Chuck Gross
Title: Owner/cook, Harry's Detour and Harry's Detour South Main.
Age: 54.
Hometown: Norfolk, Va.
Who or what was your first cooking influence? The women on both sides of the family. My dad's family were mostly farmers and so a bunch of aunts, uncles, grandmothers, farmers' wives -- that sort of thing.
Chuck Gross
What was the first thing you ever cooked or baked? When we were kids, we lived outside of Boston, Mass., and we'd have family pizza day. We'd start off Saturday morning and make the dough and the sauce, put the dough aside to let it rise and we'd run down to the local Italian delis and all the kids would get to choose their own ingredient or two from the deli. And then we'd come home as a family that evening and each child got to design his own pizza.
What made you decide to become a chef? When I was 18, I was tending bar out at The Racquet Club (of Memphis) and they had a real cordon bleu French chef out there. Every time I'd go back in the kitchen, he'd show me something. And I'd stand there ... and learn how to make this sauce or that sauce. And it got to where I was running back there in between shifts and helping ... cook for banquets and stuff.
What was something important that a fellow chef taught you? Use all your senses. Every one of your senses is important. Not only your sight and taste, but your sense of smell. You learn to smell when something's ready. You learn to hear when something's cooking too hard. The skillet will be going too hard and your back's turned toward it and you can hear it.
What is the Chuck Gross style? Schizophrenic. When I try to think of something, it's mostly from mood or memory. Like if I have to come up with a special or something, it's just someplace I've been or somebody I'm thinking about.
Describe a dish you created. Blue Ridge pork chops. It was a bourbon-brine pork chop with an apple walnut stuffing and sort of a ham, whole grain mustard, Vidalia onion sauce.
What's your least favorite ingredient? I have not been able to stand beets since I was a child. They're probably too earthy for me.
Harry's Detour is at 532 S. Cooper, 276 7623; Harry's Detour South Main is at 106 G.E. Patterson, 523-9070.
-- Michael Donahue: 529-2797. donahue@commercialappeal.com
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