Talking with Minnesota's James Beard honorees: Wayne Kostroski

Wayne Kostroski (and requisite hairnet), inside his busy Franklin Street Bakery in Minneapolis.

Monday evening promises to be a memorable one for Wayne Kostroski. It's when the James Beard Foundation will formally honor him as its 2010 Humanitarian of the Year at its annual black-tie gala at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City's Lincoln Center.

Kostroski, co-owner of Cuisine Concepts (Franklin Street Bakery and Bar Abilene, as well as the former Goodfellow's and Tejas), has been a volunteer in hunger relief organizations since the 1980s. When the Super Bowl came to the Twin Cities in 1992, he founded Taste of the NFL, which quickly grew into an annual event (and spawned related events), raising awareness and much-needed financial support for food banks across the country. He spoke with me last week from a room overlooking the massive bread-baking operations at his Franklin Street Bakery.

Star Tribune: How did you find out that the James Beard Foundation was naming you its 2010 Humanitarian of the Year?

Wayne Kostroski: I got a call from Susan Ungaro, the president of the foundation.

That must have been some phone call.

It was a voicemail, and she said, I want to talk to you about something at the James Beard Foundation, can you get back to me at your earliest convenience? And I thought my dues were late, or something, and I'm thinking, Oh great, the president is calling me, don't they have a membership department that can harass me on this? That was my first reaction. I was able to get back to her, and she told me, and I think my first reaction was, Are you sure? [laughs]. I've gone [to the awards] every year over the past eight years, I've maybe missed one or two, but I remember sitting there, looking at this award, and the lifetime achievement award, and the Who's Who awards and thinking, Wow, what a cool industry we're in, and I'd look at some of the past winners and think, Wow, that's pretty amazing. Anyway, she said, Yes, we're sure [laughs]. We said goodbye, I hung up the phone, and it still didn't sink in for a while. I was thinking about the previous winners. . .

. . .Ben and Jerry. I said all this to a friend of mine, who told me, That's pretty good company to be in. And I said, Yes, it certainly is. But it still seems wierd, and it's going to be even more weird five years from now when people go down the list of past winners and see Paul Newman, Ben and Jerry and . . . .Wayne Kostroski....who? What the heck? Some Polish guy from Wisconsin? [laughs]. I'm particularly excited that it's a year in which Minnesota is so well-represented. Michelle [Gayer, of the Salty Tart], Alex [Roberts, of Restaurant Alma], Isaac [Becker, of 112 Eatery] and Lenny [Russo, of Heartland], and of course Tim [McKee of La Belle Vie] winning last year, it's a little more meaningful, and exciting, that there is a larger group from Minnesota being represented, because Chicago owned the Midwest for so many years. We're not there yet, we're not a Chicago, but there are some really cool people doing cool stuff here, both culinary wise and philanthropic- wise.

How does it feel to be recognized in this way?

It's very humbling, but it's also very inspiring. What's inspiring is that this will provide the opportunity for Taste to be introduced to a whole new segment that will be interested in what we do. Taste has been pretty successful thus far, but now I have a shorter introduction with anyone involved with a James Beard event, from the sponsors, to the chefs to the participants. Now, instead of saying, Hi Rick, my name is Wayne Kostroski, I'm a restaurateur in Minnesota, and I work on this thing, it's really something special, now I can say, Our work has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation, you're involved with the James Beard Foundation, listen, let's find a way to work together. So it will open a number of doors that weren't available before, or that I didn't know how to get in, to help the cause.

From a personal standpoint, it is just surreal. Our industry is always the first to step up, and get asked, and generally do if we can. To say that any one person is recognized by the foundation for doing something like this, well, it's a little strange.

Come on, your work deserves to be recognized.

That has got to be gratifying.

You know, it's one thing to raise the money, and give it away, all that stuff, but what has become most fascinating about it – and Susan kind of intimated about this a little bit – is that it's not just an event that raises awareness and raises money. Part of what is being recognized is that Taste is another tool, or avenue, that says that being a part of the hospitality industry is to give, and this is just one example of that. These students at our events are chopping vegetables next to these notable chefs and they're going, Yeah, when I get up to where they are, I'm going to keep to doing this. To me it doesn't matter if they get hooked on hunger, or hooked on some other charitable cause, as long as they get hooked on something. It's the seeding process, and I'm so excited about that aspect of what we've done.

