Nutritionist

About Jesse Macdonald

Growing up, Jesse MacDonald (@JesseMacdonald) had no aspirations of becoming a chef. Raised in Launching, PEI, he was born into a fourth-generation lobster fishing family where throughout his life he would hold every position in the family’s lobster boat from “cork to captain.” His childhood home was located on the corner of his grandfather’s large family farm, so he was able to spend ample time as a youngster gaining an appreciation for all things local. Growing up, farm to table wasn’t a movement or a fad for Jesse & his family; it was simply a way of life.

In middle school, he quite innocently got a summer job washing dishes at a local resort property, and these two wonderful worlds began to collide. By the time Jesse graduated high school, he was one of the lead cooks in the resort’s main dining room. Jesse then made the decision after high school to pursue cooking as a career, and that fall attended the Culinary Institute of Canada, graduating in 2010. Jesse spent time on the Island apprenticing under well-known chefs and establishments before, during and after graduation prior to leaving the province to broaden his culinary horizons with stops in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, France, Italy & Spain. After returning home to his native PEI in the spring of 2018, he accepted the position of Executive Chef of Rodd Crowbush Golf & Beach Resort and Corporate Culinary Ambassador for Rodd Hotels & Resorts.

Being home has served Jesse well since returning to his roots. In July 2018, he was awarded Chef of the Year for the PEI Tourism Department Best of Sea Restaurant Promotion which hosts the best chefs the Island has to offer to compete for the privilege of representing PEI at the International Shellfish Festival during the Garland Canada Chef Challenge Event and the chance to go head to head against some of the best chefs the country has to offer. Jesse also crowned Setting Day Festival Chef of the Year in May 2019 during the PEI Setting Day Festival Chefs Competition, where 8 of the Island’s Top Chefs were invited to compete in a fans choice competition celebrating the first catch of the spring Lobster Season. Since returning to red soil, Jesse has also become very involved in the Culinary Federations PEI chapter, as well as cultivating the next generation of food service professionals here on the Island, taking on a role as a support chef instructor during his resort off-season at his alma-matter, The Culinary Institute of Canada. Jesse is looking forward to his second full season back home in PEI, and is excited to continue to do his part to help build the already obvious momentum on “Canada’s Food Island.”

Connect with Jesse: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.

Resources Mentioned

Culinary Institute of Canada

Rodd Crowbush Golf & Beach Resort

Rodd Hotels & Resorts

PEI Tourism Department Best of Sea Restaurant Promotion

International Shellfish Festival

Garland Canada Chef Challenge Event

PEI Setting Day Festival Chefs Competition

Culinary Federations

The Transcript

**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.

Sam Demma (00:00):

Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast.

Sam Demma (00:59):

This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today, we have a very special guest on the show. His name is Jesse McDonald. Jesse began his foray into the hospitality industry quite innocently; taking on a summer job, washing dishes for some extra cash while he was in middle school. And he has worked in the food and industry beverage ever since. That means 15 years, three different provinces and many fulfilling experiences later, he is currently the executive chef at the Wheelhouse in Georgetown, as well as a second year chef instructor at the Culinary Institute of Canada. I got very hungry, just having a conversation with Jesse. I hope you enjoy this interview with him about his journey through different careers, different opportunities, all with a through line for his love of food. I hope you enjoy it, and I will see you on the other side, Jesse, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what you do with the audience?

Jesse Macdonald (02:04):

Yeah. Thanks Sam. So I’m a born and raised Islander from Prince Edward Island. Canada’s smallest province and yeah, I’m actually a chef by trade. So I’m an executive chef at a local restaurant called the Wheelhouse in Georgetown. I do that. We’re a seasonal restaurant so kind of in that role April till October, and then I also kind of on the off season of my industry job, am a chef instructor at the Culinary Institute of Canada here in the province as well.

Sam Demma (02:40):

Everyone eats food, it’s, it’s required for living <laugh>, but not everyone falls in love with making it. Where did your love and passion for food come from?

