DIET | DETECTIVE^®

Name: Terry Conlan

Birthday: 3.8.1946

Location: Promise not to tell- Lakewood, Ohio. Most folk think I’m a native Texan (we moved here when I was 1 ½ years old), a notion I don’t discourage.

Q: Tell us how you got to where you are now.  

A: Chromosomal defect or something to that effect, I suspect.  Cooking is certainly not a profession one would rationally pursue, so how else to explain? The hours are long and hard and the work takes its toll, both mentally and physically.  Hopes for a stable environment, reasonable monetary compensation and future advancement are generally not well founded.  Still, if you hang in there, the kitchen life gradually reveals her charms.  I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing.  Most days.

Q: Define and discuss failure?

A: The most valuable and useful tool in life’s “education” box.  It’s how we learn.  Without it we have no means to gauge or value our successes (temporal though they may be).  The only real failure is not trying. 

Q: Is there anything about yourself that you've changed your mind about in the last 20 years?

A: Yes, I used to entertain the idea that I had some knowledge of and control over where my future would take me.  And I used to think that someday the Pittsburg Pirates would win another World Series.

Q: What's the next major item on your "to-do" list?

A: Short term, revamping the resort’s menus to advantage as many organic and locally grown products as possible.  Down the road, spending more time with my grandchildren and writing a movie screenplay.

Q: Define individual responsibility and how you react to adverse situations?

A: For me, the way in which one exercises his or her sense of individual responsibility is the most telling characteristic of that person’s life.  I’m a huge believer in the “do what you say you will do and do it the best you know how to do it every time you do it” school.  As for adverse situations, usually I whine a bit about the injustice of it all, and then I dig in and pitch for all I’m worth.

Q: When do you have time to think about your mistakes, mishaps, achievements, and minor victories; in other words, do you have any reflective time for yourself of your career?  

A: I’m reflective in the sense that I try to examine any situation that affects me or my work from every possible angle I can think of, three or four times over, in as much detail as possible to limit unforeseen obstacles and to produce the best result.  I’m not very reflective in a “big picture” kind of way and I don’t spend much time thinking about what I may have accomplished in my career except to know that I’m a very lucky guy.

Q: What is your most influential story, fiction or nonfiction, from a film, book, magazine, newspaper or parable? Explain its impact on your life? What's you're favorite saying?

A: How about all of the old Jimmy Stewart movies (particularly “It’s a Wonderful Life” which I’ve seen enough times to have memorized the dialogue)?  Mr. Stewart made a long and storied career out of mostly playing honest, decent everyday guys who handle what life hands them with resilience and integrity by following their hearts and their sense of right and wrong.  Those are the kind of folks that I most admire and aspire to be like.  Plus, underneath a sometime crusty exterior, I’m a hopeless romantic.

A favorite quote? Here’s three.

“The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know everything.” Harry Truman

 “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” Japanese Proverb

“Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out on the inside.” Mark Twain

All this I believe.

Q: Was there a defining moment in your life when you made a decision that changed the course of the rest of your life forever?

A: At some point in my rather checkered tenure as an English/Fine Arts major at the University of Texas, I moved into a big old house west of campus with three other guys. Someone had to cook and I drew the short straw.  And the muse took hold, the chromosome kicked it. In short order I was completely smitten.  I didn’t know very much about what I was doing but I knew I enjoyed very much just about every aspect of doing it.  Still do.

Q: What's the most bodacious chance you've ever taken?

A: My girlfriend during the latter part of my University of Texas days was considering moving to British Columbia.  I really didn’t want her to go, so I (he penniless and without prospects) asked her to marry me.  Thirty-five years later we’ve taken several trips to the Pacific Northwest and B.C. together, a much happier situation.

Q: What's the biggest lesson you've learned about yourself? What's the biggest lesson you haven't learned?

A: Biggest lesson learned: that I can’t get it all done by myself.

Biggest lesson not learned: that I can’t get it all done by myself.

Q: What keeps you going (your motivation)?

