Crossroads Guitar Festival Q&A with World Renowned Chef Grant MacPherson

with Jason Henke

World renowned Chef Grant MacPherson, whose impressive credentials include stops as Culinary Director at the world famous Sandy Lane Hotel in sunny Barbados and 10 years as executive chef for Steve Wynn opening the five diamond resort Bellagio Hotel and Casino, Wynn Las Vegas and Wynn Macau, is graciously donating his time, energy, resources, and delicious food to the Crossroads Guitar Festival VIP reception. Chef MacPherson has traveled the world, mastering his culinary skills in five continents at such prestigious hotels including The Regent, The Ritz Carlton and The Four Seasons in various countries including Australia, Canada, England, France, Malaysia and the United States. MacPherson recently spoke with Jason Henke via phone from his new restaurant, Rustica in Fashion Island – Newport Beach, CA, which opened earlier this month, to talk Crossroads Guitar Festival, music, traveling nearly every place under the sun and of course, food... of the delicious nature. His favorite Eric Clapton song is Cocaine and he gives high marks to Cream's White Room, calling it "pretty awesome."

JH: You are graciously donating your time, resources, expertise and of course, your exceptional food, to the Crossroads Guitar Festival VIP reception. An extremely generous gesture by all accounts. What makes you – especially a chef of your stature – want to do that?

CGM: Well, first of all, I have a big passion for music. And I think music ties in very well with food. I think they're both very creative professions. I don't play a musical instrument, but I collect guitars and am very passionate about rock and roll photographers – especially in the '67 – '73 era. All through my life I've been going to concerts. I'm a big Led Zeppelin fan and a big fan of The Who. I'm passionate about Cream, and I like Eric Clapton & The Yardbirds. It was only a few weeks ago that I really realized how big of an event Crossroads is and how many incredible bands and how many guitarists are there. Getting involved just sort of happened by accident. I had met Pam (Moore) [on the Crossroads staff], a couple years ago and she was just being real professional. Originally they asked me to help them a little bit with this event on Friday night, and I said sure and then we just got along so well and she's very easy to work with so I just sort of volunteered myself to help her find a catering company in Chicago because a lot of my mutual restaurateur friends are based in Chicago. Being in my early 40's, I really want to work with people I like. You know, life is short, and when I find somebody who is passionate and has integrity, I don't mind doing the extra "whatever it takes" to make them look successful, and if I'm part of the success, it's a great thing for the future. That's the way I think, you know?

JH: Music and food…do you consider both art forms?

CGM: Absolutely. The thing is, when I got in the food business 30 years ago, it was because I liked doing it, and I traveled everywhere, and I learned. I worked in Australia, France and spent a great deal of my career in the Far East. Today, a lot of people say chefs are rock stars... you turn on the TV and everybody wants to be a chef or everybody pretends to be a chef, but I got in the business when it was looked upon as being not a high paying position. You worked. Every time everybody else was off having fun, whether it was weekends, or through the night, those of us in the business were putting in long hours, so it really wasn't that sociable of a career for many, many years. It seems like it's only been the last seven or eight years where it's become a passionate profession for me for music and rock and bands. It's always been out there. But food is – even with the organic stuff, the way people eat, and how food seems to be a leader now, it's just a natural combination.

JH: As a guitar collector, are you excited about the Crossroads lineup and are you looking forward to checking out the performances and guitars that will be on display?

CGM: Absolutely. Pam [Moore] has shared some of the stuff with me about Gibson Guitars. I'm extremely excited to see how that's going to look in the tent. That's why I was also involved with the décor of the buffet tables and very involved in making sure the menu reflects what you guys are looking for. Whether it's the color of panettones, how the food reflects the Crossroads theme when we're feeding all your guests.

JH: Describe the cuisine that you will be featuring at the Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010 VIP reception.

CGM: Chicago is known for deep-dish pizzas and hot dogs, so we've obviously got mini-style Chicago hot dogs on the menu because that's what it's all about, but we've also lightened things up with some interesting salads (including a beautiful romaine salad with black olives, tossed with citrus emulsion), and we're going to do some hand-formed burgers and salmon burgers in the evening. We're going to make homemade lemonade. We'll try to reflect summer. There are a lot of tomatoes on the menu and quite a bit of acidity. At rock concerts people sometimes don't eat at all or are eating things that might not be great for them, but there are a lot of things on the menu we thought of to be light and green that will fit nicely into this festival.

