CULINARY GOALS – Adriana Marquez de Avelar

My passion for food can be mixed with my passion for life. Explaining the key to happiness, the great English writer E. M. Forster said, “Only connect.” I would add to that “It’s even better when you connect over good food.” The meaning of eating a good food is as comfort as being involved in grandma arms.

My grandmother was the best cooker I have ever known. Self-taught in culinary operations, she provided magical moments with dishes prepared from the most basic ingredients – rice, beans, okra, collard greens, manioc flour, pork, beef, eggs, and bananas. That’s how she fed four sons and a daughter, for in those days serving a rich buffet with expensive food was out of the question. In any event, our family has always valued sitting down to wholesome, well-prepared meals.

I was only seven when I started to prepare dinner for my family. And some years later, when my mother left our home, I could offer my family that comfortable sensation, like my grandma taught me, to have a good meal as a reason to gathering together over a table, leaving the rest outside. Those moments were essential to us to cross over that sad part of our story.

In 2001, with 18 years old, I had to decide my profession and I knew I would only be happy if my career was related to food. I knew my family financial statement would not allow me to be pay for my studies, I should get into a public University and there was no public culinary course in Brazil. As my dad asked me to be a professional of a traditional career as engineering, I studied really hard and I entered the five-years Food Engineering undergraduate course at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Latin America’s most renowned education and research institution in that field. At Unicamp I acquired a strong engineering methodology and immersed myself in industrial food techniques and processes and also applied it into the practice as volunteer, teaching the University Cafeteria’s cookers the best practices in food services for one year during the course.

After college I became a consultant with Accenture, a fantastic company. However, the call of gastronomy was too strong. So, in 2010, I decided to be a cooker – the scariest and best decision of my life. I accepted three restaurant opportunities in the interior of Minas Gerais State, in the city of Uberlândia (population: 600 thousand). My most challenging job was taking care of the public gourmet space at a luxurious barbecue complex. There, catering to the city’s political and business elite I tested and developed my cooking skills: elaborated special-event menus, closed the deal with the clients, bought all ingredients, and commanded the kitchen during preparations. My greatest moment was a 40-person VIP dinner for Pelé, the world’s most famous soccer player.

Society needs rituals, and on weekends Uberlândia’s society goes grandma’s house for excellent food, well made, using natural products from the farm. So dinner at a fancy restaurant was only for seeing and being seen. How did I change that? The key was theater – part of the magic of wonderful food is, after all, presentation. So in that open kitchen space, I became a show-woman, cooking with no hesitations or mistakes, just a charming chef giving my delighted customers the full gastronomical experience, a memorable night based on generosity and love.

I have had good experience working in Brazil, and, to be honest, I know a lot – but not enough. I need a Cordon Bleu education because I need the techniques My plan is to grab what the Cordon Bleu has to offer, specifically innovative techniques and hospitality management and networking, and after graduating, gain a year or two worldwide experiences. Then, returning to Brazil, my work as a chef will be focused on rescue what is wonderful in our culinary culture and to show the Brazilian public that a passion for food is above all fun, that is, a great and thrilling adventure.

Brazil is repeating the same disastrous nutritional mistakes of the more developed countries. The crusade for great food is just starting. Since TV is so powerful, as many of our bad habits are learned behavior that we have picked up from television, let’s use it as a force for culinary good. Certainly, in the English-speaking world, many people were positively directed to a love of fine, nutritious food by growing up with Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet. My own particular TV role-model is Oprah Winfrey, who has made such a powerful and positive impact on the lives of so many Americans.

My plan is to open my own cooking school and produce my own television program to change the Brazilian thought about food. That will be the work of a lifetime, I don’t expect to see the end of this work in my own lifetime, but I intend to be part of the beginning and for that a graduation at Le Cordon Bleu will give me the right tools to face this challenge.