Transcript (Full Episode)

Okay, hi I'm Ollie from history 35 60 and experiential learning class at the university of wealth and today i' have the privilege to be interviewing chef ranch food activist and many more things we will learn about Jamie Kennedy Jamie has had a vast journey through the conary industry. Like site a lot about today. So hi Jamie thank you for doing the interview. How are you doing today.

00:25.10
Jamie
I'm well Ollie I'm very pleased to help you out with this. Um, this is it's a topic that needs to be shared. Of course I'm happy to do it.

00:35.93
oorman
Topic. So my first question is um what what made you want to do this this interview. Yeah.

00:41.61
Jamie
This interview. Well um, the invitation was from your prof at Guellf and I I have a little bit of history with colf through Anita Stewart if you met have you heard of Anita Stewart

00:55.15
oorman
I am not.

00:58.50
Jamie
So she was the food laureate at Guelph University for a number of years. She's passed away now. Sadly a couple of years ago um but she she had been I would say you know, kind of like the dwyen of. Of gastronomy in Canada in the last thirty or 40 years she took a keen interest in connecting farmers with chefs and vice versa and kind of unearthing food culture throughout Canada in all the regions.

01:37.33
Jamie
Anyway, So when the when the when the invitation came from grolf I was um I guess my interest was Piqued more than usual.

01:49.31
oorman
Yeah, some tests. Um your quite extensive culinary Journey I've seen all your C beings on your bar withy about your education stuff. So the people who are listening that don't know. Could you just give like a brief outline or just outline your culinary journey and what.

02:06.70
oorman
Gave you your first interest in cooking and what might have inspired you to become a chef.

02:09.38
Jamie
Sure so it is now the year twenty twenty three we are on the cusp of twenty twenty four 2024 will Mark for me 50 years

02:18.26
oorman
Um, goals.

02:28.78
Jamie
Of a journey in in in gastronomy in food culture in Canada um I started in one 74 as an apprentice cook at a hotel in Toronto and um, what got me there was. Already a keen interest in in cooking and what happens around a table when people share food and they're kind of you know, release from their earthly bounds as it were by not needing to prepare dinner themselves. Or go out hunting or shopping or whatever the case may be that there they are around a table and they're being served food. Um and their only their only role is to enjoy it and to enjoy the company and.

03:21.89
Jamie
I Believe there's all kinds of magic that happens around the table when people are provided with good food to eat wine to drink and conversation to have with people So sorry so back there and um.

03:34.95
oorman
So throws I.

03:41.59
Jamie
So that's what led me to go to the windsor arms hotel in one 74 was already a keen interest in high school I had a culinary club that I started with ah another student and it was during those those dinners where we were preparing. We would choose a region from the world and we would. Delved into it and come up with research research that would give us recipes and we would create a meal based on that culture and we were sticking primarily to Europe but we ventured into Mexico into Morocco. To Russia to find inspiration and that was so you know it was like a club like you have in high school you join clubs where we just formed our own and it was called the culinary club so I had that already behind me. Um, and I also had grown up. Watching Julia child on public television and Julia Child of course you must know is ah a very influential figure of the twentieth century in North American awakening to food culture I would say.

04:55.11
Jamie
So those those two so factors were very strong. Um, and so I entered the apprenticeship in 75 and really haven't looked back since I've been consistently employed and have taken my employment.

05:14.97
Jamie
In a direction which has led to entrepreneurial Ism and activism in the sense of using my position of um influence I should I would think um to.

05:24.19
oorman
Um, but of um.

05:33.86
Jamie
Understand for me and through my research, what are important issues to take a stand on and to talk about um to hopefully educate and influence people in a similar direction. So. That was always part of of my work.

05:58.22
oorman
Ah, you're already known through youre using local philosophy So many cookie and sourcing food. What what? where did that come from.

05:59.80
Jamie
Um, yeah.

06:06.00
Jamie
Well, it came from during my apprenticeship. So as I said I started in the mid 70 s and at that time this is obviously post worldl war two in Canada. We had kind of moved away from our own food production and had looked to other places in the world. So there was a kind of ah like a globalization of food sourcing that had we had transitioned to from a local.

06:40.97
Jamie
Foods sourcing program which everyone in the world practiced up until I would say post-world war twoi just because technology allowed us to um, allow. Allow food to travel greater distances and still arrive at the destination in decent enough condition for use and what I think really um, moved the dial though was not so much that part of it but that. The economies of of food in distant places were perhaps better than they were in Ontario and that was reflected in the price that people paid. Um, so in North america there was an expectation that food should be available cheaply for everyone. Um, and so these these kind of economies started to take hold so before you know it we were importing most of our food. And the whole idea of local provenance of food kind of became something that went by the wayside in the latter part of the twentieth Century so when I was.

