John Chapiewski’s recipe for life: Cooking, teaching, making an impact on others

Like a recipe that requires a little salt, sugar and spices, John Chapiewski’s life and professional career have had a variety of ingredients mixed thoroughly into them.

He first wanted to be a teacher, but then he got a taste of cooking and really liked it. That led him to culinary arts school and jobs at several restaurants, including a four-star resort in Miami Beach.

Winding his way to Columbus, the Detroit native was a chef at a hotel and prepared meals at a country club, but then he turned his sights to a job that would blend both teaching and cooking — culinary arts instructor at two high schools in Phenix City.

The bottom line for Chapiewski, 42, is he wanted to make an impact on the lives of people. He’s done that, having trained about 300 students at Russell County High over three years, another 60 or so in his first year at Central High, and nearly 70 adults as a volunteer with Open Door Community House’s life-skills training program, which includes cooking classes at Feeding the Valley Food Bank in Columbus.

The Ledger-Enquirer sat down with the chef recently to discuss the path to his passion for whipping up seafood dishes, his accomplishments with the school programs, and advice for summertime grillers. This interview is edited a bit for length and clarity, with an expanded version available at www.ledger-enquirer.com.

Q. So, how did you become a chef?

A. I was born in Detroit, but I grew up in Miami. In my high school years, fast food restaurants were usually the only places that would hire teenagers. It was funny because I wanted to become a teacher more than I wanted to become a chef. But as I was entering graduation from high school, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.

Q. So you were flipping burgers at that point?

A. Right. My first big break, I guess you could say ... remember Dave Thomas, who founded Wendy’s? I worked for his brother (Clayton Thomas). Dave was actually adopted into that family. But his brother’s son was one of my best friends in high school, so I got a job as a line cook for his restaurant in Miami. Also, they had just finished building the new Johnson & Wales University campus, which was in north Miami. I had spent a year in community college and, quite frankly, I floundered. I wasn’t happy and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I talked to my mom about it and said this school is being built, and I have sort of knack for it. Why don’t I just give it a shot? The rest is history.

Q. How did it go from there?

A. It went well. My next big break was when I got a job at the Fontainebleau Hilton in Miami Beach, a four-star resort, and was there for four years. I was working full time and going to school full time and really at that point started to hone my craft and kind of discover my creativity. I loved it.

Q. How did you arrive in Columbus?

A. Basically, in a nutshell, I moved back to Detroit in March of ’98 to redevelop a relationship with my father. My parents got divorced when I was 5 and I didn’t get to see him a whole lot growing up. I worked for some really nice four-star restaurants there and continued to develop myself as a chef. But personally, because it’s where I was born, Detroit is a very depressing place, and after about seven years I needed to move. At that point, I rededicated my life back to God. Then my best friend, who lived in Canton, Ga., about a half hour north of Atlanta, said there were a lot of opportunities (in Atlanta). I was there for about four months and didn’t find anything. All of sudden I got a phone call from the Columbus Hilton Garden Inn, because of the Fontainebleau Hilton connection. I did interviews and came down to do a cooking demo and became an executive chef there.

Q. What happened then?

A. I was there for about two years. I wound up being hired at Lewis Jones on 13th Street. They had a place called Village Kitchen and hired me to do cooking classes there.

Q. That was your first teaching job?

A. Correct. While there I met my future ex-business partner and we ended up opening a restaurant on Hamilton Road called His Place ... His being God. The point of that restaurant was to employ the homeless, because that’s where we met doing the thing at Open Door Community House and the Food Bank. She and I met there. While that was going on, one of my friends who used to teach at Central High School told me that Russell County High needed a culinary instructor, and I thought, man, I would love that job.

Of course, the restaurant failed financially. We just put up too much money to fix it up and it was tough coming out from under that debt. So I applied to teach at Russell County and a couple of months went by and they offered me a job. I was there for three years, and I wound up going back to the industry. I got a nice job at the Country Club of Columbus. I was there for a few years and to be truthful with you, I just felt like my life was missing something. I remember the prayer. I said God, please tell me there’s more to life than this. The very next day, believe it or not, Central called me. They said their teacher had left and went to 11th and Bay (restaurant downtown) and asked me if I would be interested in taking over the program. I said absolutely.

Q. That was the same thing you were doing at Russell County?

A. Correct, but on a much grander scale. We’ve got our own TV show on Cable TV of East Alabama. We have our own restaurant on campus. We’re about to put a greenhouse on the campus and have our own garden. It’s really, really neat things for a high school program.

Q. You’ve found your passion with the teaching?

A. Yes, and actually I have the best of both worlds. I get to teach and I still get to cook. Plus, I always do two or three jobs. During the summer, I’m working jobs to keep myself busy and my skills honed. A little extra money doesn’t hurt, too.

