to welcome to in the c suite where we provide tips tools and resources for small business owners entrepreneurs and other professionals who are thinking about starting their own businesses i'm excited for today's guest he's an executive chef and he has been featured on food network's chopped but he's taken some time to come and share with us and i hope you grab a pen and pad because he's got some stories that we're going to share and there's some tips for the second half of the show so without any further here i'm going to let everyone know that we met and connected on linked in thank you for the invitation i had an opportunity to preview your profile and it hit me i realize i haven't had an executive chef or my show before i know he's been on the big stage i've been in i know he's been on national television but i want to ask him anyway would he please come and share with our audience because even though was a fantastic show we didn't get a chance to really hear too much from you so thank you for making the time to be here i am honored to be in the c suite thank you so well much i was privileged to have you here and i'm excited about the information that we're going to share before we get into too much of the cooking i like to uncover the story behind the face yeah i know they call you the bishop yes eleanor we are yes i want to know a little bit about your back story where you came from where you started how you landed into the business so you want to take us back to kind of where you grew up and sure well i was raised of beautiful small town in bolton north carolina by my grandparents that's where i harness my art there was a time when my grandfather big burly man had happened to get sick and my grandmother had to return to work and for a whole summer i began to cook breakfast lunch and dinner for my grandfather and during that time i grew up passion for just watching him become healthy again and every day now it's like i'm feeling and no matter what and every day is just passion seeing him cover an area and it just grew into my love so you actually were bringing him back to life through food yes that's been passed but i'm just saying just to bring him in never see him again and yes make him stronger there's nothing like watching a strong person kind oh and frail yes i saw especially as a child yes that's hard to see also that's kind of where it started did you start cooking and did you do any formal training or was it really just right there was just i watch what happened i could watch my grandmother i shot her mostly and just watched and watched and watched and i was the only boy literally let into the kitchen my grandfather would let no animal man was supposed to be outside in the field cutting grass things of that nature and here i am in the kitchen where grandma but you know it's funny because my my mother's family is from north carolina as well they grew up on a farm yes your family grew up on a farm so you know we head chickens and all that stuff was right there no i didn't live there but we used to go in and visit my grandparents and you know seeing them make fresh food yes and you know knowing that the food was growing right there on the land you don't forget that so you kind of come up knowing that ok i need to eat fresh vegetables and all those kinds of things and they're healthy our grandparents live a lot my grandmother is still living ok yeah my grandm ninety seven years old they just were healthy yes people and so they kind of passed that down to us so how well did you stay in north carolina did you stay there as an adult as well i moved when i was fourteen fifteen years ago i moved to new jersey with my pal parents and then eventually i met this young lady went to cullen every school and fell and do a process fell in love and had three beautiful kids well now what part of jersey did you land in when you came with a summary strength from north carolina you remember i'm a country boy right really really really southern i would climbing trees things of that nature hunting and i landed in a beautiful city called newark new jersey doing that two totally different world it was life changing one of the best things probably could happen to me because i always wanted to see big city life but i didn't know i was going to actually live big city life is one thing seen in living is two different things yeah so absolutely and so i don't know people understand because there's such despair worlds when you're in  f and you've got the grass and the tree and then you're in the city just because you're told people think that you know how to move effortlessly between those two worlds two totally different worlds to adapt to how was it  comprehend that that was a bit rough for me especially a young man who was used to gentleman walking up to they would say good morning say how are you the first thing you see was i contact in hand and that's what i was used to but after a while you know you learn to yourself you had to be some formal training how did i start a cooking in a small place called swenson's and ice cream burgers that kind of place and i realized i really like this while this is something i would love to do so little move a little forward a little bit and i ended up in queens new york going to cover every school in manhattan and working in jersey city that was a different world  i followed my girlfriend that now my now wife to queens and we ended up i would literally get up four o'clock in the morning catch the seven train them to port authority because they each rained out the world trade cent catch the path train to jersey city work from six am to about one pm do that every single day for about maybe six or seven months and that's how i ended up accomplishing my products school yeah you know when you get focused on where we're going yes