In my last blog, Chocolate Fudge Cake, I mentioned Chef Terrell Garrett who sent me the recipe as part of my Ask A Chef feature but I forgot to introduce him.

Chef Garrett wrote me and said he was “now retired and would be willing to provide my expertise.”  When he told me about his background and that his first career for 26 years was in hospital administration, just like my wife, how could I not accept his help.

After his first career, he “”immediately enrolled in a culinary degree program at one of The Art Institute School in Houston, TX. Upon graduating, Terrell was offered a job at the Brownstone, a very upscale restaurant where he worked for 2 ½ years. After that, he became the Executive Chef and GM at Marathon Oil Company’s headquarters.

I’m not sure how long he worked there, but when he left to go back to his wife’s hometown of Tell City, Indiana, he became the executive chef at one of the local country clubs where he stayed for 3 ½ years until a back injury forced him to retire.

So I am thrilled to have Chef Garrett around to teach you and me a thing or two that will help us become better cooks. If you want to learn more about Chef Garrett and read his interview, just go to Interview with Chef Terrell Garrett.

If you ever wondered what it would be like to cook in a professional kitchen, I think Thanksgiving was a great opportunity to get a small but meaningful feel for it.  If you were responsible for preparing the Turkey feast for lets say ten people, imagine what it would be like to cook for 10 or 15 times that many?

I’m not a professional chef but I’ve been behind the scenes of a kitchen or two to witness the excitement and feel the energy that goes into to putting out great meals to large numbers of people. It’s very similar to what I’ve felt and experienced this and every Thanksgiving but in a smaller way.

In fact, this Thanksgiving, my wife was in charge and I was her sous chef (second in command) but there was plenty for both of us to do starting two days before the big meal leading right up to when we served dinner.

The plan was to cook for the four of us plus a couple of my wife’s friends who were visiting for a total of six but then some local friends were available and decided to join us for a total of ten. Didn’t matter, we were going to cook the same amount of food anyway.

My wife picked a menu out of Bon Appetite and followed it to the letter, well almost to the letter.  We started out with dilled salmon tartare on whole grain bread, wild mushroom ravioli in porcini broth, roast turkey with Port gravy, mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing with fresh and dried fruit, honey glazed oven roasted sweet potato wedges, peas with roasted onions and mint and cauliflower with mustard lemon butter.

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