Jesse Macdonald (02:52):

You know, it’s funny, I, I I’ve told this story a bit, but you know, my love of food really happened kind of backwards compared to most chefs. I was kind of born and raised in rural P EI into a fourth generation lobster fishing family. Our house, essentially, even though it was a little bit down the road it was essentially on the corner of my grandfather’s large 50 acre farm kind of family style. And that farm had been in hidden, you know, his was his, my grandfather’s grandfather had been in our family for literally generations. So food was always a huge part of my life. You know, grandpa always had cattle and chickens and geese and pigs and, and things around the farm, which I spent a lot of time at. And then my parents fish lobster.

Jesse Macdonald (03:38):

So obviously naturally fell in love with the sea and still definitely identify kind of with that lifestyle mm-hmm <affirmative>. But it wasn’t until middle school. And I, you know, one of my good friends that’s now ironically the owner and boss of the kind of restaurant I work at <laugh> one of my close friends growing up you know, kind of call called me randomly on a afternoon in the summer when I was in middle school and said, Hey, I’m washing dishes at this local resort. And we need some people and you should come down and work with us. So I next day went down and got myself a job slinging dishes and kind of the rest is history. My two worlds collided a little bit really kind of fell in love with that hustle and bustle of the kitchen, but also had this like production background and understanding of food at like a grassroots level, which was something I didn’t necessarily realize was special for my upbringing.

Sam Demma (04:31):

What is your favorite dish to cook and eat and why <laugh>

Jesse Macdonald (04:37):

Oh, man, this change changes so much for those, for those that know me, well, they’re gonna be laughing at this question overall. I would say my favorite thing, and this is a generality, but I would say it’s cooking seafood in general. Obviously that’s what we have around specifically shellfish in our local fish and kind of local products, the reason being for so long and even still a little bit, you know, everyone thinks, oh, the only way you can eat muscles are steamed. The only way you can eat lobsters is boiled, you know, and the reality is there’s a whole, you know, myriad of ways and, and unique flavor profiles and manipulations you can do with this like beautiful product. So I would say that’s in general, kind of my favorite thing is, is, is taking our, you know, product and our shellfish that we’re so well known for, but kind of presenting it uniquely in a different way. People may not be used to, you know, some unique flavor, pairings and profiles, but like I said, in general, that would be kind of the area I, I like to hang out in for sure.

Sam Demma (05:39):

Yeah. That’s awesome. So take me from middle school to where you are now, once you started slinging dishes, working that first job falling in love with the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, what, what did the rest of the journey look like to today?

Jesse Macdonald (05:53):

You know, it’s funny because it, it feels very much like a whirlwind. It doesn’t feel, feel like that long ago. So that was roughly, you know, 15, 16 years ago. I’m 32 now. So kind of started in the kitchen. I believe I was 14 dish washed for that part of a summer. And then the next summer went back really enjoyed it, started again and kind of by happenstance. Just the way that you know, businesses work. Sometimes we had an influx of people that summer go out the door, ended up getting promoted from, you know, a dishwasher or, or steward as they called it. A little bit more politically correct than dishwasher, I guess to a prep cook and then to a line cook within like two weeks. So then all of a sudden I was in, you know, grade nine and learning how to cook professionally.

Jesse Macdonald (06:43):

And I had a big, like, you know, again, Royal PI upbringing. So I was big into like organized sports and stuff as a kid. And the thing that I, I really connected was I was like, this is exactly like a sport. It’s like, we’re a team and we all have a job to do, and we’re only successful. We all do it together. And it was just like something I was familiar with. And so I dove into it and I did that at the same local resort until I was in grade 12, by the end of the summer in grade 12, when I was there, I was actually running in one of the main dining minds. So I had no actual former tra formal training story, but I was, you know, by that point at four or five years kitchen experience and, and was actually the lead cook on one of our, our dining room minds, the resort is the large resort, you know, it had 150 rooms, so there was three different restaurants, a 40 seat, a hundred seat to 200 seat.

