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Transcript
My name is Chris Mullen Jr. I am 17 years old.
My name is Ryan Moriarty. I am 17 years old.
We interviewed Chef Kevin Maguire on July 30th, 2015.
I was born in Braddock, PA. I grew up with my grandmother, and she was very strict on me. Very strict. Had to be in the house, 9:30. She was from Virginia. So during my youth, when I was young, I used to go travel down to Virginia, and I used to work beside my grandmother in tobacco fields. And I wish someone would’ve took a picture of that. And she used to always tell me “Pick your speed up, baby. Pick your speed up!”
I went to school for tailoring, dressmaking, learn how to make clothes. I was the only guy in my class, and I think I took that class cause of the girls in the class. I thought I wanted to make clothes. But my second backup was food service and God had shined his blessings upon me. That’s why right now I’m executive chef.
I went to Pennsylvania Culinary College downtown. I was ranked number one in my class. My grandmother taught me how to cook. The school taught me how to break it down and turn the black and white of culinary arts into the color. What I mean by that, they went into detail how to make a French demi-glace, how to do a French mirepoix. So my grandmother just showed me the basics, but the school took it to a whole new level.
I specialize in Southern delights. Me being around my grandmother, growing up through the South, but I add a French twist to my food.
I used to work at a hospital called Central Medical in the Hill District. The hospital is torn down. Just like in life, you crawl and then you walk. I was a pot washer. I was the best pot washer in the house.
My first mentor is Jesus Christ, #1 mentor. My grandmother was my second mentor. From there, I had executive chefs and culinary arts. My grandmother handed out butt kickings during the time she was training me. So the chefs couldn’t do that. They just have to go by the book. But when I used to go out the line, my grandmother would kick that butt and bring me back in and show me the right way how to do something and I thanked her till her last days for doing that.
My wife is my #1 fan. If somebody writes, she let me know, and most of y’all chefs don’t like to hear that. “Aw, it’s OK.” No, you have to be humble in life. Whatever job you take on, you gotta be humble with it, cause you gonna have good. You’re gonna have bad.
I’m writing a book now. I’m writing a culinary cookbook, and the cookbook have Bible verses beside the recipe. The book is geared to bring families together. Father, son who’s not talking, a mother, daughter’s not talking. They got to communicate making this dish. For example, if you’re making a chicken noodle, should be just a plain recipe, nothing hard. The mother and father or mother and daughter got to talk to do the recipe, to make it. And that might break down a wall for them to see what’s really going in the household. So that’s what I’m doing right now, I’m doing a cookbook.
I don’t feel successful. I feel blessed. You hear lots of people say “I’m lucky, I’m successful.” I call them blessings. Everything comes from God. I’m not trying to sit there and preach, but everything comes from God. There’s only two African American chefs of the year in the City of Pittsburgh, and I’m one of them.
I went to Iraq two years. I feel blessed when the bullets were flying over my head. I feel blessed the night I didn’t go out and my gun truck got blown up. Wasn’t luck.
My advice is you have to go within your heart and once you step out, you will ask God to bless anything in front of you, and once you step out into goodness, you got your backup plan.
I was a chef going over into Iraq and I thought I had it made. But when you’re in the military, you’re a soldier. Soldiers come first, so once I went into the kitchen and I thought I had it made, my commander put me out the kitchen, and I became a weapon specialist. So I went out on tours, on the road. The second tour in Iraq, I hurt my back.
In life, you should have a one game plan, a second game plan. Anything you do, you always have a second backup plan. My backup plan was food service. Did I think I was going to be chef of the year of the city of Pittsburgh? Did I think I was gonna be ranked number one of my class? Did I think I was going to be in Italy cooking, Germany cooking? No. Life sometimes like the weather, man, some days it’s going to rain on you all day long. That means your day gonna be bad all day long. But when it rain, you pop up an umbrella. You adapt to it. When it’s cold outside, you do what? You put a coat on. When it’s hot, you do what? You take the coat off. Simple as that, y’all, and you adapt to life.
Martin Luther King used to say “If you’re gonna sweep the streets, you’d be the best one.” “If you’re gonna take out garbage and be a garbage man, you’d be the best garbage man on the block.” Whatever you do, be the best. It should be to the point that when you leave, people are still talking about you. I want to be a good chef, so I hang with good chefs. You hang with good people whatever you pick out in your life and your career, you hang with good people in that career. If you want to be a plumber, you don’t hang out with no electrician. You hang out with plumbers. So, whatever you do in life, you hang out with the people who are doing the same thing. Good people. You surround yourself with good people. Study, do your work, do it to the point that can’t nobody do it better than you.
At the end of the day, y’all, when y’all get in y’all bed, y’all, thank God for that day. As soon as you wake up the next morning, the first thing you do when you open your eyes up. If we get outta bed, you thank God for waking you up and you carry on your day and you try your best to glorify his name throughout your day. Because he’s the one gave you the strength, two legs, two arms, two eyes, a brain to think with.