Interview with Chef Pierre

Could you tell us about your culinary journey? How did you end up at Exeter?I am originally from Montreal, Quebec and French is my native language. My family, as well as many others in Quebec, have a large French heritage, so our food culture is very important. … Coming out of secondary school, I was faced with a dilemma: should I continue to pursue a career in marketing or should I go to culinary school? I decided to become a chef and took a three-year course at the Institute of Hospitality and Tourism of Montreal, and since then I have been cooking for 32 years. … I worked across Canada … in Winnipeg and Vancouver. I also traveled to Indonesia and Europe, and I opened my eyes to more cultures of food. Then one day, my sister, who lived in the US, called me and said that she wanted to open a restaurant. … We decided to open a restaurant in Algonquin, Maine for 17 years. I later went on to become the executive chef at a beautiful inn in Kennebunkport, Maine. But, as I grew older, I realized that I wanted different working hours than I had before. When I worked at restaurants I worked mostly at night, and I was looking for a job that would let me go home earlier. I always had an interest in cooking at an institution with young adults where I could maybe have an impact on their lives with food. I thought getting a job at Exeter would be a long shot because my background was French and fine cuisine but they decided to choose me. So it has been about a year since I have been appointed as executive chef. What is some of the work that you do as the Executive Chef here at Exeter?I am in charge of designing recipes that go into a system that generates the ingredient orders. We have about 5000-6000 recipes in the system which we edit, correct and modernize. I try to be as authentic as possible through my recipes. I also have to delegate the work to the cooks, train them and schedule their work, because we have two dining halls, a retail service (Grill) and a catering service. Behind the scenes, students may not notice, but we do a lot of catering as well. Essentially, I have to oversee the work that the dining hall does so that it flows nicely and fluidly.How did Pancakes with Pierre come about? What was the idea behind the event?In the past, I believe that there were events with pancakes with the principal. However, the principal wasn’t available, so I wanted to share breakfast with the students in a fun way. Hopefully, we can do it again. Students and dining hall workers have such busy lives, but if we continue to have occasional events we can bring our community closer together. Are you planning on any events with students in the future?Having events with students requires a lot of planning, but we are working on creating more events. We are hoping to have basic cooking classes. We are open to any suggestions that can allow people to connect with [the] dining hall.What are some events that you are proud of this past year?I was proud of Jazz Brunch and Lunar New Year. They were both tremendous successes. What are some foods that you enjoy to cook or eat?Coming to the United States, I was exposed to more cultures, such as Southwestern and Mexican styles of food here. It is funny—I cook a lot more foods from other cultures instead of the French and Mediterranean styles that I used to cook. I love to cook duck and fish for my family. My family tries to be healthy with our meals like we are here.What is your favorite part of the job?I love working with different people, whether they are students or faculty. Everybody is friendly and there is a good, positive atmosphere. We have a great team in the kitchen that works really hard and that is what motivates me.