A: Well it’s just fun, isn’t it? And it’s not like where you paint a picture and hang it on the wall. Cooking makes itself new every time you fire up the burners, whether you’re making a familiar favorite or trying something new.  Also I like making people happy and a good meal does that in a way that few things can.

Q: What’s your favorite healthy meal to prepare?

A: Fish, grilled outdoors.  Potatoes, sautéed in olive oil with lots of garlic, a green vegetable, a big salad with blue cheese vinaigrette, maybe a fruit cobbler with frozen vanilla yogurt.

Q: What are the best tactics you can use, when eating out, to make sure your meal is healthy? What are good things patrons can ask for (substitutions, omissions) that would make you fix them an extra-healthy meal if you were their chef?

A: Eat at chef driven restaurants, especially ones that focus on fresh, seasonal ingredients. Mediterranean and Asian are almost always good choices.  I don’t usually think about ingredients as “healthy” or “unhealthy”.  Bacon can be as “healthy” as a beet.  The questions I ask of any ingredient are “quality”, quantity, and how to handle to bring out its particular goodness?”

Q: What’s your favorite healthy ingredient? What’s the one thing you’d suggest people keep in their kitchen if they want to cook healthy meals?

A: Extra virgin olive oil.

Q: What’s the easiest healthy meal you know how to make?

A: Oatmeal, real maple syrup and an apple.

Q: What’s your favorite healthy make-over meal – a meal that’s usually not particularly good for you, but that can be prepared in a way to provide health benefits?

A: A chili cheeseburger with fries.  Really. 95% lean, organic beef (3 ounces).  Homemade chili made from the same beef, reduced-fat organic cheddar, organic whole wheat bun and oven “fries”.  And a root beer.

Q: What dessert do you dream about?

A: I’m not really that big of a “dessert guy”.  And when I dream it usually doesn’t involve food (one notable exception is after my first day working for a local BBQ restraint-my first full time food job 30 some years ago-after spending the entire day seasoning and smoking countless, enormous slabs of brisket, pork and sausages, I went home, fell asleep and dreamt of nothing but vegetables, an endless conveyor belt of carrots, cabbages, ect. 

But if I were to dream it would probably be of some folksy fruit dessert, not too sweet, like a rhubarb crisp or a Shaker lemon pie.

Q: If there were one healthy food item (something you love) that you had to eat every day, what would it be?

A: Nuts. Peanuts, walnuts, cashews, almonds (try “smoked” sometime), ect.  I’ve always loved them.  I can still remember my mom taking my sister and I to Sears and Roebuck every year to buy school clothes, because they also had a stand that sold warm nuts by the ounce in little paper cones.

Q: What’s the best book about health that you’ve read?

A: I’m ashamed to admit this, but my life is so busy these days that I seldom have time to read a book (other than a cookbook) and when I do, it’s probably not going to be about health.

Q: What are your two favorite health magazines?

A: I don’t know about the strictly “healthy” part but Food Arts magazine and the Wednesday section of the New York Times are two of my favorite and most dependable ways to keep abreast of all things culinary.

Q: What do you consider the world’s most perfect food?

A: Does water count?  It’s so subjective.  Wild honey.  Guacamole.  Blueberry pie.  Smoked salmon.  And Guinness would have to be up there somewhere.

Q: What physical activity do you do to keep yourself in shape?

A: I coach select level youth soccer.  Running with 12-year olds will get it done.  And walking is still my favorite form of transportation. 

Q: Do you have a favorite healthy recipe or cooking tip? If so would you share it?

A: Buy a stove top smoker.  You can prepare a wide variety of foods with amazing flavor levels without adding fat.  It’s quick too.

Q: Do you have a Calorie Bargain? What food did it replace? Was that an important food in your diet, since you ate it so often?

Nah.  I’m not good at giving up things.  I eat everything.  Fortunately my tastes naturally gravitate towards the leaner, cleaner side of the spectrum most of the time, but on occasion Cheeto (especially the spicy hot) has been known to make an appearance—and disappearance!  Diversity, moderation, no forbidden foods.  Ok, we do have a machine at work that dispenses the most amazing fat-free frozen yogurt.  My entire staff is completely addicted.

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