How Does Chef Matt Come up with His Unique Dishes?
Matt Weishampel, Bite Restaurant and Catering's Chef, shares insights into the inspiration and creative process that goes into creating a seasonal menu. His focus, as always, is on the freshest, most lush tastes of the season--and buying ingredients grown as close to "home" (Bite) as possible!
Summertime, a Chef's Playground
By Matt Weishampel
Nothing gets me more excited about food than summertime. The cold and rainy days of winter become an afterthought and the redundant cycle of layering on and peeling off clothes finally comes to a full stop. The rain becomes a welcomed guest and new life shoots up from the earth streching toward the sun as if it were constantly reaching out to embrace the warmth. Trees gather back all of the leaves lost in previous seasons, animals bring their new offspring to meet the warmth and gardens bear fruits and vegetables as if to say thank you for chasing the short lived days of winter away.
Summertime is what I like to call "a chefs playground." Inspiration is reignited through the scent of honey suckle vines, colorful boquets of wildflowers, buzy bees, and even the occasional "lightnin' bugs" (which have seem to become extinct over the time I've had to grow up). Some of my favorite parts of the day are recieving emails from local farmers consisting of a list of new produce that has become available throughout the week. I have to sometimes corral my thoughts and remind myself that I can't possibly buy out all of the farmers crops and turn our kitchen into a mad scientist's lab of edible treats. Instead I am forced to highlight a small handfull of those possibilities, put them in print and call it our "New Summer Menu."
When I take the time to write a menu, like a songwriter, I have to be "moved." There is so much more thought that goes into a menu than "hot sellers" and trending ideas. For me, a menu is a celebration of the season. It is an extension of my personality compiled into a few select items and put in front of you to experience and celebrate as well. It is my hope that when you bite into that heirloom tomato or pick up the duck confit slider with bluberry bbq sauce, you will experience what summer means to me. Taste the inspiration so-to-speak. From the first moment I fell in love with food, it has been my goal to move you through taste the same way you are moved through sound when music is playing.
We are excited for you to try our summer dinner menu. My hope is that it will captivate you in the same way that the summer season has and always will captivate me, to inspire you to think fresh, and motivate you to try someting new. You owe it to yourself to sit back, relax and not have to Think about food but to just Enjoy it.
Take a culinary vacation. After all, that is what summer is all about here at Bite. Let us celebrate the warmth together.
-Chef