Jesse Macdonald (07:36):

So I had the mid-sized one. And yeah, like I said, I got a bunch of room to grow and it really worked to my advantage. And from there I went right outta high school after grade 12 and attended and enrolled locally in the culinary Institute of Canada here at Holland college on the island. So did that two year program between first and second year, you’re required to do a 600 hour internship. So I wanted to spread my wings a little bit. So instead of going back to the local resort I had been at for four or five years, I actually went to a well known island restaurant, but also Canadian restaurant at the time. It was 2009, was the in bay fortune. So made famous by chef Michael Smith. A lot of people know from the food network Canada. So my internship was under chef cuisine who was running day to day operations at the end chef Warren bar, who was actually still in the industry.

Jesse Macdonald (08:32):

Shout out to Warren, one of my big mentors. He has a restaurant in use slip BC called PVI. So only a couple years old, but this year actually it just copped onto the top 100 restaurants in Canada list. Wow. Very well deserved. He was my internship chef for my, like I said, my summer internship from school. And then chef Michael, who was kind of in the Mixel at the time would be there, you know, every once in a while intermittently. So kind of got to rub shoulders with both of those guys. They, they were the as I kind of say almost the finishing touch for me as a chef, because the whole background of the in is local products, you know, big farm, there’s three acres of produce. You go out every morning as a chef, decide what the menu’s going to be.

Jesse Macdonald (09:18):

It changes every day based on the products that you have in pick. And it was just like having that, like fishing and farming background with my parents and folks and pickling with Grammy and, you know, stumbling around behind Grampy when he was fencing or being at the Harbor dad. Like it was just my, like my two worlds colliding. It was like my background and my home life, but then also this like lifestyle in the kitchen that I was introduced to. So that was huge. I did that first summer, then I, you know, traveled around, I took a sous chef job, so got my first sous chef job, right outta school at a local golf course, then eventually moved to Guelph, Ontario as a sous chef as well was there for about a year and a half. Then I did kind of the typical young, Canadian thing.

Jesse Macdonald (10:03):

I feel like where I then took a couple months off and went to Europe, nice, kinda traveled through Europe and did that thing. I STO at a couple restaurants there, which means working for free. Nice. And just to kinda get the culture and stuff. So I did that at a hotel in France for a couple days and a little mom and pop restaurant in Italy where they made all their homemade pasta which was a hilarious, hilarious dynamic because it was all run by like a husband and wife and their only daughter. And the daughter was actually the boss, but the parents didn’t believe she was the boss. So like they would like boss her around <laugh>. But the reality was she was like ordering all the products everyone needed and like running the restaurant and doing the schedules. And she would like, look at me and like roll her eyes and I’d just shrug.

Jesse Macdonald (10:44):

Right. I, they were very Italian. I hardly understood a lot of what they said, but being kind of a, a little bit of a larger stature and they all being a little bit smaller. They were definitely excited whenever like the orders are coming and I’d be like, oh, I’ll take care of it. And they’d be like, oh yeah. Okay. Like <laugh>. So that was a, that was a cool experience for sure. So then I actually moved home from there and I got a sous chef job or second chef for essentially assistant manager. Okay. At the local resort, I started at washing dishes. Wow. So I kind of went back to where I started from there. I actually got an opportunity in the same company to become an executive chef, my first executive chef role. So I’d kind of be the lead of a kitchen.

Jesse Macdonald (11:28):

It was only 23 at the time. So that was a huge, huge opportunity restaurant and hotel was going through a big renovation, rebrand the restaurant. It was a different province. It was new Brunswick. So moved to new Brunswick in me mahi a little kind of seaside village. I was there for five years running that hotel. That’s where I met my partner currently Chantel we have a little girl together, Aaliyah. So we were there for five years and then I got an opportunity again, within that same company to come back home and kind of run their premier resort KBU well known golf course attached. So me and Chantel moved back to P I was there for five years before moving to my role this year at the wheelhouse in Georgetown. So this is my first summer there.