08:01.72
Jamie
Doing my apprenticeship in cooking I noticed that all the food that but I was using in the hotel even though it was a fancy hotel and charged a lot of money for a restaurant experience that the foods were mostly coming from the us or Mexico or even farther afield and.

08:18.58
oorman
From.

08:20.84
Jamie
It and always kind of well. It didn't really bug me at that point but it it was made me raise my eyebrows. It's like why are we buying food from thousands and thousands of miles away when we have an agricultural area right around. Our city which in my case was toronto so it was it was just confusing to me that this was going on and I also noticed that whenever I went to have meals at my family's houses like my aunts and uncles and grandparents and great aunts and so on.

08:56.36
oorman
Um, please.

08:58.89
Jamie
That they were kind of more of ah, an older tradition that still ah practiced local provenance when they could so in the summertime. For example, they'd always you know opt for local tomatoes and corn and. Peaches and blueberries and things like that they would never. They wouldn't think of buying anything imported and I noticed that these these ingredients when they were had and enjoyed in season when they were ripe and didn't come from very far away that there was this. Taste experience a superior taste experience that I had and so this kind of galvanized me to start moving in that direction and to get behind people that were interested in growing things locally and so on and so forth. Ah, you know they did have a farmer's market in toronto all throughout these these years that I'm talking about ah the st lawrence market but not like there is today practically every single day of the week there's a farmer's market somewhere in the city of Toronto. And this has been the work of the last you know 50 years and I've you know gladly and happy to say that I've been a part of that. Um, yeah, sorry I my life kind of like a long winded answer.

10:27.46
oorman
Not that's fantastic. Um, so first starting that and resourcing local ingredients. How did you go about actually acquiring it. Yeah, did you just approach farmers or local places or.

10:35.94
Jamie
The local ingredients.

10:44.45
Jamie
Yeah, so maybe maybe now we're fast forwarding a few years from that apprenticeship I was not um, in know any position to be influencing the the purchasing pattern of the hotel but when I went on my own. Um.

10:58.91
oorman
4 and.

11:01.77
Jamie
Which I did very soon after that. Um we started looking to find people who were doing things that were outside the box in terms of their their sourcing their ingredients. So I dealt very early on I started to deal with foragers who would bring me mushrooms in the spring and things like fiddleheads and wild leaks and throughout the summer bring me things that were grown by their friends who were organic farmers somewhere outside toronto. And so maybe that was about you know the mid 80 s the mid 80 s I was starting to do this and then we became known like wherever I was um, anybody who was in that world and was looking to sell you know. And join in on some kind of economy they would approach us and come in the back door with stuff and ask me if I wanted to buy it and ah so this started to gain momentum and then in 1989 my colleague and I michael schotleder. Um, who has a farm in Northern Ontario well not so much Northern Ontario but up in Collingwood around there. Um, he and I formed a um, an alliance and it was called knives and forks and it was an alliance between organic growers.

12:34.50
Jamie
Outside of the city of Toronto and chefs in the city of Toronto and the whole thrust of the alliance was to join to learn about each other you know to form new markets within the city for organic produce grown locally.

12:37.19
oorman
Um.

12:52.67
Jamie
And we would hope we would host a symposium each year which put farmers and chefs in the same room and we would you know create a meal and everybody would just talk. And and talk about possibilities like how can we take this further and you know is there a real demand and all of that. So that effort culminated in the formation of what we call the knives and forks market. And we actually had a space donated to us in downtown Toronto and we held the market on on Saturdays so this was the very beginning of the kind of farmers market movement that happened in Toronto in the. All through the 90 s and into the thousands. Um, that was called the eisen pork market. We had a marquee event each year called feast of fields which gave consumers. Ah. The opportunity to come to a rural location but you know buy a ticket and it was an ambulatory feast. It was always in you know, either? Ah, a farmer's fields or a vineyard some rural setting where people would.

