Sun Interview Shines On Tim Taylor

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2016 (3342 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Have you always being interested in cooking? Did you help out around the house — that kind of thing?

Through one circumstance or another, I learned to cook at a very young age, around 11-ish. I had part-time jobs through high school at Kelsey’s and Mary Brown’s Fried Chicken, where Mum’s is currently. And then later on, Jasper and then, following a return to Brandon, beginning professional cooking in 1991. I took a pre-apprenticeship commercial cooking program at Assiniboine Community College.

You’ve certainly worked in a lot of places in your career. At Woodfire, do you have total control of the menu or do the owners have the way they’d like it to be and then you design something to their specifications?

They had the basics — they knew what they wanted to do. An example would be the pizza dough recipe. I came on after they were already open, but there is a lot of collaboration. And they give me a lot of free rein and, over time, I’ve written a major part of the recipes. And then we’ve also developed some other ones, and we tinkered with other ones. An example would be something we did as a special was a wood-fired caesar salad, and now, two years later, it’s one of the main things we’re known for. And we’re also retailing that dressing.

Do you like the small establishment as opposed to the larger ones you’ve worked in? Because at the Woodfire, it’s pretty intimate.

Let’s say I worked in 40 places, although it’s probably not that many. But that’s over a 27-year career. So big or small, I think when you feel at home with people and you’re on a team and you like that dynamic, then you’re quite comfortable there. I worked a decade at the Elkhorn Resort, give or take a year, so something’s right and you’re liking what you’re doing. After two years in Souris, obviously I like it there, too.

And the commute doesn’t bother you at all?

It’s rewarding. I listen to audiobooks, or sports radio. I do some part-time instructing in the continuing education faculty at ACC, so I teach the occasional class up at MICA, and that’s rewarding as well.

So what is it you like about cooking? Is it creativity? Is it making people happy?

I think it stems from, psychologically, you have good cooks in your family, and food evokes a lot of memories. Grandmothers are great cooks. Food has good times associated with it. And then for me, it’s just something that happened. And as a teenager working in a kitchen, you might just like the hustle and bustle. And maybe that’s how I’m wired. Maybe it’s the way you set plates up. Or you like the idea of being prepared. Or you like the heat!

I couldn’t give that up and be, let’s say, an administrator. I have to be in this capacity. So maybe teaching is all right, or ownership, or something. But always associated with this food service industry.

Did you have an “aha” moment where you realized this was what you wanted to do as a career? Or was it that you were sort of forced to do it by situation or circumstance and just discovered that you liked to cook?

My eyes were opened when I was out in Jasper. And even though I was dishwashing, I eventually got promoted into a supervisory role. And then I was asked to go and help with dinner functions and all the organization that goes along with that that was a bit eye-opening then.

In terms of?

Hey — this might be a career path, or something to fall back on.

And you didn’t have any ideas about this when you left high school?

I did do a couple of years at Brandon University. Not very productively.

Well, university’s not for everybody. But it must be gratifying to hear, as you just did when Brandon Sun photographer Tim Smith joined us to take your picture, people say what he did: “Woodfire Deli! We love it out there.” I’ve heard the same thing from lots of other people. And it certainly seems to be thriving and doing well.

It’s humbling to be a small part of that. Sometimes integral, sometimes not. Because that’s not all me. I’m just part of a team. And to be part of that team is the privilege — the reward is to hear people are really cheering on that business and what we’re doing down there.

And it’s a small-town, local, independent establishment.

Buffy and Steve actually have two businesses down there because they also have the drive-in as well. And that’s going through an evolution of sorts — it’s going to be opening up in the spring. So really, when you’re writing (recipes) and producing and cooking for two restaurants, and one of them being seasonal, that means my summers are busier then my fall and winter.

So you’re executive chef at both of them?

Yeah. I wrote a burger recipe, if that helps explain it. (laughs)

Was Woodfire Deli the Cancades’ brainchild?

Yes. They had a vision to do that, let’s say two years prior, and they came from Toronto to Brandon. They did their due diligence and their test marketing and they had a great business plan, and they chose Souris. And what a wonderful choice for Souris residents for them to get a restaurant of that calibre.

The specialty is woodfired pizza, but you have a bunch of other things on the menu too, right?

There’s a whole-wheat focaccia bread for the sandwiches which is made fresh daily. It’s classically made — it’s got a paté ferment on it, so it’s like a sourdough — there’s a culture going on — it’s a 24-hour process. And then it’s baked and it’s got olive oil and coarse salt and chopped rosemary on it. And those sandwiches are dynamite. Salads, soup of the day — it’s ever-changing.

So it’s all of those things you said before, and fresh ingredients as well.

That’s right. Pizza is the focal point, obviously, because that oven is the focal point of the restaurant. And we sell a lot of the products like the caesar dressing in the restaurant. And we do take-out as well. And catering.

Now we’re heading into the festive season — any tips for amateur cooks in general? Are there mistakes you think people make a lot of the time?

You write columns about wine. And I like a quote — I’m going to paraphrase it because I’m not going to get it exactly — from, I think, W.C. Fields. Which is, I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like. And it’s the same thing for wine. No one can say you have to drink white wine with chicken or fish. Drink what you like.

That’s my mantra.

But you should try different things. And in cooking, if you make mistakes, that’s part of the learning process. And as long as it’s still partly edible (laughs), it’s OK to make a mistake. That’s how you learn. That’s how we all learn, I think. We’re in a day and age where you have the Internet and you can affordably buy cookbooks on Amazon, let’s say, or Coles or Indigo. There’s lots of information out there. So it’s all about getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things. Tips going into Christmas? Be with family. Cook together. Enjoy the meal together.

And maybe look up online brining the bird. Or getting it thawed in time so you can brine it. That’s going to create flavours, create moisture, it’s going to help when you brown it — it’s going to get that golden, crispy, caramelized skin.

Or you can impart flavours. You can put a lemon in the cavity of the chicken or turkey. And then some people still like to stuff their birds in this day and age.

Do you think we make things unnecessarily complicated a lot of the time? Are we better to do some perhaps less ambitious things well rather than have something extravagant fail miserably?

I think for home cooks, they have their repertoire of five things that they do well. Right? And they don’t ever change what they’re doing in those five things — they always do them the same each and every time. But as a professional, I would take it to the other extreme. I would say you have to take it and complicate and complicate and complicate it and see how far you can go.

Is it always a challenge to come up with new things or to improve upon something that you do? Or just change it for the sake of seeing what happens? Is it a grand adventure all the time?

I think it is an adventure. Whatever I make, even if it turns out well, I would try to make it better the next time. And then what could you do better after that? That’s how I approach things when I cook.