Jesse Macdonald (12:15):

And then kind of lining up when I was just kind of halfway through my stint at Crow Bush. I started working at my Alma mater at the con Institute Canada as a support chef instructor. I believe I’m going into my fourth season kind of in a lead instructor role now kind of been doing that intermittently and cover contracts and stuff. So yeah, that’s kind of a quick Kohl’s notes or long winded Kohl’s notes, depending, depending who you’re of yeah, kind of 16 of years in the you know, food and beverage industry for myself kind of on the cooking side of things.

Sam Demma (12:49):

That’s awesome. What a cool unique journey that’s brought you literally all over the globe. <Laugh>

Jesse Macdonald (12:54):

Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s been crazy. Like I said, it’s a whirlwind, it doesn’t feel like that long ago, but it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, time is a funny thing.

Sam Demma (13:01):

One of the best ways to learn is to teach. It sounds like that’s probably been true for you with your experience teaching culinary students. How, how, how has that experience been for you? And tell me a little bit more about, about that.

Jesse Macdonald (13:19):

Yeah. the experience has been awesome, you know, like the biggest thing for me and I think a lot of chefs is that, like, I just like to talk about food, right? Mm it’s just it’s like it, it’s, it’s such a part of what you do day to day, and there’s such a wide array and vast like world out there. So you never stop learning. Right. You, you know, if you think, you know, everything, the reality is then you probably have an issue within yourself because it’s like there there’s, there’s endless amounts of knowledge out there. And the great thing about being a culinary school instructor is you’re, you know, day to day interacting with a hundred, 150, 200 culinary students that are extremely engaged, right? They’re like, they’re the people that have decided that I wanna do this as a career. This means something to me.

Jesse Macdonald (14:06):

So it’s, it’s almost for me a way to refill my tank, I find with the students and, and they do a lot for me as much as I do for them. And it’s, it’s making that genuine connection through kind of shared interests because the reality and the unique thing instructing at kind of the college level, in that vocational kind of area, is that all your students and yourself have a similar interest, or you wouldn’t be an instructor in this industry and they wouldn’t be a student. Yeah. So you have that, like you have that base to start on right away with everyone. Right. So it’s, it’s, it’s a very unique experience, but it’s one that I really, really do enjoy.

Sam Demma (14:47):

Is there stoves and oven tops in your classroom? <Laugh>

Jesse Macdonald (14:53):

Absolutely. So we have, like, obviously I’m a little biased, but we have kind of the premier facility in Canada. So we have 12 completely outfitted classroom kitchens, we call them. So the way that our program works is the first year students all through five different rotations run the in-school cafeteria services, about 300 students and clients from outside the building kind of cafeteria style. And then there’s about a hundred first year students that do that divided between five classes and five different chef instructors. They rotate through take every class through first year. Go do the internship that I had mentioned previously come back for second year, the second year students then move what we call upstairs, where there’s another kind of stable of classrooms. And they, then they begin to run our fine ironing facility in the building that has about 120 hundred and 30 seats depending how you lay it out. So it’s, it’s very much a working school. The students are working you know, two different restaurants, two different types of food service, and absolutely every single classroom has stove tops, deep friers grills, depending where you are, you know, the pastry labs have different mixers and giant ice cream machines and walk in freezers. And, and you know, the equipment in the, in the school is, is, is honestly world class.

Sam Demma (16:22):

Every time I talk about food, I start salivating and get really hungry. Is that an experience you have? <Laugh>,

Jesse Macdonald (16:30):

It’s funny because a lot of chefs have the and, and instructors are the same kind of have the same, like the, the ominous you know, existence around them where they don’t eat as much as people would expect them to. But part of that is because like, you’re almost constantly eating, so you don’t get hungry the same way a lot of times. But in saying that, especially when I’m in culinary, like when the students, depending what class you’re teaching and stuff, you know, some days if it’s black box day, you know, black box is black box exam, they would get a percentage of Americ for doing say a, they have to do a three course meal within a certain amount of time and use these three ingredients. There might be six students that go, so I have to, you know, taste and critique. So by the end, I’ve had two or three bites of, you know, six appetizers, six entrees and six desserts.

