thekitchenman Since 1980

 

Since a very young age I became fascinated with food and cooking it beside my dad. Cooking food became my passion and my life! That’s me at three years old getting my first set of kitchen whites from my dad Chef Conrad 1952 Today I find after 40 years cooking in the hospitality industry, I’m still learning and enjoying the new exciting experiences with a gusto.

As a youngster I would assemble picnic lunches for my friends to eat while camping or fishing. Beside the home pantry back then, the famous Galt Ontario Iroquois Hotel kitchen where my dad was chef from the 1940’s 1975. By age six I was peeling bushels of apples, potatoes and salad vegetables and had earned a station position pouring sauces or dishing up food for banquets. I polished tons of flatware and hundreds of glasses, folded napkins and counted out plate settings. I also did hotel shifts as a bell hop, ran the coat check and did errands for guests when the banquet rooms and suites were operating at full capacity. I spent most of my early childhood learning to cook in the Iroquois hotel kitchens beside my dad and this where it all started for me. My mother and her sisters were all fine cooks. So many handed down family recipes I would later master. Here at the Scarborough Board of Trade. I served as Executive Sous chef along side Executive chef Eric Oberfuchshuber.

Here I am cooking brunch omelets at The Famous Knotty Pine Restaurant in Preston Ontario.

 

In 1979 I was the Chef that led a team of students to prepare the Worlds Largest Omelet containing 12,440 eggs and succeeded for the Guinness Book of Records.

I had lots of fun cooking with the many famous celebrities over the years.Burt Reynolds gave me a great push to carry on and I sure did. From Dennis Hopper, Ann Margret  Alan Alda an others.

 

I did lots of Remote Location on site cooking with 45 foot Mobile Kitchen capable of feeding 125 meals three times a day for three days.

Here with Canadian Iconic Star Al Waxman and my trusty right hand man Ian Cox.

White Rock  1999 I opened Degelman’s Purveyour of Fine Food. The first Deli in town that served artisan organics and all natural non medicated protein. I became know as the sausage pot pie guy!Over the last 40 years while I was cooking in different provinces, states or cities and I found so many versions of novel continental recipes that were untrue to the original. The original versions change as the ingredients were modified to suit the chef at hand. This made me take a hard and serious approach to try to understand the complexities of the food ingredients that I was preparing  which needed to be 100% correct with details and information when training staff and branding recipes for manuals.

 

For many of my years as a chef I was involved in bringing new restaurant projects on line for corporate franchisers across Canada.

 

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 branded franchised business Like Turtle Jacks, Movie Ola’s or a new destination Panorama Resort in Invermere BC.

I was involved in creating exciting new main line convenience food products and commercial baking along with concept packaging for restaurant franchises and food manufacturers.

 

Even after many years most of my branded menu items are still being manufactured surviving thirty plus years using the original concept recipe and being still up to date in today’s market.

As I gained the practical experience I was offered more positions that put me into new cutting edge projects.

Getting my training here at Planet Hollywood in Seattle with the  Corporate Chef taking on the opening position for the new 5 million dollar Vancouver Planet Hollywood Chef.

I would write initial concept recipes and develop the menus to the theme and taste the owner/operators were trying to achieve.

Many long hours were spent with the inception owners, designers, builders and the cooking staff.

The old saying you are what you eat made a lot of sense to me and growing up with a chef for a father and eating mostly home made everything made me realise that the foods that you personally produce are best for your health and longevity.

Over the decades I realised how much of our home cooking heritage was being lost to manufactured foods from the grocery store and to processed fast food and restaurants. Many children grow up not knowing a thing about cooking their own food or where it came from.              I was creating recipes and submitting them for analysis to the Canadian Government health programs by 1990. The recipe items that I produce have the nutrition facts available to state ingredient contents. After being trained on how to prepare the different nationalized dishes in this healthy manner and how to accurately create and display them immediately became my mission to pass my experience on to you.

To me that’s the fun part about in being a chef.

Here at thekitchenman.ca web site we will explore the proper procedures for preparing food using smart ingredients that will help promote a healthy diet.

Topics about canning and preserves during the growing seasons.

In my daily ramblings I will talk about food grown by local farmers and about the farms and suppliers that I have recently visited.

Chef Barry Taylor at Naru; Barbados

I will be having one on one discussions with many chefs and food artisans which will be posted as they occur.

Some of the forums will be complex but will excel your cooking ability and help promote good eating habits.

thekitchenman recipe instructions are compiled to aid healthy eating for all ages.

Over the years I have compiled an extensive library of tested recipes for the home cook or for the commercial chef in large volume cookery.

My original recipes are from the source including baby food to senior cuisine and lots in between. I am still learning new ways and techniques as my love for cooking evolves. As I recipe test them, I will be demonstrating at food festivals or recipe instruction forums to share with you.

So let’s pick out entrée item from thekitchenman files and go put on an apron and get cooking.

Wayne Conrad Serbu

thekitchenman

How the handle thekitchenman came about;

In 1980 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.

Here is the lyrics to the Song ♫ ♫ ♪ ♪

Madam buff’s was quite deluxe

Servants by the score

Footmen at each door

Butlers and maids galore

But one day sam her kitchen man

Gave in his notice he’s through

She cried “oh sam don’t go

It’ll grieve me if you do”

I love his cabbage gravy his hash

Crazy ’bout his succotash

I can’t do without my kitchen man

Wild about his turnip top

Like the way he warms my chop

I can’t do without my kitchen man

Anybody else can leave

And i would only laugh

But he means too much to me

And you ain’t heard the half

Oh his jelly roll is so nice and hot

Never fails to touch the spot

I can’t do without my kitchen man

His frankfurters are oh so sweet

How I like his sausage meat

I can’t do without my kitchen man

Oh how that boy can open clam

No one else is can touch my ham

I can’t do without my kitchen man

When I eat his doughnuts

All I leave is the hole

Any time he wants to

Why he can use my sugar bowl

Oh his baloney’s really worth a try

Never fails to satisfy

I can’t do without my kitchen man!

Thanks Kuumba!

Wayne Conrad Serbu

Now known as thekitchenman since 1984.