About The Author

A Long Journey

I began working in restaurants when I was 17, starting as a bartender at a small bar attached to the oldest operating inn in the country. I was filling out an application for busboy at the inn when I was approached by the manager of the bar. who enticed me to lie about my age and work for him instead, to which I readily agreed. I met my first Chef when I walked in the back door of the Inn's kitchen with a Marlboro hanging jauntily from my lips. There I encountered the Chef, Michael Gagne, wearing a bloodied apron and wielding a huge curved blade while cutting a quarter side of beef. He had a great beard and intense dark eyes and his head was topped with a floppy toque blanche. He asked me if I worked there and when I replied yes informed me that if I ever walked into his kitchen again smoking a cigarette I would leave smoking it "out the other end"

  When I recovered from my fear of this man I began to study his methods and became fascinated by his air of command and his fantastic knowledge of food. I decided college was not for me and eventually took a position at another restaurant nearby, Fiddler's Green, where I began as a bread and pasta maker for my first true mentor, Chef David Fye. David infused in me an excitement and passion for food that has never left me. I rose through the ranks of that kitchen and eventually became the Chef by the time I was 25. Later I would Chef in various types of restaurants, work for a billionaire as a private Chef, and encounter many wonderful influences along the way that shaped my sense and knowledge of food. I always felt I was a humble working Chef who simply loved to feed people, and I had no desire to be a prima donna seeking to make himself more important than the food.

 I returned to school some  25 years later, eager to see food and eating in a different context. I wanted to understand the implications of this endless consumption that happens everywhere, all the time, across the globe. I was driven by the desire to understand the larger cultural implications, and mostly to address the inequities that exist, why some dine in luxury while others starve. My fervent desire is that someday I may provide one minute piece of that puzzle, advance our understanding one tiny step, through research, influence and most of all, compassion.

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Thanks for reading,

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John G. Power

December 25, 2017

There are a lot of connections between Autism and food choice, as many children with Autism Spectrum Disorder can be very selective about what they eat often leading to nutritional deficiencies.

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Many different people around the globe equate food with things other than sustenance such as religion, feeling that the combination of food consumption and spirituality enriches their life. Here is a video in which a Buddhist monk is asked about his relationship to what he eats and how that ties in with his religion.

Eating Local has become a common slogan but is not always very easy. Across America the local food movement has grown supported by a patchwork of small farmers.

This video is just fun, as the study of food should be!

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Thanks for your interest in Cibo Cogitas. For more information, feel free to get in touch.

jgaillard@live.com