportunity
to prevent that and that's what
Central Kitchen has really
moved on to and that's
what this video is about here.
Good morning. Welcome to
Shenandoah Valley
produce auction.
Good morning gentlemen,
how's everybody?
 Good!
 I never thought
 in my wildest dreams
 that I'd be doing
 what I am doing right now.
Transformation from destroying
lives to helping lives.
 In 2007, I was on the streets,
 selling drugs.
 Two of my friends had just got
 killed and I escaped death.
 So I wanted
 another chance at life.
I seeked help with
DC Central Kitchen.
 I graduated from their
 Culinary Art program.
 I'm here now at
 a school called
 Washington Jesuit Academy.
 I am the sous-chef,
making beautiful meals
for kids.
This is something that
I always wanted to do,
work with kids.
( auctioneer speaking )
The auction this year has
roughly 450 registered growers
 and on the buyer side
 we're probably
 up in the eight hundreds.
 DC Central Kitchen is
 very important
to the auction here because
 they are one of our
 largest purchasers.
 I believe in what
 we do because
 it's just providing
 a good product,
 that's healthful and fresh,
it's not harvested
too far ahead of time
 We feel very grateful that
 DC Central Kitchen
 wants to be a part
 of the produce auction
 and buy the fresh
 local produce from us.
 If we can change
 somebody's life in the city,
 we are pleased
 to be a part of that.
 Look at what we do.
 We feed kids
 healthy meals everyday.
 3500 DC public school kids.
 Some of these kids, man,
 when they go home,
they're not getting meals.
 At least they know
 when they come to school
 they're going to
 receive a good meal.
Food here is always healthy
and is always good.
 I always have a salad,
 vegetables.
I always have something
like calcium, protein.
How do you feel about it,
Cameron?
I feel great.
I love the fruit,
because every time we get
a fruit with every meal.
Mmm, I love my apple!
I like to have a good meal
before I go to class,
so I can be on task, I can be
ready to start my day.
How do you like
the vegetables and the fruit?
the collard greens are a little
spicy and the pear's good.
Their food is good, right?
My, man.
What's going on, Slim?
DC Central Kitchen
has changed my life
and in the process I am
changing these kids' lives.
( chatter )
My name is Howard Thomas
and I am a graduate of
DC Central Kitchen.
My name is Dennis Showalter
and I am the manager here
at the auction.
But only a small part
of the picture.
 DC Central Kitchen is...
Is the bomb!
It is though. DC Central
Kitchen is the bomb.
In restaurants,
food preparation is...
it's an honorable pursuit.
It's a pursuit...
It's a human pursuit.
Not only does food
describe to a great extent
the biology of our
existence here but
through food
we are able to write
the biography
of our existence,
here as individuals and
as a community.
It's an honor to serve you
in restaurants.
It's an honor to create
community through restaurants.
And especially
it's been an honor to share
an evening with you
here tonight.
So thank you all very much.
Appreciate it.
( applause )
( outro music )