14:18.66
Jamie
Need to travel outside of toronto to experience the proximity of farmland to the city and many people didn't even understand that you know that there was there was areas around the city that were ideal for farming some of the best farmland in Ontario exists. In the gta sadly under concrete most of it now and in the whole golden horseshoe so going down to Niagara all around Lake Ontario all the like the green belt if you can think about the green belt that is the. Most prime real estate ah well agricultural land around and as I said sadly it's been mostly developed now and many of the farmers have sold out for development. And we really can't blame them because the developers were offering so much for the land and the the market for them had dwindled since world war ii so many new generations of typical farming families. Didn't take up the rains of farming rather they sold the land or took jobs in the city. So. There's been a huge decrease in in farm production in Ontario but what I was talking about or what I am talking about was always kind of niche. It wasn't mainstream.

15:50.15
Jamie
Um, we knew that and we knew that progress would be slow. It would take a long time. There would be a huge sort of educational component because along with sourcing food locally in Ontario comes a higher price that we need to pay. Because our social contract here in in Ontario is is very good. Um, and therefore people who are working in in fields need to be paid a fair living wage and that drives the cost of the product at at the market higher.

16:26.29
Jamie
Then what you would pay for as I was referring to earlier at the very beginning of the conversation this kind of global sourcing industrially farmed sourcing of produce from around the world which would undercut most most local production. Ah, costs at the market level by a substantial amount and so to convince people to pay a higher price is the hardest thing to do but I'm I'm happy to say that over the last you know 30 years more and more people are understanding that. There are also health benefits to to eating locally. There are certain economic benefits giving employment to people who live in in and around where the food is being grown. Um and the dollars are staying in the local economy. So all of these messages that have been part of our you know activism if you want to call it that are messages that have been slowly but surely heard by people and so the demand for locally grown produce has increased to the point where there are now. You know distribution channels and systems in place that didn't exist 30 or forty years ago for locally grown produce and the price has dropped still not par with what we would pay.

17:57.53
Jamie
For industrially but industrially produced foods from away but still, it's getting closer to parody.

18:04.84
oorman
So how important do you think it'd be for sort of more restaurants and maybe more Canadian restaurants to use your approach.

18:17.40
Jamie
Well, it's interesting because on the restaurant level not in the chains. But in the sort of um, you know 1 off, um, in restaurant culture. There is already in place. It's almost like a. Ah, prerequisite of having ah a small restaurant now you are going to be looking for local produce. You're going to be looking for really good producers of some kind of vegetable. You can brag about that and people people understand that now and you know. For for the purposes of simply taste in a restaurant. Ah if you're a you know, owner operated restaurant and if you're if you happen to be a chef. Um, you're going to want to. Buy local produce but simply because it tastes better. It's just better to use to cook with it's definitely got a better vibe. You know when I'm using local produce I really enjoy the whole process. It seems like more of a. More of a ah spiritual um engagement. Ah when I'm using ingredients from that I've been I know that I've been industrially industrially produced from thousands of miles Away there's no thrill there for me, you know.

19:46.35
Jamie
It's kind of but it's kind of a drag. It's ah yeah, so there all already is embedded in the culture now a connection between locally grown produce and excellence.

20:00.60
oorman
So You've done all of you've written about it and you've done I've seen that you've done some sort of activist stuff and talking about using sustainably in local food. Have you like maybe spoken to other chefs or maybe mentored other chefs. Um, or restaurants or advise other restaurants to to do this.

20:17.88
Jamie
Well, that organization that I was telling you about called knives and forks and that we held annual symposia to discuss these very issues you know on a larger scale than just a conversation between. Couple of like minded people. Um, the word has has gotten out and it's not it wasn't just something that you know was happening in in Southern Ontario in my generation and I happen to be a you know practitioner and somebody interested in it. Wasn't just happening here. It was happening all over North America around the same time. There was kind of ah like ah, an awakening somehow and I think it came from it came from europe you know where that practice of ah. Growing food in the region where you live and and using it and employing people from that region never went away. It didn't disappear after world war two like it did here. Um so the younger generation of chefs.

21:26.86
Jamie
Where there was also an an increase in the awareness of food and food culture of the people so it was kind of inevitable that there was going to be like hey wait a second can't we just instead of importing these these this asparagus from France. Why don't we grow asparagus here like right like why wouldn't we do that I'm just throwing that out as an example, but you know that's kind of what happened and there was this this kind of like moment of introspection I suppose. Where we kind of went wait a second. We don't need to be imitating other cultures anymore. We don't certainly don't need to be buying food from other from faraway places and thinking that it's just going to be better because of that. Ah, so we kind of had to shed that. Inferiority complex really about you know, being very young in the food culture game against a country like France or italy or Spain where we you know we we we looked for for inspiration and and knowledge for so many years and still do.

