[FairfieldLife] Kirk Bernhardt - My Bio

[llundrub]

Chef Kirk Bernhardt was born October 12, 1965 in North Hollywood.  He is a 2nd generation Los Angelino from both sides.  Kirk’s father, Albert Bernhardt, was a chef/restaurateur in Hawaii before Kirk was born, who owned and ran five restaurants at one time.  Al Bernhardt was once called the “eating man’s thinker” due to his wine knowledge.   Kirk didn’t expect to become a chef and finds it quite fateful at this late juncture, that is, after twenty years of cooking in New Orleans. When Kirk was in kindergarten other toddlers couldn’t say his name right and called him Cook.  Kirk says, “If I had only listened to reality I wouldn’t have had to search and go off to college spending umpteen thousand dollars, studying English Literature and Vedic Philosophy.  I should have understood then why I had a natural dislike of McDonald’s hamburgers, when I was younger, often devolving into long rants about commercialism versus quality.”   Kirk went to Maharishi Mahesh’s university in Iowa during the experimental Collective Consciousness studies about large TM group meditation numbers.  At that time he meditated with as many as 9,000 people, during a course called the “Taste of Utopia.”   Kirk feels that the study of consciousness and the study of nutrition are similar in that both are searching to find the fountain of youth. That font is identical to the sense of “Momma’s home!” From birth to youth and all through our lives we look to momma for comfort and sustenance. So also, within, we find that consciousness is supportive and adaptable to enable awareness of all things. Thus the universal and the personal meld into an amalgam of the elixir of immortality during a moment of dining should a person let go and let himself trust the food and setting.   “That’s what Creole food is really about,” Kirk says, “Creole food is French cooking mixed with the many-limbed indigenous food of the region.  Basically soul food, or “home-cookin,” with a copy of Escoffier at hand.  Momma’s cooking cubed basically, using the finest ingredients.”   “I’m really a Creole chef!” Kirk says. “That’s what I mostly cooked at the Fairmont, Windsor Court, K-Paul’s, Mr. B’s, and previously studied as a waiter at Commander’s and Brennans, and The Court of Two Sisters, often having to cook tableside.”   “Later, I did put in some time cooking at several very popular Uptown New Orleans French restaurants.  To them I owe thanks for tasteful use of fresh product in an elegant manner.  I feel I got more of a real solid grasp of modern Parisian cuisine than I could have in that city.   And, of course, I have been to France, so it was pretty easy to create a menu of some French favorites.  I do manage to hide my Creole cooking roots except insofar as I utilize some local ingredients like Creole cream cheese, tasso, alligator sausages, andouille, crawfish and so on, but I do so in what I consider a French manner, that is, not putting these items in rich sauces but rather displaying them nakedly and simply as with the sausage sampler, where the quality of our made-for-Flaming Torch sausages is emphasized.”   “I have not looked at any other menus for inspiration for The Flaming Torch menu. Rather, Hassan (the owner) and I decided to try to reproduce the Parisian Brasserie experience and to be as French as possible.  From the baguettes served upon arrival, to the sense of having a menu to abide with over time which has many fun items, such as the Pate Ambigu, or pate with red fruits and beurre rouge dipping sauce for the pate. The sense is to hang around at the table of the host at your lodge and dip some bread with some friends.”   “Basically, French is quality and we have some great ingredients such as Grade A Foie Gras, right now on a duck salad with plums, cold thin sliced duck breast, port vinaigrette, slice of seared foie, cherry compote, haricot verts.”   “Soon we will be having Duckbreast Perigourdine, a seared foie gras and warm duck breast with rich port demi-glace with truffles.” __._,_.___ To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe __,_._,___