JH: How do you feel being a part of a great event that benefits Crossroads Centre Antiqua – a wonderful cause that is so important to Eric Clapton?

CGM: I think it's a real honor for me to be part of that. There are a few things that I've added into the mix, just in keeping up with the times and also things that Mr. Clapton believes in – helping to save the planet and all the green stuff. We'll be serving special filtered water – the same kind I've just put in my new restaurant, Rustica in Newport Beach. It's gone through a reverse osmosis and is completely filtered. There's no plastic, so it won't result in any littering on site. We've got this metal bottle that is completely useable and biogradable, and the water will just keep filtering through to these containers.

JH: Tell me about the new restaurant who just opened in Newport Beach, California. It sounds like things are off to a fantastic start.

CGM: It's in Fashion Island. They just opened up a high-end Nordstroms and my restaurant is actually right next door to it. Much of the concept had been done before I arrived – it had a very big Italian influence. I'm Scottish, I'm not Italian, so I decided that I would use modern Italian cooking techniques with the beautiful seasonal California products. It turned out that after three weeks, this past Saturday night we did close to 500 guests, and we haven't advertised so we feel blessed.

JH: Where did you grow up and how did that influence your cooking?

CGM: I was born in Scotland and left there when I was 10 and migrated to Canada with my family. Living in Scotland and especially my early days in Canada, I wasn't exactly exposed to the best sort of cuisine. I didn't really know much about seasonal food or those kind of products because in Britain and even in Canada, they're known for very heavy food, not like you would eat in California or in some of the warmer climates.

H: Do you return to Scotland often?

CGM: I’ve been back a couple of times. I've still got some aunts and uncles. I love London a lot. I'm trying to work on something for the 2010 Olympics. I don't get back to Scotland as often as I'd like to get back there. Having been based in Vegas, it was easy to get to London, Hong Kong, New York but to get to Scotland, it's still seven hours on the train by the time you get to London, which is not good with two young boys. There's only so much time.

JH: How sparked your interest in the culinary arts?

CGM: Growing up, my father was an electric engineer in Scotland. He drew transformers and when we migrated to Canada as a family, he became very successful in architectural things. He was essentially a draftsman so he tried to push that on me a bit, and I started doing my schooling for that and decided I was too impatient to sit in a chair. It's different today when you have to look at a computer but before that you were sitting there looking at a draft board to draw things, and I said, 'no, I really don't want to do that.' As I was finishing school, I was working part time here and there just in little restaurants. I got a job up at a roadhouse in Northern New York near Buffalo – a place on the Canadian side and that's when chicken wings became very popular so I sat in the back and got a job making two bucks an hour chopping chicken wings in half and throwing them in bags for the cook to cook them. That's how it started. Since then, I've continued to move around -- I worked in Canada for the Four Seasons Hotels and then moved to London and France and back to Toronto. I've been very blessed with working with great people, and people understanding what my vision was, so it's been a very cool ride actually.

JH: What makes cooking fun for you?

CGM: Things that are live. Things you know are going to cook very quickly. I'm not a big fan of taking a long time to cook things. I love BBQ'ing. I love charring things. I love making things taste good. I love seasoning with salt and pepper and a touch of olive oil. I don't like a lot of dairy and gluten. I think you've got to be very conscious nowadays. We've all eaten bad stuff in our lives, and we'll continue to do that, but if you have a chance to eat something healthy, it's nice to have some mango, or a nice ripe melon, or when cherries just come in season, or a bowl of blueberries for breakfast with some granola, I think we should feel we're blessed, you know? I'm happiest when I'm touching food, you know, smelling a mango, making sure the tomato is correct in a spinach salad or whatever it is – I'm very comfortable with that. That's a little bit new for America because you have restaurantiers, you have chefs, you have Icons, you have the guys who are on TV... there's differences, you know? So I like to be one who can just jump into any kitchen and be very familiar with Indian food, Cantonese cuisine, which is my favorite cuisine, Hispanic and Vietnamese. I love dishes you don't really need much of and you say, 'wow, there's something going on,' as opposed to five or six things that make you say, 'what did I just eat?'

JH: Amen to that. Best of luck with Rustica, and in all that you do. Have a great time at Crossroads!

CGM: Thank you. It is a pleasure to be involved. I'm hoping I'm going to have a long-term relationship with Crossroads, and I want to make the weekend extremely successful. I want it to shine for everybody.