we get that tunnel vision yes oh yes and you i would imagine so that ok i'm in newark new jersey now ye but i'm getting me to go that way yes and i because i can i can kind of visualize that schedule been there done that yes and i know what that is a you are just like dead set on i'm getting ready to accomplish that goal i don't know where i'm going to land but i'm not going to stay in this particular place there's something else that i want so how long did you have to do that how long do you stay in colon there is good best part about my school it was a it was a certificate program and it was nine hundred hours plus it was a year plus nine hundred extra hours that's what it was extra extra hours and the hours that you literally you get to go train for free and you can work under some of the best chefs there out there and you can use that as one of the best tools in the world and that's what i did i was able to work with a man called clifford goodman which is now an executive chef in long island but at that time he was a two star chef atop a six is in manhattan and he changed my life he  he he showed me things that he showed me things that i could do with things that i already knew for example like things such as what i found or what castle a was castle a is sausage and and beans this is african american male in fine dining doing that era and it was a lot of fun yeah it would be and you know we're going to talk about this fine dining because you know i talk about this a little bit off line what i love about having an executive chef here i think it exposes people to some of the food in five star restaurants that a lot of people especially in this day and age who are selling out that kind of money to go to a five star restaurant what you want to eat yes like five store right so i think what i got excited about when i saw you want chopped i was like i want to get him here so that we could talk about it share some tips and we'll do this on the other side of the break the people can eat like that so i find a way to do it that won't break the bank any suggestions on just what people can get good food in this day and age and this is the end here the farmer's market is a great place to go any reputable grocery store grocery store chains you matter what i never really paid attention i love wegmans but i didn't i've never looked at it from that perspective i go in and know what i'm getting and i leave i think the next time i go i'm going to pay a little bit more attention it'll be lovely to everything that there was a journey like i'm curious because you top of the success was different it was because i came from new york food hotel management and that my my palate parts by peers all came from cia and just and wales so that competition was really steep but i had my passion i love what i did and no matter what i stay right there with i'm still very good friends with all of them right now and all of them must executives the best part about with the government he trained everyone in that kitchen to be an executive chef any one of us could a redneck it what was the restaurant business like at the time and how long did you stay did you stay at the top of the sixty's or did you move on somewhere else after top of the sixe ventured on to chart house and we hop in new jersey now that was of course just place right on the water everything happening lots of weddings lots of that's where my love for catering display was a big ice sculptures of the rock it was almost it was the centerpiece he's already spent on that and yes i did was access going on in the ninety's but it was beautiful it was just so beautiful to see that display i want to talk a little bit more about what it was like in how you kind of transitioned from now your chart house yet and you eventually had your own restaurant yes i did talk about that let's take a quick break first to hold that thought like everybody stay to have a phenomenal conversation with executive chef james graham when we come back on the other side of the break we're going to talk a little bit more get a little bit more in depth about the restaurant industry and we're going to share some tips with you so stay tuned everybody will be right back introducing simply supreme ready to drink super bowl all natural dairy and gluten free be sure to sign up for specials in great deal marketing can skyrocket traffic to your website and your business from i catch in promotional ads and client testimonials to whether they are training series that showcase your expertise give your brand  visit staging exacts dot com today get your show me air get your business on the map all areas especially when you're owning your own restaurant it's a different world is not like you just pan the bills off to someone else when the bills come in they asked me along to you so even if i'm totally different world they're totally different world but i wanted to hone in on that and after trying to house i did corporate america then i did corporate america for about seven years and then i opened up my own restaurant and corporate america i not for her i would not use a computer the way i did so going to corporate america the shops and restaurants back then we didn't really have computers and i offices but when i went to sit back so every single one of us had a computer and we had to use it we had to learn excel we had to learn word we had to learn everything and thing about which was great for my own business so it was like class without paying for it yeah i got it that's what i love what kind of restaurant did you open talk a them all that's that's the thing and trying to couldn't you know used to choose when when you when you know i can do something great you know some asian things great i'm going to serve those great ones i could i'm not going to go do something