Jesse Macdonald (17:28):

I’m, I’m pretty full, you know, so a lot of times it’s almost like not directed eating, it’s like necessary eating, but at the same time, you’re in a professional kitchen. So you’re not necessarily eating anything bad ever. So it’s like cool because every once in a while, you know, a student will come up and have made something and you’ll taste and you’ll be like, oh my God, this is, this is really good. Yeah. Did you write, did you write this down? No, no, yeah. Go write this down. <Laugh> whatever you just did. Go write it down. Right. And that’s how you kind of get them to start their own adventure learning. Right. It it’s a unique thing at the college level. Cause you’re almost giving them that room to grow, but being there to kind of support them as they grow as well.

Sam Demma (18:11):

Ah, that’s so exciting. And I, it makes a lot of sense. I think one of the cool things about food is as well is that it’s attached to so many memories, like I think about traveling and if there’s a restaurant that just made phenomenal food, it sticks out in your mind, like a sore thumb. Absolutely. And it’s really cool that you do both teaching and the working in the kitchen. How do you build trust with your classroom of students every year? One on the first day they don’t really know anything about you.

Jesse Macdonald (18:43):

Yeah. That’s definitely something that I, I honestly try to focus on it. I, I basically talk about it the very first day when we sit down together. So we have, the way our class is set up is we have what we have or what we refer to as theory class. Hmm. So that always takes place for an hour, two, an hour and a half before kitchen. And then kitchen’s always four to six hours depending on your rotation. So on the very first day, when we sit down, I, I literally say to the students, you know, some of you have some kitchen experience, some of you have none. And that’s okay. However, the first thing that we have to establish, if we’re all gonna get the most out of this, you know, three or four weeks together is we have to tear down any barriers.

Jesse Macdonald (19:27):

And it’s a little bit of a unique way to present yourself to a classroom because the chef industry has very much been hierarchy based for so long and very, very regimented, but as kind of a newer chef and on the younger side and, and kind of hopefully bringing a little bit of change to the industry, they need to be comfortable to come to me for any reason. There’s no such thing as a silly question. A lot of times, you know, mistakes are actually learning moments. They’re not mistakes at all, especially in a kitchen. If you learn from the mistake you make and you either apply the understanding or don’t make the same mistake again, because of, you know, the troubleshooting that you do, then it wasn’t a mistake at all, right. There’s never gonna be a time when even myself, I make mistakes in the kitchen all the time.

Jesse Macdonald (20:18):

You’re never not going to, it’s just in reality. So the quicker that I can get them comfortable and pull down those barriers and be like, let’s actually talk about food. The more learning that actually naturally happens, and you can feel it in the classroom energy. So it’s like my conscious effort within the first week to feel that energy, when I walk into the classroom of them just being comfortable and there should be a buzz in the kitchen, meaning that they should be chatting about food. They shouldn’t be off task by any means, but oh, maybe we could do this as I’m cutting up the oranges to make a chili Vigar mm. Maybe like, you know, engage with what you’re doing. There’s nothing more terrifying to me than walking in a classroom of students at the culinary Institute. And you can hear crickets. Mm. Right. I’m like, whoa, we gotta get some, we gotta get some learning going on in here. <Laugh> being quiet. Chopping green onions is not learning right now. We eventually like, we, we start with all that stuff. Don’t get me wrong. And then you practice it continuously. But like, what are we doing? Right. Let’s engage with each other. That’s why we’re here, you know? Yeah,

Sam Demma (21:19):

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. If there’s a teacher listening right now, who has a student in their class that is in a high school and is super passionate about food what could that teacher kind of share with that student or advise them to do, to explore that and maybe start their own journey towards becoming a chef or getting involved?

