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CHEF JEAN-GEORGES VONGERICHTEN The outskirts of Strasbourg in Alsace, France boasts of one of the greatest chefs the world has ever produced Jean-Georges Vongerichten. He was raised in a household that appreciated the preparation and cooking of food. His family's activities centered around the kitchen. His earliest memories of his mother and grandmother revolved around lunch for almost 50 employees of their family business (Knives are your own, personalized tools).
Vongerichten remembered waking up to the most wonderful smells he could ever imagined (Chef 2 Chef). Soon enough, he was known as The Palate because he tasted every dish and sauce that his mother made. At age 16, his first memorable visit to the 3 -star Michelin-rated Auberge de like made him finally choose the creative art of cooking good food. He was a peak performer from the very start. Working with the finest chefs in the south of France like Paul Because and Louis Other at Loss afforded him the best experiences he could ever get in the art of cooking.
For him, self-mastery was never mysterious or too difficult to attain for he had an innate excellence that just emerged as he associated with these chefs. He sustained his commitment to personal growth understood what makes him tick as an individuals well as a professional cook. He had the self-confidence, attention and mental attitude that made him known all over the world. Working at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok gave him enough confidence to open 10 more restaurants around the world including the Meridien Hotel in Singapore and the Mandarin Hotel in Hong-Kong. He developed a passion for the exotic flavors of the Far East that made him concoct his own menu and be known for those creative masterpieces for the palate (Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef).
Great accomplishments are always the result of imagination translated through words and action plans. The interplay between vision and the action steps that follow it constituted Vongerichten's working life. In 1985 Jean-Georges arrived in the United States and opened the Lafayette restaurant in Boston. He mesmerized guests with his novel way of cooking, interpreting the classic French cuisine with such flair and passion that earned him four stars from The New York Times at the age of 29. He completely adopted a different kind of setting of tables, trading the formal dining room for paper-clothed tables, and opened the JoJo restaurant in 1991 (Chef 2 Chef). It was here at Jojo where he introduced his vibrant and spare cuisine.
This meant dishes whose intense flavors and textures from traditional meat stocks for vegetable juices and fruit essences, light broth and herbal vinaigrette's (Chef 2 Chef). He earned rave reviews from discriminating chefs and clients and soon began to become a celebrity in the field of the culinary arts. As an outstanding cook, he always kept the visual element alive in the ways he executed the presentation and cooking of his dishes. He looked back to these successes, which influenced where he was going. As a peak performer in the field of cooking, he refined his capacity to see clearly what he wants as he opened his next restaurant the Vong.
This centered on his passion for the spices of the East. He used more than 150 different herbs and spiced to make his unique Thai-French cuisine. Adding another feather on his cap, this unique blend of the French and Thai cuisine was one-of-a-kind which had never been tried before. Not satisfied with that, he again opened The Lipstick Cafe adjacent to Vong which catered to the midtown business crowd serving breakfast and lunch in a casual, upscale setting (Chef 2 Chef).
His parents recall that he was a very tidy boy, often tasting a lot of dishes during food fests and affairs. His mother remembers that he first made his first successful dish- the Phone Salmon Souffle taught to him by Chef Haeberlin at the Auberge de Ill (Knives are your own, personalized tools). A New York columnist, Mark Bittman, in his column The Minimalist referred to his preparations as simple in preparation yet incredibly complex in taste. (Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef). How he achieves this perplexes his clients but they all have good reviews about his concoctions. He has several cookbooks to his credit and these have become bestsellers too (Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef).
The way this peak performer steer himself in the direction he chooses may at first imply some private advantage inborn gift of vitality, maybe good genes or perhaps a confidential list of things to remember about having the will to win. There is nothing esoteric about Vongerichten. What sets him apart is not knowledge possessed by only an inner group of initiates. He is a person who is motivated by achievement in his work and full development of his culinary faculties. He fulfilled the impulse to improve himself and determines the direction his mission. Here is one person with a strong commitment to values.
Values are the leverage point for the whole internal impulse to excel, because they encompass not only what and how and why of cooking good and excellent food, in the case of Jean-Georges. He had a depth of calling strong commitment that anyone who is a peak performer has for his mission. His values remained so strong such that he did not compromise the preparation of food for the finished product. Even the way he prepared food was an art by itself. (Jean Georges Vongerichten). Even the title of his first book speaks clearly of the thoughts of this man Simple Cuisine. It includes vegetable broths and vinaigrette's and the flavors he employed at JoJo.
He has appeared in several TV shows such as the Martha Stewart Show, Live! Today Show and Good Morning America (Showdown in the Kitchen). Jean-Georges was motivated to continuously improve his dishes. Indeed, for him, the original source of his motivation was his mission based on values.
He identified and was committed to his mission to serve only the best. Thus, these attributed amplifies the motivation and contributes to maintaining peak performance over the long haul. His attributes are not an inviolate sequence, not a recipe to memorize. They are talents, which have become second nature, often after years of trial and error. Yet, in the case of Vongerichten, this excellence developed most effectively in the presence of something that is not so much learned as it is, quite simply, decided: his deeply felt desire to be the best I can be. WORKS CITED Chef 2 Chef Chef of the Month Club.
Accessed 8 August 2006 at: web Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Accessed 8 August 2006 at: web Diners Digest. Jean-George Vongerichten Accessed 8 August 2006 at: web Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Accessed 8 August 2006 at: web Jean Georges Vongerichten. A Full-belly.
com. Accessed 8 August 2006 at: web Jojo Menu. Accessed 8 August 2006 at: web Knives are your own personalized tools. Korea. Jean Georges New York. Accessed 8 August 2006 at: web Showdown in the Kitchen.
New York Times Electronic Edition. Accessed 8 August 2006 web
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Research essay sample on Chef Jean Georges Vongerichten