The foundation made your announcement in early February, which is a little earlier than normal. Did they want to get the news out before the Super Bowl?

Yes, and they said they wanted to get into the event and interview people. During the training session for this event -- it's always the Wednesday before and there are about 150 culinary students there -- part of the buzz afterwards from the instructors and from a lot of the students was that I had been selected as the Humanitarian of the Year by the James Beard Foundation. That was bigger for many of them than it was to me. To them it was like, Hey, this is a legit thing we have going on here. They don't give that to just anyone, and here I am volunteering, this is going to be good. That's another byproduct of this whole thing. Obviously, the recognition is awesome, but I'm so pumped about what it's going to do for us in the future.

It's kind of a wild idea, connecting football and hunger. Who else would have put the two together? You did, and look at the results.

We got approval 8 or 10 weeks ahead of the event, and by that point all the sites were taken up, so we took the lobby of the AT&T Building. Leeann Chin was gracious enough to open up this little kitchen in her restaurant in the building. Half the chefs prepped in the vo-tech college downtown, the other half prepped in the kitchen in the cafeteria at Norwest bank. Then I called the only two people I knew at the Vikings. I knew all the chefs, but not the players, but I thought we should put these guys together and see what happens. I hoped it would work, and it did. Then I though, Jeez if we could only do it next year in L.A. Then it started to snowball, and then we didn't want it to be just the one night, we started to do the other things. It's the domino effect of this that's most exciting to me. Now look at what we'll be able to do in the world of hunger.

Now is the time that continues to be the worse, as far as need is concerned. I'm particularly excited by the timing of this recognition, because it will help push the issue of hunger out front. Over the next few years, the big danger in hunger is that, as the economy recovers, people will start to sigh, take a breath and say, This recovery is happening, that means people will be OK. The estimates are that it might take three to five years for people currently using food banks to recover and get back to their economic ground zero, if you will. Yet hunger is going to become a more-in the-shadows issue. First-time usage at food banks is ridiculous, it's up 30 percent. It can happen to anyone. It's you or me, missing a few paychecks or getting sick, and suddenly you're there. So, yeah, I'm excited about the timing of this.

We're going to do a Taste of the NFL dinner at the James Beard House, I'll try to make that an annual event. I'll watch the football schedule and see if there's a notable football player who would be a draw. Many of them are guys who love to cook. I mean, some of these guys are 375 pounds, so of course they love to cook [laughs].

But perhaps the larger question is, can they fit inside the cramped quarters of the Beard house?

Honest to God, that came across my mind [laughs]. When I was talking to Susan about it she said, That's a great idea, we'd love to do it, what players did you have in mind? And I said, I have a few ideas, it depends upon who is coming through New York, and size of the player is important. And she said, What do you mean? And I said, It's your kitchen. You can't have Kris Jenkins, a tackle with the Jets, he'd take up the entire kitchen [laughs].

What's going to happen on Monday night at Avery Fisher Hall?

I've worked really hard on a speech. Any of my friends will tell you -- and after today, I don't have to tell you -- that I tend to be windy [laughs]. I have a finite amount of time. I've already sent it off to Susan, she's pruning it so it's short enough.

I imagine they've produced a video about you and Taste of the NFL.

They sent two people down to Taste in February. Here's the thing about the event: Once you're there, you're hooked. This is a party that you have never attended in your life. Once you attend this party, you get it. There's something in the air, and every chef, every player, every volunteer, every culinary student, they know why they're there and they're dedicated to being there. Plus, it turns out to be the best restaurant in the country that night. You've got to see it, it's phenomenal.

The point of this story is that the Beard Foundation sent two people down to shoot some footage, and I don't know how it turned out. But I told them they could do whatever they wanted, and they could talk to anyone, anytime. Anyway, it was really cool to see the transformation of these two people. They started out so businesslike. They were leaving just as the Barenaked Ladies were starting to play, and one of them said to me that she didn't know what to expect, that she was from New York and she were thinking, Yeah, sure, whatever, a big party, blah, blah, blah, but she said that it had been a transforming event. So I'm curious to see how the footage goes. They interviewed everyone, from chefs to Roger Staubach.