Jesse Macdonald (21:41):

The food industry remains one of the best entry level. And you won’t hear a lot of people say this, but I believe it, one of the best entry level positions that you can potentially inquire about because kitchens can be unique, you know? So a lot of them, you know, if a student was very interested and was like, Hey, could I come in for a day? I don’t know, in the next couple weeks that might work for you guys and just see what the operation is about nine out of 10 restaurants. If you would just look them up in, you know, a directory online or Google them in your city, I bet you, 90% of those restaurants, nine outta 10 would say, absolutely. And within two weeks would have like a time you could come in and just check it out. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Jesse Macdonald (22:26):

So with that flexibility, you know what I kind of would say to someone like that is, is again, to my last point, if that’s something you might be potentially interested and engage, engage in someone in the industry engage with, maybe you have a friend of a friend that’s in the industry and they might be able to say, this is the place you should go check out. You know, like, like there’s a lot more openness, I think, to that type of thing in our industry than some of the others and people that have that interest should take advantage.

Sam Demma (22:57):

Yeah. That’s a really good point. And if you don’t ask, you’ll never know. Right.

Jesse Macdonald (23:01):

<Laugh> exactly right.

Sam Demma (23:03):

That’s awesome. Tell me about a story where you, maybe we’re a teaching a student, and I think the cool thing about your situation before I get to the question is that the students in your class are often in to be there, like you said, at the beginning. Whereas in some school situations, students have to take a course to get it on their transcript that maybe they don’t actually want to take. So I think you have the advantage of all your students being invested and really wanting to be there. But can you think of a story where maybe a student was having a difficult time? And the course kind of really helped them figure out who they are or where they wanted to go. And by the end of it, they were a slightly different person because of it.

Jesse Macdonald (23:43):

Yeah, absolutely. It actually happens so often in our school that we kind of have almost a term for it. But we, what we say is the student blossomed, meaning like a lot of times, and it’s funny and doesn’t almost relate to cooking in any sense, but we’re getting that college age person. So there’s a mix of, you know, 18, 19, 20 year olds. Maybe there’s a little bit of a Fu mature students, but what happens to a lot of kids I find is they start to gain confidence in theirselves as a person. And then when that happens, all of a sudden, the kitchen changes a little bit and they feel it and then they’re blossoming and then you can really work with that. And it happens quite often in our industry, because again, the kitchen is a funny place, but you know, good habits and discipline and things that you teach over archingly time management.

Jesse Macdonald (24:51):

A lot of times starts to bleed into the student’s personal lives. And then they’re like, Hey, I’m an adult. When did that happen? But it’s like, we talk about so much at school, right. Time management and this and that. And that’s day to day in the kitchen, like, and we are talking hyper time management, like referring to those black boxes. I talked to some courses in second year, you have to submit a timeline to the chef instructor. So, you know, I started off by 30 minutes in I’m going to be prepping my zucchini for my appetizer, cause I want them to marinate for 45 minutes. And my first plate is going up in two hours and 15 minutes. Mm. So like we’re hyper focusing on time management to like the five and 10 minutes. So then, like I said, naturally it bleeds into students’ personal lives and then they just become this like almost adapted person, right. A little bit. Right. They’re going through a personal growth and they’re going through career growth and it’s just like, the students grow up so much. <Laugh> from first year in September to graduation. And second year you almost feel like you don’t, you you’ve known them for way longer than you have, because they’ve had so many, so, so many moments of growth, right?

Sam Demma (26:05):

Yeah. Prepping the zucchini 45 minutes earlier. It turns into putting your clothes out the night before for the next day turns into exactly.

Jesse Macdonald (26:14):

Yeah,

Sam Demma (26:14):

Exactly. Starting to be early for school and work. Yeah.

Jesse Macdonald (26:18):

That’s

Sam Demma (26:19):

Yeah. That’s really cool. What, what keeps you personally motivated and excited every day to both cook and teach?