22:29.10
oorman
Think.

22:39.71
Jamie
I still do I still look to Spain and italy and France because there the the food culture is so embedded in the people. It's so much a part of life there and here it's it's becoming that way. But it's not all, we're not all the way there yet. We need to probably go through a few more generations. But at least now we're we're not depending on importing food from those countries anymore you know for the most part and of course we can't be too dogmatic about that because of the climate we live in. It gives us the option to. We can still you know purchase chocolate let's say or coffee or tea those kinds of things will never go away and I would I would never give them up. Um, but it's about for me, it's about using whatever you can and celebrating whatever you can from the local context. If. It's possible to do. So do it because it's always going to be good. It's always going to be better and yeah.

23:45.20
oorman
So we'll see this this kind of assignment at this interview wanted to focus on you and then and Canadian food and Canadian cooking so outside of where it's sourced from and getting stuff local. What would you say makes a dish canadian.

24:03.83
Jamie
Ah, well outside of sourcing it local. You have to remember? of course you you do realize that Canada is a huge country and regionally there are so many. Climates that exist we have three coastlines we have an indigenous population. We have a population of settlers. You know colonists from all all over the world immigrants from all over the world. Colonists from certain countries. Um, so it's a real mashup right? So I gave up trying to think about dishes that were uniquely canadian many years ago. Because it's it's impossible. The the country is way too big. Um, and there there is. There's there's too much diversity in the geographic diversity and ah, let's just start there start and end there. So what? What to me? what takes the place of trying to identify something nationally is to go to the regions and say you know in British Columbia the spot prawns are incredible and they don't they're not.

25:20.13
oorman
That was.

25:31.48
Jamie
Around anywhere else in Canada and so they are unique to the pacific northwest and they are incredibly delicious and there that's happening there if you go to a place like Winnipeg you look more. Towards um, who settled there in the last couple hundred years and it's a lot of eastern europeans that have settled around Winnipeg and so there's this culture of food that's emerged from that that immigrant that that you know. What's the word I'm looking for um diaspora of of culture from let's say the Ukraine or um Poland or Germany. Ah, that has over Finland's oddly Finland in in Manitoba there's quite a strong finnish culture there and icelandic. You know so those kind of influences on what people eat in those regions. Start to emerge and or if and if you go to Quebec, you're certainly going to have a distinct culture of of cultural food experience that has come from by way of France and then through.

26:58.74
Jamie
Where Quebec is geographically in Canada so close to the ocean lots of wilderness so venison wild things fish these kinds of things present themselves. In in the french part of Canada East Coast Newfoundland what's happened there. The cod fishery was so important so many dishes in the repertoire of newfoundlanders are based on a cod fresh or salted. You know. Um, and it's it's evolved over time but these it's important to identify canadian cuisine as that what was going on in the regions in exact areas at any given time that that started. To identify those foods as traditional for that area and I've given you a couple of examples. But it's it happens all over Canada that way.

28:04.53
oorman
So moving on to to more about more about you and your journey in your career. What what challenges would you say that you face and how did that sort of change what you did or change how you are as a chef.

28:22.93
Jamie
Um, well I think I've always sort of held a very high bar for myself. Um, and I'm always like my personality is such that I needed to kind of have my own shop. It wasn't enough for me to work underneath. Another chef for my entire career and you know I'm I'm by no means criticizing people who do because everybody's different and and people need to find the area where they're most happy and rewarded. Um. But for me, it was ah, always about discovery always about using food as an art form and ah the the pursuit of excellence. So the pursuit of excellence brought me to the the activism part of my work. Ah, raising awareness for producing food in the regions in Canada rather than importing it to establish a cultural identity for that place. So food cultural identity of any any place is really big for me.

29:39.70
Jamie
And I realized that very early on in my career I started to really care about it and but I think it was it came through the art World. You know, kind of coming from a family. Not so much artists. But people who are definitely appreciative of the arts. And food and wine and food culture and wine culture was something that was imbued in me from a very young age as ah as these delights these artful delights cultural delights that.

30:11.34
Jamie
I Started to really enjoy myself and so when I entered into the food world. It was already with this background knowledge of the beauty of of the culture and um.

30:27.40
Jamie
Ah, that coupled with my own desire to have my own shop um set me on a course that meant that I also needed to be ah, an entrepreneur that I needed to be able to you know make a go of it in the business world. Even even if something is coming from an art background. Um, it still has to make it in ah in the business world. Otherwise it's it's It's a moot point as a restaurant has to be able to support itself financially.

