Great Taste Magazine 2010 March | April Issue

Great Taste Magazine 2010 March April Issue features Chef Dave Dennis and culinary news, tips, recommendations and recipes from Orange County restaurant chefs.

A native of La Habra Chef Dennis originally attended a commercial scuba diving program in Santa Barbara. While in school, he worked as a cook in order to earn money. So he was already used to being in the kitchen. He hoped to become a dive master on a charter boat, but there were not any of those positions available. One of the crew approached him with the opportunity to work as a dead head cook on the boat. This allowed him to keep continually diving and being around boats on the open sea with the opportunity to assume the role of dive master every once in a while. From there he worked as a scuba instructor in the Caribbean Sea splitting his time between Haiti and the Bahamas for one and a half years.

Once his time in the Caribbean had ended, Chef Dennis took his culinary skills to the high seas once again. He worked on a privately owned yacht as a chef. He spent nine months on the boat cooking and fishing with the crew. When the owner was ready to use the boat, Chef Dave and the crew would rendezvous with the owner at an arranged port. Then, when the owner was ready to return to land, Chef and the crew would drop him off and go on their way until called upon again. The yacht traveled mainly from Southern California to the southern part of Mexico on the Pacific Ocean side and all points in between. For the nine months he was not working on the boat, Chef Dave lived in Mascota, Jalisco, Mexico. This time spent in Mexico is where Chef gained much of the Mexican influence and technique shown in his many dishes at the Matador Cantina.
In this issue Chef Dave Dennis of Matador Cantina is taking us around the world. Chef Dennis has travelled to seven different countries and has acquired various recipes and cooking methods along the way to help influence his Mexican Fusion cuisine at Matador Cantina. He was kind enough to share what he learned with Great Taste Magazine; the most interesting ingredient and his favorite dish from three of the seven countries he visited. He also gives us a peak at his recipe for Chipotle Chicken Chowder.

As we all know, a great staff is integral to a successful restaurant venture. In this issues L’entree we examine The Family Meal, an opportunity for the staff to break bread together without the chaos of an open restaurant. Most restaurants only conduct these meals once before the grand opening, but some restaurants like Sapphire Laguna, have this ritual every day. Is this the key to a sustainable, happy staff? Some think so. Read on to see if you agree.

For Chefs, a big focus of their work is on using fresh, sustainable ingredients. For the Chefs at Paul Martin’s American Bistro sustainable agriculture could not be moreimportant. They guide us through why this movement is becoming so popular and why they feel it is so important for everyone to help develop a sustainable food system.
In this issue’s Sur Le Menu we celebrate a menu staple: cheese. From blue cheese stuffed olives at Flemings Steak House to baked lasagna at The Old Spaghetti Factory, every restaurant has something to delight all of us cheese lovers.

Great Taste Magazine 2009 Spring Issue covers the restaurants and the professionals with resources, recipes, beautiful photos and many tasty tidbits. Great Taste Magazine, the premiere connection to all the key decision makers in our local Southern California restaurant industry. Each month our 15 year-old full-color trade publication reaches thousands of the area’s top restaurant owners, general managers, executive chefs and buyers. Take a tour through the magazine. Each issue features a restaurant and local chef, and is packed with the timeliest information, critical operational tips and other industry news important to our readers.

Update! Even in these tough economic times, it’s clear our readers still have Great Taste! We’re happy to announce that our circulation has increased and we’d like to thank each and every one of our readers for helping make Great Taste Magazine the go-to source for Orange County restaurant information.

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Teri Williams has her finger on the pulse of the local hospitality industry like no one else. Fifteen years as editor and publisher of Orange County’s only hospitality trade magazine combined with her consultancy for the non-profit sector and her public relations expertise give Williams a far-reaching, varied and unique perspective of the industry. Besides her esteemed Great Taste publication, she has extensive experience in the travel industry (retail agent and wholesale), event planning and volunteerism. Williams has contacts around the globe in the restaurant, hotel, media and travel trades. She has also been applauded for her enthusiastic charity work and has chaired numerous chef, food and wine events on behalf of local non-profit organizations, for which she has helped garner more than $1 million in donations through the years. Known for her unflagging enthusiasm, entrepreneurial spirit, can do attitude and joie de vivre, Williams is a constant presence and authority on the OC culinary and hospitality scene.

Great Taste would not exist without our enthusiastic and generous contributors, which is why we want to turn the spotlight on them! We’ve got chefs and students, teachers and experts – so read on to meet the wonderful people that write for your pleasure. They all have Great Taste!