Jesse Macdonald (26:28):

Yeah, I would say just honestly, I mean, there’s always the initial thing, like wanna, you know, support my family and my wife and my daughter and make a really good life for them. And, and this is something that I think that I is, and, you know, have a little bit of a, a success in and kind of bring some things to the table and it is a big sacrifice for them because, you know, time consumption definitely is there and I’m trying to get better and, and, and that’ll, that’ll definitely happen as I get older as well. But for me, I was so lucky in the sense that I never once experienced that like screaming, yelling chef, that you always see the memes of and, and, and, and whatnots. And I really feel almost indebted to the industry. Like I have so many mentors and people that did so much for me in my early part of my career that I feel like I’m indebted to the same industry to do to the next sort of generation.

Jesse Macdonald (27:27):

What I feel the people before me did for me, because there was, you know, food pioneers here on the island that supported me since I was kind of a young cook because, you know, at that time in the mid two thousands, it was well before the food network was really famous and things like that. Like, it was rare for young people to come into the industry. So I felt like when I was kind of someone at 19 that was interested in, you know, traveling around and doing this stuff the older, the cooks that were, you know, in chefs that were my age now in their thirties were like, yeah, right on like someone else that’s interested. It was like that shared connection and interest again, that I talked about with the college students. So I just feel that, you know, that it’s important, you know, to pass along the support I received when I was their age and, and give something back to the community and, and to the industry.

Sam Demma (28:17):

That’s awesome. Amazing. D does your wife and daughter critique your food that you cook at home?

Jesse Macdonald (28:22):

So my wife always tell, like always makes fun of me because she’s like, you don’t cook like that at home. Like <laugh>. And, and, and I say, and not that my wife’s picky by any means, but I would call her particular in a certain sense. Yeah. For the, the type of food she likes. So we always kind of go back and forth in that, in that sense. So I’ll like barbecue and, and do some things, you know, pat club past and things at home like that. Yeah. But as far as like, you know, high-end restaurant food, she’s always saying, oh, you know, you have to do that for me sometime. And, and, and whatever. And I’m like, I’m worried that I’m gonna do all this stuff and, and you don’t like it. And then that’ll be sad because most, most times that doesn’t happen.

Jesse Macdonald (29:00):

And we have this funny stick in my house. One thing that I’m kind of a little known for and do a lot is, is pickling blueberries that I am willing to take to the grade that a lot of people like get great comments on my wife, Chantel absolutely despises them. So she just like every once in a while, we’ll be like talking with something, she’ll be like, yeah, like those pickle blueberries, and I’ll, you know, listen, those are good. So they’re, they’re super supportive for sure. So they don’t know so much critique, but there’s definitely a lot of fun poking being had for sure.

Sam Demma (29:34):

Awesome. Oh, very cool. Yeah. Well, if someone’s listening and wants to reach out to you, ask a question, get in touch, or maybe even inquire about sharing some recipes <laugh> yeah,

Jesse Macdonald (29:44):

For sure.

Sam Demma (29:44):

What would be the best way for them to reach out?

Jesse Macdonald (29:47):

So probably two avenues; feel free obviously to email me at jnmacdonald@hollandcollege.com, or fire me a message on Instagram @chefjessemac. I’m pretty active on, on Instagram, so those are probably the two easiest ways in avenues to get ahold of me and yeah, definitely love to engage with people, interested in food and kind of the tourism scene here on campus food island. And yeah, we’re just gearing up for fall flavors and our local festival here with some celebrity chefs on the way down. So we got a lot of cool events on the dockets, so, yeah, we’re just gearing up for kind of the last push through the 2022 tours season here on the island.

Sam Demma (30:36):

Awesome. Jesse, enjoy the last push and I look forward to staying in touch and hearing more about your journey. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.

Jesse Macdonald (30:44):

Awesome. We’ll see you soon Sam. Thanks so much for having me.

Sam Demma (30:48):

Hey, it’s Sam again. I hope you enjoyed that amazing conversation on the High Performing Educator podcast. If you or someone, you know, deserves some extra recognition and appreciation for the work they do in education, please consider applying or nominating them for the high performing educator awards. Go to www.highperformingeducator.com/award. You can also find the link in the show notes. I’m super excited to spotlight and feature 20 people in 2022. And I’m hoping you, or someone you know, can be one of those educators. I’ll talk to you on the next episode, all the best.

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