31:04.45
Jamie
So you know, tough lesson to learn different part of the brain to exercise as ah as a person more concerned with arts than counting numbers. But nevertheless I had to develop those skills so that was probably. Particularly the most challenging thing for me in the early part of my career. So let's say the first thirty years um I was very fortunate because I was well known from a young age. To be doing things a little bit outside the box. You know I was known for being an innovator I was known for quality I was known for integrity and so these kinds of things. Contributed to the reputation that I had certainly in Toronto and that's kind of spread more than toronto as time went on but it held me in good stead for my restaurants in toronto they were well attended and I was pretty busy. All the time and so not having any kind of business background that really helped really helped that the restaurants were popular and um, yeah, so then you know, whatever.

32:32.80
Jamie
As what happens with any entrepreneur at any given time in their trajectory There might be a downfall or a setback or whatever you want to call it and I experienced that and I didn't have the the business acumen to see it coming or to. Know what to do when it did happen and so in 2008 or or so 2008 or 9 I nearly lost everything with respect to what I'd built up in my restaurant world with my businesses. Um, and I I can say 1 thing and I'm most you know, entrepreneurs and employers um of of sort of small to small to medium size business which mine was um. When things go south they move south pretty fast. So when when you're not doing things properly like in the sense of your you don't have a good business model for whatever reason it's it's not sustainable. Ah, in any given time I didn't have the vision to analyze that when it was happening to me and not everybody does you know, but from that experience. Um.

34:04.25
Jamie
Which happens like as I said in 2009 and I'm still around and active and it's now 2023 um the amount of learning I did on that side of the equation about.

34:21.81
Jamie
Understanding business and knowing how things work in ah in a to be fiscally responsible I've learned so much in the lab in that period of time. So that's what is that 15 years

34:39.93
Jamie
So I learned more in the last fifteen years than in the previous 35 you know about business and thankfully and so I don't regret any of that happening to me. It was unfortunate but you know this this is the ah.

34:53.31
oorman
Thanks.

34:58.16
Jamie
Reality If you're an entrepreneur and you're kind of always flying by the seat of your pants. Um I was doing that I was you know as I said I was kind of like at the beginning of this whole restaurant wave and.

35:17.96
Jamie
There wasn't there weren't a lot of checks and balances in place for me. Um, and like I said for the first thirty years or so I was very fortunate because I was super busy and that probably excused a lot of kind of mistakes that I was making in spite of yeah. So my sex mistakes my success was in spite of the business mistakes that I was making I can certainly stand behind the ah the integrity and the quality of the experience for the diner and that's those are tangible reasons why people come back, but the ah. The the downside about you know, practically losing everything um, was simply because I wasn't experienced enough in the in fiscal sense.

36:05.61
I've bounced back? Um, and I'm certainly happy but that my my company is still whole like I never ever declared bankruptcy. Which I think in the in hindsight so or in retrospect is a miracle small small miracle but you know that means that um if I had the energy and the drive I Could you know, go back at it and.

37:31.13
Jamie
But right now it's I'm at a different stage in my life. You know I'm sixty six years old and so the prospect of getting back into the restaurant game you know and and being responsible for a team of people employees and so on is really not that attractive.

37:50.80
oorman
Now.

37:50.56
Jamie
To me at this stage I think I'd rather you know talk to people about my experience and like this like this kind of thing. Um because it this you know and it's been beautiful. Like I said I have no regrets. It's been I've had an amazing career and it's it's completely possible. And I would recommend it for people. It's a wonderful, wonderful choice to make are you? What are you interested in Ollie are you are you interested in cooking or are you interested in the you know the. Hospitality world or is this something. It's just more of an academic pursuit.

38:30.77
oorman
Um, I mean it's kind of more an academic pursuit but I um I have an interest so I can't cook very well. But I do love an interest in it like I've but not like that deeper interest like I've seen cooking shows and like stuff like that. But. Haven't really like I already experiment with cooking because I'm not very good.

38:53.10
Jamie
Yeah, that's cool I mean these days you don't really have to cook. There's so many restaurants out there and yeah that to anyway. So what's what's the next question.

39:10.40
oorman
Um, so just I guess to end out just I guess some quick fire stuff to know about you. Um, do you have like a favorite cookbook.

39:26.31
Jamie
Um I don't have a favorite cookbook My my favorite cookbooks are reference books mainly So they're they don't They're not typically like ah a cookbook that you'd see at to.

