Recipe for success

The man behind the menu at Cottey College says a natural ability, luck and hard work blended together to help him build a career as a self-taught chef.

NEVADA, Mo. -- A young Michael Richardson stood before the refrigerator, assessing its contents, hoping he was up to the task before him. The chef at the East Gloucester, Mass., restaurant was gone on an extended errand, customers were coming and there was no soup -- a vital staple of the restaurant's menu.

Carrots. Fresh thyme. Cream. They seemed like appropriate ingredients; so, starting with these he went to work, eventually ending up with a soup that one customer liked so well she brought him a gift, saying whoever had made the soup deserved the recognition. On that fateful day, Richardson learned he had a natural knack for cooking.

So began the culinary career of the man who has now been Cottey College's director of food services for 14 years, bringing an ever-evolving menu of tasty treats and succulent staples to the students, staff members, and occasionally to folks in the extended community who sample his recipes and made-from-scratch works of culinary art at special events.

He was a financial partner in the restaurant where a soup became a career -- not the cook at all. Richardson has no formal schooling in the culinary arts -- he's self taught, which he admits takes years of dedication, trial and error, and practice; and an active, consistent effort to learn from others and to keep an eye on trends.

After leaving East Gloucester came a seafood restaurant in Charleston, S.C.; work as a sous chef at a French restaurant, and a tour of duty with an international caterer in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

"We would work for all kinds of people. There were beautiful estates, where we would serve the meal, with the servers in white gloves. There could be a plated meal for 200 people." Richardson said. The experience also familiarized him with cuisine from around the world, providing him with another layer of expertise he would eventually put to use in the kitchen at Cottey.

Perhaps his favorite experience, though, was working on the El Presidente yacht.

On the yacht, he served a dinner to 30 restaurateurs from Rome, Italy.

"And here Iwas, an American kid in my 20s. I researched the cuisine of the area. I really loved it. The head chef was a big bear of a guy. He came up and gave me a big hug," in appreciation of the meal, which had brought a taste of home to the guests, who were missing their homeland.

From there he moved to Dallas, and worked at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, a restaurant with a celebrity draw. "That's where I learned what fivestar cooking is supposed to look like," Richardson said.

Opportunity knocked once again, and Richardson developed a line of flavored nut products. Sales at the business, at first a tiny purveyor of pecans, grew to 60,000 pounds of pecans and 40,000 pounds of almonds in the fourth year. But soon afterwards, the wholesale price of the

See CHEF, Page 3A