Food & Drink

Grilling Iron Chef, Chew Star Michael Symon

By Seattle Mag October 29, 2013

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!–paging_filter–pAffable celebrity chef Michael Symon is the special guest at this year’s a href=”http://www.stmartin.edu/Gala/“St. Martin’snbsp;/aspana href=”http://www.stmartin.edu/Gala/“University Gala/a on Saturday, an annual event that raises scholarship funds for students with a live cooking demo and both live and silent auctions. This will be the eighth year of the gala, and the third with a celebrity chef as the focus, with St. Martin’s alum Armandino Batali acting as the driving force behind that initiative. a href=”http://www.stmartin.edu/Gala/gallery2012.aspx“Last year’s record-breaking event/a featured Food Network superstar Guy Fieri.nbsp;/span/p
pemspannbsp;/span/emspanemSeattle /emMagazine recently interviewed Symon via email:nbsp;/span/p
pspanstrongemSeattle /emMagazine:/strong Thanks for coming out for the St. Martin’s benefit! How often do you do charity events? How’d this mission get accomplished?/span/p
pstrongMichael Symon:/strong I do between five and 10 charity events a year and this one was simple. Mario Batali asked me if it was possible. I told him absolutely. Plus, I love his dad./p
pnbsp;/p
pstrongSM:/strong You’ve got a gift for connecting with people. How do you make everyone happy when you’re at a big event?/p
pstrongMS:/strong The good news is most people are there to support a great cause, which always puts even the crankiest people in a good mood. LOL. I just feel you want to make sure the event has a good amount of energy and let everyone know how grateful you are that they are there and being supportive./p
pnbsp;/p
pstrongSM:/strong How much cooking will you be doing? Or is it more about the menu planning and supervising?/p
pstrongMS:/strong I will be demonstrating most of the dishes served during dinner.nbsp; This event required a lot of menu planning and supervising, the fortunate thing is my whole culinary team will be there to assist me during the event./p
pnbsp;/p
pstrongSM:/strong What was your very first kitchen job?/p
pstrongMS: /strongI was a prep cook and then moved to rib cook at Geppetto’s, a pizza/rib restaurant, when I was 14 years old./p
pnbsp;/p
pstrongSM:/strong When was the last time you worked the line at one of your restaurants?/p
pstrongMS:/strong Two weeks ago at Roast in Detroit. I hop on the line as much as I can./p
pnbsp;/p
pstrongSM/strong: What’s your favorite low-brow place to eat in NYC?/p
pstrongMS:/strong I think low-brow has become the new high-brow, so it is getting hard to tell the difference, but I am currently loving Ippudo and Mission Chinese in NYC./p
pnbsp;/p
pstrongSM:/strong Did Mario Batali give you advice about where to eat in Seattle?/p
pstrongMS:/strong He said EAT AT SALUMI!!/p
pnbsp;/p
pstrongSM:/strong What’s next up for you? A new book? Restaurant? Another TV show? br /strongbr /MS:/strong Not sure, I take it one day at a time, but I am pretty sure one of all of those things will happen within the year./p
pTickets for the gala are $400 apiece, though most guests buy tables, and only a limited number of individual tickets are available. To purchase, call 360.486.8885./p

 

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