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| Chef Cecilia DeCastro, Culinary Sage |
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One of the most famous and respected names in food today is Wolfgang Puck, the official caterer for the Academy Awards Governors Ball. His outstanding culinary talents have given rise to the Wolfgang Puck Companies which encompass 15 fine dining restaurants, premium catering services, more than 80 Wolfgang Puck Express operations, and kitchen and food merchandise, including cookbooks and canned foods. He has appeared in many TV programs such as Frasier, Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters, as well as Cooking Class with Wolfgang Puck on The Food Network, in an American Idol season finale episode and in a TV commercial advertising California along with famous people such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jack Nicholson.
While many know Wolfgang Puck, not many know that for the past three decades, he has been working closely with a Fil-Am chef, Cecilia de Castro. For over 30 years, Cecilia has collaborated with Chef Wolfgang Puck. She was a culinary producer for the Emmy Award- winning Wolfgang Puck Show for 5 seasons in Food Network. She continues to work with Chef Puck with his cookbook developments, product/recipe development for the Home Shopping Network and Spago, as well as food events such as the Oscar Awards Governor’s Ball and American Food & Wine Festivals.
Wolfgang Puck and Filipino Cuisine
Based on her close partnership with Chef Wolfgang, Asian Journal asked Cecilia if the world-renowned chef has already tasted Pinoy food and what he thinks about it, if he did.
"As a chef, Wolfgang Puck eats anything because he is curious about the taste of other cuisines. He has eaten Filipino food and likes adobo, sinigang, lumpiang shanghai and vegetable lumpia, and pancit bihon. Oh, and he likes lechon, especially the crispy skin. Chef Wolfgang also likes Philippine mangoes – fresh or juice. And lately, he is beginning to appreciate our kalamansi," revealed Cecilia.
Has Wolfgang Puck ever gone to a Filipino restaurant? Cecile admitted that it hasn’t happened yet.
"It’s hard to make Wolfgang –and other people in the mainstream -- taste a wide variety of Filipino food because we don’t have a good Filipino fine dining restaurant to take them to. In fact, he has asked me why I don’t open up a Filipino restaurant. But, masyadong nakakapagod magkaroon ng restaurant. And I really prefer teaching," stated Cecilia.
Chef Cecilia de Castro was born in Manila. She moved to the US after graduating from high school. She was just finishing her BS degree in Food Science & Nutrition from CSUNorthridge, when she first met Chef Wolfgang Puck.
She recalled the incident very clearly. "Being the youngest of 8 kids, by my junior year in college, everyone was working & I was the only one left at home with my mom (my Dad passed away during my freshman year)."
"I decided to take on a part-time job and went to the school bulletin board to check the [job]listing. There were 3 choices: 1) paid $5/hr to develop recipes for the use of microwave (which was new at that time in 1978), 2) paid $5/hr to write recipes for a company that has a dry spice mix that they were promoting & marketing to the younger crowd & 3) paid a minimum $2.85/hr to assist a chef to write recipes. I chose the third one."
"After two phone interviews, they asked me to come in for a personal interview. I told the lady I have been dealing with, Judy Gethers (the "Ma" of Ma Cuisine) that I did not even know what company I was dealing with. The job was to assist chefs to write recipes as they teach in a new culinary school called Ma Cuisine, the cooking school of Ma Maison. I read about Ma Maison and at that time, it was the place where everyone, especially the who’s who in LA would dine," Cecile narrated.
"Just minutes into my interview on a Friday, just past 1pm while Judy and I were talking, this young, jovial, slightly plump chef came in and asked Judy in his thick German-French accent what she wanted for lunch. Judy said she’ll have steak and fries with mustard. Then the chef looked at me and asked, ‘And how about you? What would you like for lunch?’ I responded to the chef (who later on I found out was named Wolfgang Puck, the chef/partner at Ma Maison) that I’ll have the same as Judy [and said] thank you very much!"
"At that moment, I knew that I wanted to be in this environment -- around beautiful people in beautiful clothing, driving the best cars, who would be served lunch of steak & fries w/ mustard while being interviewed for a job paying $2.85/hr. I knew in my heart, this will be ‘my second home’ for as long as they will let me," recalled Cecilia.
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