i can't do right so any of those certain french i don't like and you can intertwine french items and is about anything special the way you make your sauces plate reason taishan those things that nature and southern i'm a country boy like you menu i'm sorry what was your journey like there because when you're talking about running a restaurant owning a restaurant that becomes a financial consideration you know what that that look like and what that if you don't mind sharing i mean i want to this or this so it's really kind of a story but what was that like going to ownership long as your projections are you know what even if your project is on point you can never ever say that you know what this is exactly what's going to happen god just happened to bless me that every single projection that i did for that restaurant came to pass down to the last man of i surpassed the first  month and i know it was a blessing do you chalk it up lessons learned that you very much so do you think that some of the things that you learned working at the restaurant helped you when you got the chopped did you feel like there was or did you any all let me rephrase it did you learn anything really one chopped any lessons learned from that experience the best part about shop was seeing other people that are just in the same fight right but you're not alone right no matter what and that's why i love to tell my story to let everyone else know you're not alone someone else just it looks beautiful blights and glamour and gleaming all that stuff going on guess what there was a price to pay to get to that li images of the meals that you prepared and i was like ok we're going to share some tips with people let's talk a little bit about some tips for healthy alternatives busy professionals busy parents everybody is on the go to things that you know that you won't get offended at the end of the day with grilled version of the beautiful al of oil salt and pepper that's all you need don't put all this extra stuff on it isn't going to start changing their mix of the actual nutrients inside the vegetables but things like that kale chips sweet potatoes things like that mike might have a daughter which actually prepare her mil's everything for five days a week wow and she does this she learned this days ago and the first thing i walk past is a whole shelf of dried fruits so instead of picking up the bag of potato chips yes go down the aisle pick up a bag of dried mango yes dry papaya cut they're all there they're all there they're all  attention and everybody everyone for get raisins yeah i was raised on raising it but it has like fallen off somewhere but it was like the original dried fruit you know as you talk about that i remember raisin special meal and cereal yes like that list let's start talking about the children before we wrap this up some parents have challenges getting their children to eat healthy yes what kinds of things can they do to start getting your children to think about healthier food and start introducing it into their lives i say put it on the table create that fruit bowl that we had when we were kids if the bananas get the oranges get they have a i was at the pros market again the other day two bags for seeing yes something healthy for you with a while you think eat with your eyes yeah so if a kid wakes up mommy daddy before you can even get to us he's already passing right he's grabbing something y he's grabbing so instead of him grabbing the pop tart he can grab the orange like one of the things that i get you shared with me is you're going to kind of expand upon that experience that you had on of the food network yes and you want to take that to the next level start sharing some things through a book yes let's talk about that before we wrap up this show let's use this opportunity to create some buzz here you start this book that's coming out the book is called revolution a walk with the art it's my memoirs and the recipes are about the time and place i was at at that time so hybrids are you telling your single story yes and sharing recipes other recipes coming from yes growing up  that you have on the horizon you're thinking about maybe doing some classes and yes you've got some other initiatives on the horizon that i'm excited about yes i have quite a few things that's going to be happen actually in the next month or so we are those meals that i was just talking about i am starting to partner up with someone to actually start those protests i've been asked this a million times can shefford campaign here can we please chef what do you have time right chef i love your food i just want to prepared and i just have it for me thursday through sunday right just so i am that excited i am breaking down i actually was planning this over the weekend and actually have a meeting tomorrow and i'm writing to start finalizing this decision congratulations not just for your soap opera people like us now we can come and just get that stuff because you know that's a time factor yes and we would love to prepare yes you thank thank you for your candor i'm excited about what's on the horizon anything that i can do to help spread the word i'm so glad you were here thanks to help just kind of start the trajectory of what's to come so thank you again for being here thank you my goodness i hope that you took some copious notes but if you didn't reach out to executive said graham he gave his contact information i am so excited that he was able to be here today so that any further delay i'm going to have to wrap up the show thank you to the sponsors for helping bring this show to all the viewers thank you to printing community television which i sometimes forget to thank which is where we actually tape our shows and if you have any questions about anything else that we're doing here