After having just completed filming for an upcoming Rachael Ray episode for the Food Network, I am once again reminded of what is great about our business and how I have continued to learn my craft every day at each of our restaurants.

Back in 1983-84 when I was the chef at Café Sport (current home of Etta’s) and desperate for kitchen help, creatively hiring became the order of the day. Cooks, bakers, waiters, and maitre d’s were not tough positions to fill, but the dish area, prep & janitorial staff were much more of a challenge. We would often work with agencies that helped the handicapped or we utilized the Millionaire Club and day labor houses. Suddenly, we started receiving calls from refugee agencies asking us for work for South Vietnamese and Laotians fresh from their camps in Thailand. Since that time, waves of Sudanese, Ethiopians, Cubanos, Russians, Poles, Tibetens, and Mexican’s have graced our kitchens with their hard work. They have also, fortunately for us, left their cultural mark on the menus.

I first flirted with the idea of dishwasher-brown-bag-lunch to headlining dish on a menu with Khamsa Vong Soutep. He was the fastest and best dishwasher-prep dude I ever came across. He didn’t speak a word of English, but had a passion for life and opportunity.

One day Khamsa’s wife sent him to work with a fried pork, carrot and rice noodle spring roll and a dipping sauce fragrant with fish sauce, ground peanuts and vinegar. Of course, all the cooks got a whiff and circled around like vultures. We offered to pay his wife to send some for us the next day. Man, were they delicious! We put them on the menu with crisp red leaf lettuce wraps, oven-roasted shitake mushrooms and a sweet-hot nuac cham (a typical Vietnamese dip made of lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, and Serrano chilies). Quickly they became best sellers and we even out stripped Khamsa’s families ability to keep up with production.

That was the first of many ideas, techniques and tastes that started out as employee meals and ended up gracing the dining room tables. The Palace chicken wings, Dahlia’s cheesy tamale, Deyki’s fabulous Tibetan samosas, Etta’s creamy Chinese peanut noodles, all came from the international staff in our kitchens.

I’m sure Deyki’s samosas will be a big hit on the Food Network with Rachael Ray. It was a great pleasure to highlight a dish that we all now call our own. Look for the episode to air sometime this fall.

Tom Douglas & Jackie Cross