39:42.63
Jamie
At the cookbook storees or any bookstore. Really, you got the kind of orders online. Um, but the reference books I love them. There's one that that was produced in France called la rue gastrona mic and it's It's basically an encyclopedia of french cuisine over the last two hundred years you know you look as if as someone trained in french cooking. That's that was my training as an apprentice I was trained in the in the standards of the french kitchen. Ah, when I have a question and I want to research it and I look it up I want to look up a dish or I want to look up a garnish or something in the ah la rue gastronami I look it up and then. I I find what I need but then I wind up staying in the in the in the book for the next hour if I have time because it's just so fascinating like you you go, you go to look up some garnish for a fish dish and you wind up. You know, learning about. How that fish was originally even came into into being and why it became something that restaurant chefs wanted to use and how it was possible for restaurant chefs in Paris to receive this fish when it was you know fished in Brittany which was you know.

41:12.95
Jamie
Three hundred kilometers away or more at a time when transportation like we just don't even think about it now that's no problem. But when these things are happening anyway, you know what? I'm saying like when you start looking at it historically and and culturally. It's just endlessly fascinating.

41:32.11
oorman
Yeah, so what when you were still in your Asrons running irrationions. What was your most popular dish.

41:43.48
Jamie
Um, um, well I it's hard to say exactly? Um I'd say that protein is still really big. In people's minds when they go out to a restaurant. They want to have a piece of meat. So probably if you analyze what people ordered from my menus over the years it would be the meat category that would be the most ordered maybe secondly set. Follow. By fish. Um, and then now because there's such a huge movement towards plant based eating vegetarian ism is huge maybe has taken the place of fish in terms of what's. Descending order of what's ordered most in a restaurant specific dishes. Ah I've had a few over the years um if anything is kind of um.

42:57.20
Jamie
I know resonates with people. It winds up in in one of my cookbooks. But if you looked at my cookbook the last one I published was do you have them is are they in the library there at Qualf. So if you look at the one that was published in 2014 for example.

43:09.29
oorman
I Believe there are some. Ah.

43:16.00
Jamie
There's a lot of dishes in there that were kind of trademark dishes if you want so you can see that.

43:19.20
oorman
No, what was your favorite dish to cook.

43:28.22
Jamie
I Really enjoyed making fish dishes um like right off the top fish would be my go to is most pleasurable to cook with um, followed by. Ah.

43:33.13
oorman
Um, ah.

43:44.61
Jamie
Soups I Love to ah you know, bring my knowledge of of cooking to creating flavor profiles that are deceptively deep and leading. But the diner wondering how if something like this vegetable broth can taste So. There's so much depth and breadth to it. It doesn't. Not watery. You know it's not just quickly made so there are a number of processes that happen over time to create a dish like that and I really enjoy doing that. The distillation of cooking I suppose.

44:39.92
oorman
And then finally before I ah close out was if you weren't a chef. Do you have any idea where you would have been or any thoughts on any other careers.

44:50.59
Jamie
Um I think I at some point in the conversation mentioned that I came back cooking through the arts like an appreciation for art. So when i. It's funny. You ask that question because as a seventeen year old trying to figure out the next stage of my life because I finished high school I'd graduated high school and I was considering this career in cooking. I was also considering a career as ah, a fine arts photographer I'd done a lot of photography work in high school and you know was had my own dark room and all the equipment to make photographs.

45:42.55
Jamie
And I had a real ah curiosity and passion about it actually um, some of the um you know, mid-century.

45:57.33
Jamie
North american photographers and european photographers fascinated their work fascinated me and I was always struck by how much of an art photography is and there was an argument way back when that photography wasn't an art that. How could it be an art when you just have a camera and you record something on film. Um, and there's no skill to like there's nothing painterly about it. There's nothing in. You know you're you haven't been impressed by anything. It's just but that all that's not true. You know you just have a camera to record something that that you're attracted to anyway, that's my answer is that it would have been a fine art photography. But I was interviewing for a position that would have taken me in that direction and I didn't get the job and I did get the job as a cook as an apprentice so there was a fork in the road at age 17.

47:03.32
oorman
Fair enough. No well godless.

47:12.92
Jamie
And I chose the ah the one that led me to cooking.

47:15.17
oorman
Okay, and so thank you for sharing me I'd also like to mention the University Of Guellf department of history and maclarth and library for making this interview possible. In addition, we are grateful with the support of Carl Ritchie and Curtis sir head of archival and special collections. Just.

47:32.41
Jamie
Um, amazing. Okay.