THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 3, 1995 TAG: 9508310071
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CONNIE SAGE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines
WITH A WORN 20-dollar bill in his pocket and a Polish master chef's diploma in his suitcase, Edward Nowakowski arrived in the land of fast-food plenty like thousands of immigrants before him.
Like them, he knew no English and no one in America. And like them, he quickly learned that a picture of Andrew Jackson on a U.S. greenback wouldn't even get him a ride to the Polish neighborhoods of Brooklyn.
Undaunted, he used the global language of gesturing to convince a cabby to give him a ride. ``I see on a window of a meat market a Polish sausages sign,'' Nowakowski recalled. ``I give the owner my luggage as a deposit to pay $27 for the taxi. Then I feel OK - at least I can speak to the people in my language.''
Over the next two decades, Nowakowski made himself known in a world that knows no borders: good food. ``Chef Ed,'' as he's called, has been executive chef in Manhattan, Dallas, Minneapolis and Norfolk.
He has been amused by America's love of black bean soup and redeye gravy and frustrated with our penchant for ``pre-fabricated'' food and shortcuts in the kitchen.
Since arriving at the downtown Marriott in Norfolk in February, Nowakowski has whisked the bread-pudding mix off the shelves, dumped the frozen food and banished the monosodium glutamate.
``Even the fresh fruit was already cubed and packaged,'' he said. ``The first thing I get rid of was that cubed fruit. And why pay someone else to stuff Chicken Kiev? Everything now has to be done from scratch.''
Nowakowski's perfectionism in the kitchen was drummed into him as a young student in hotel-restaurant school in Poland. In his first year, students had to cook and serve dinner for government dignitaries in the centuries-old town hall in Breslau. No more than eight feet from Nowakowski was Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
``I was preoccupied with what I had to do,'' Nowakowski recalled. ``I was scared to look in his face.''
Another time, Nowakowski was one of 40 cooks in a mobile kitchen during a military exercise.
``I never forget. Polish prime minister (Wojciech) Jaruzelski - at that time he was general of the army - and marshal (Andrey) Grechko from the Soviet Union, who were toasted by 50 waiters with champagne and guns were fired off. The general was a small man, like a little boy. Grechko was real big.''
Still, Nowakowski was drawn to the United States.
``The U.S. is everything,'' he said in his starched white uniform, his accent heavy, his demeanor serious. ``Anything you want to learn, you can do it here.
``I was working in France and Germany. I heard a lot about the U.S. I heard a lot about how beautiful it is. You have all cultures here. I wanted to come and see.''
He started as a butcher in New York and moved to a charcutiere - ``the person who does the fancy stuff with meat, fish'' - at a restaurant and later at the Hyatt Hotel. The owner asked him to go to Dallas to open the Four Seasons Hotel restaurant.
``When I came to Dallas, I was under the impression, `What happened to this town? Everyone left.' Dallas was dead at 7 p.m. New York is 24 hours.'' After three years, Nowakowski moved to Minneapolis as executive chef of the Registry Hotel.
He jumped at the chance to design his own kitchen at the new Hilton Hotel in Norfolk. When the management changed four years later, Nowakowski briefly worked in Chicago before returning to Hampton Roads to run the kitchen at the Holiday Inn and Conference Center in Hampton.
He left there in 1993 to open his own restaurant in Virginia Beach, the Bistro Rotisserie on South Independence Boulevard. There, everything was cooked over Canadian wood charcoal.
But the restaurant folded a year and a half later. ``I spent a lot of money on that restaurant and lost a lot of money on that restaurant,'' he said.
He went back to the Hilton until the Marriott asked him to take charge of its Norfolk kitchen.
Then, Nowakowski cleaned house. ``They cooked scrambled eggs in a pan over the steamer. I said, `What? That's not the way to do it.' I saute, I butter - that's the best, most tasty way. Steamed is like mixing eggs with water.''
A good chef, he said, must be dedicated. ``You have to like what you do. You have to build excitement in the kitchen with new things, and cook from scratch. In my career, I find out many cooks don't know the basics. They just open the box. Now we do fresh stuff. Some in the kitchen couldn't take it, so they left.''
Nowakowski, after living in more U.S. cities than many Americans, has the paperwork completed to become an American citizen. He hopes to have a U.S. passport by the time he visits Poland next year. It will be his first trip home.
``My mom, she's pretty old. I talk to her. I write to her. It costs a lot of time and money to go back. In my profession it's not easy to do.''
His mother taught him to make everything from scratch, including noodles and pastries.
Raised on the mountains in the southern part of Poland, Nowakowski was 5 before he first saw a car. His family had no electricity, no running water.
``The people in this country have it easy, especially the young people,'' he said. He likes most the freedom that comes from living in the United States. He likes the taxes least.
Nowakowski and his wife, also from Poland, live in a townhouse in Virginia Beach. On weekends, he makes traditional Polish dishes like pierogi, beet soup or his Chocolate Walnut Cake, for friends.
And on weeknights? Chef Ed goes home to his wife's cooking. ILLUSTRATION: RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff color photos
Nowakowski has been executive chef in Manhattan, Dallas, Minneapolis
and Norfolk. He's frustrated by American's penchant for packaged
foods.
In Poland, Nowakowski cooked for Khrushchev and other dignitaries.
He came to the United States with $20 in his pocket.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY CHEF POLAND by CNB