Q. You’ve also been helping Open Door Community House with cooking classes for eight years?

A. Eight years. I’ll tell you a really neat story. I was here a few months and I was trying to get myself established in the community. I was reading the paper one day and Babs Douglas and Kim Jenkins, the two directors of the Food Bank and Open Door (at that time), they were shaking hands in a picture and talking about a program they were doing based off a program in Chicago. It’s where they took people who were trying to get their lives back on track. At the time it was homeless. Now it’s homeless/low income. But they were teaching them life skills and culinary skills and finding them work in the hospitality industry. The quote that caught me (in the newspaper story) was they’re going to have local chefs teach culinary skills. Well I thought that would be the perfect ministry for me. Little did I know they didn’t have a chef yet, but they had already accepted federal funding for this program. It was almost the 11th hour and they brought both boards of directors to Open Door and had a prayer circle, and as soon as Kim Jenkins said amen, the phone rang and it was me calling.

Q. How much time do you put into that?

A. Six weeks, one day a week for four hours (on top of preparation with recipes and other things).

Q. The cooking is just part of the skills taught to the Open Door folks?

A. They teach them everything from writing a resume, opening a checking account, learning how to type again. A lot of people are really starting from ground zero. And after about two months, my part starts. They meet with me once a week for six weeks.

Q. Do you enjoy teaching high school or Open Door classes more?

A. I enjoy them both the same, because it’s a very cool thing to know that I’m having an impact on these lives. With the students, a lot of those kids are bouncing around from foster home to foster home. When I was at Russell County, we had kids that didn’t have running water at home, and you knew you had an impact on their lives. The same thing with Open Door because you’re helping these people as adults get back on their feet, re-establish themselves, and it’s exciting.

At the high school level, I’ve found work for about 40 of my students. There’s some talent there. Some of them just need a job, but some of them want to make culinary a career. One of my students has been the sous chef (second in charge) at St. Luke Methodist Church for the last five years. We’ve got one guy right now that works at the Rivermill (Event Centre). There’s a few out there working in the culinary field.

Q. What does it take to be a good chef?

A. I tell them don’t be fooled by the Food Network. (laughs) It’s a great profession if you’re passionate, if you’re creative. I tell them to be prepared for long hours. You’re going to work the hours that most people don’t have to — nights and weekends and holidays. But looking back on my career, I’ve met some really cool celebrities, and we’ve done some really neat events. Even teaching at Central we’ve catered some weddings. We did a chamber of commerce dinner back in January that blew them out of the water when they saw what high school kids could do. And you build on that. We booked five more caterings out of that one event.

Q. What is the satisfaction you get out of being a chef?

A. To me, the best part of my profession is putting a smile on someone’s face, to know they really enjoyed that meal you served them. That makes it all worth it. Even when I’m with family, like when I go back to Detroit for a reunion or whatever, and I get to cook for the reunion, to see the smile on my cousins’ faces or whoever, it just makes it all worth it.

Q. Have you ever created your own unique dish?

A. I’ve done dishes that I thought were pretty original. There’s always variations of every dish that you do. You look online and go, hey, wait a minute, that’s mine. You just substituted fish instead of chicken. As long as I know in my own mind and heart it was something I did, I’m fine with it.

Q. Is there a basic dish you start with when teaching cooking?

A. Yes, and this goes for Open Door and the high school programs. We always start with knife skills (slicing and dicing) and we always start with what’s called mirepoix, which is a combination of celery, onions and carrots. That’s basically your foundation for every soup and sauce out there. From that point, they make soups and sauces with them, and they’ll take what mirepoix is left over and do braising of meats. Nothing goes to waste. From there, we just build.

Q. What’s your favorite dish to prepare for other people and yourself?

A. (Laughs) For myself, I love pizza. I have a great recipe for pizza dough. I like to do deep dish pizza. The favorite thing that I like to cook, period, is seafood. I tell people that for two reasons — A, there’s so much creativity that you can use with seafood, but B, seafood will absolutely reveal your flaws as a cook because it is so easy to overcook or burn. So you have to be really on your game to cook seafood properly.

Q. Chef skills include being able to focus and juggle things?

A. That’s right. As a chef I’m a referee, I’m an accountant, I’m a sales rep, I’m that shoulder to cry on, I’m a therapist and I’m a cook. So there are a lot of hats you have to wear.

Q. What’s the most challenging aspect of being a cook or chef?

A. Coming through the ranks when I was younger, the hardest part was that most of my friends worked 9 to 5 jobs, and I had to work nights and holidays and weekends. So I didn’t get to spend as much time with my gang, so to speak, that I would have liked to. It’s a very demanding, fast-paced environment, and I’ve burned myself multiple times. I’ve cut myself multiple times. That was probably the worst part of it. But once you get used to it … and really become friends with your co-workers, it’s all good.

Q. This is summer grilling season. Any quick tips for folks out there?

A. Just make sure your grill is well seasoned. What we used to do is if we trimmed our own steaks, we would take the fat and melt it and literally brush it on the grates of the grill. It helps your meat from sticking, but it also adds a little bit of flavor, and there’s a nice aroma. The second thing I would say is don’t just limit yourself to steak and chicken. Do some grilled vegetables. Make a really nice grilled vegetable salad with balsamic vinaigrette and goat cheese for that matter. Be creative. You can even grill fruit for a change. Roast some peaches and put them on top of ice cream.

This story was originally published July 9, 2016 at 9:38 PM with the headline "John Chapiewski’s recipe for life: Cooking, teaching, making an impact on others."