Photo by Michael Donahue // Buy this photo
John Bragg
Title: Executive chef/owner Circa by John Bragg
Age: 37
Hometown: Columbia, Tenn.; grew up in Arlington.
Who or what was your first cooking influence? I think for everybody, it's your mother. We cooked. We grew up on the farm. We always had a garden and all of those things. So I have a lot of early food memories from shucking corn and picking okra to making cookies and what-not. I liked making cookies a lot more than shucking corn and picking okra.
Photo by Michael Donahue
John Bragg, executive chef/owner of Circa by John Bragg, got his first food-related job as a busboy.
What was the first thing you ever cooked or baked? I made some muffins, cupcakes or something that had jelly inside. I had a little cookbook for kids.
What made you decide to become a chef, and when was that? He (Erling Jensen) hired me as a dishwasher/helper "hey you" position and peel the carrots and wash the dishes and all that kind of stuff. ... The action of putting it (the food) out in the restaurant setting, that was a little bit romantic. ... I started reading all that stuff (cookbooks by Wolfgang Puck and other chefs) and I said, "I can do this."
What was your first food-related job? A busboy at a restaurant here in town — Owen Brennan's.
Where did you study? Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.
What was something important that a fellow chef taught you? (Erling Jensen) The quality of your work matters in everything. Everything rests on it.
Describe a dish you created. Sorghum-cured rack of lamb. We take a marinade — molasses, Dijon mustard, garlic, rosemary, a little cumin, a little cinnamon. This is kind of France and the South coming together in a way that's not obvious. It's a Middle Eastern, Moroccan, French African taste profile.
What do you cook or bake at home, if anything? From really routine stuff — macaroni and cheese and tuna fish — to, I might do a crown roast and an oysters Rockefeller — who knows what on Christmas and stuff like that.
What's your least favorite ingredient? I don't think I've ever bought any margarine, but I don't really detest it. ... I hate synthetic non-food. ... I don't care about synthetic ingredients.
Circa by John Bragg is at 119 S. Main; circamemphis.com, 522-1488.
- |
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.