User:Chef charlie ayers

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Charlie Ayers has lived his life by religious adherence to the words “eat, drink, and be merry.” Spreading his faith with the zeal of a fanatic, Charlie has been a true working chef for the last 15 years. At all times, his patrons and clients have enjoyed eclectic and unique varieties of gourmet food and drink and an ambiance filled with music and fun. Chef Charlie is most widely known as the former executive chef for Google Inc. Charlie won the job nourishing the geeks in a cook-off, which was judged by the entire company – only about 40 people in November of 1999. In his six years at Google, Chef Charlie fueled the bodies driving the innovation that built one of Silicon Valley’s greatest success stories. Charlie’s contribution to Google attracted attention from media across the country and around the world. He and his cafés were featured in the New York Times, London Times, French publication “ Le Capital “ , Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Food Management, Nations Restaurant News, Restaurants Institutions, Relix Music Culture Magazine, Chefs Magazine , Red Herring Magazine, Dutch publication “ Misset Catering “ The Food Network and many others. In addition, “The Google Story” by David Vise dedicated an entire chapter to Chef Charlie named appropriately, “Charlie’s Place.”

Chef Charlie’s unique operation was also visited by such culinary luminaries as Cat Cora, Mario Batali, Martin Yan, Bruce Adielle, Bradley Ogden and Michael Chiarello. While at Google, he established a new standard, "fine food for the fast crowd" and developed a reputation for innovative, flavorful, and healthful foods that were not only good for you but good for the planet. By the time Charlie left Google, he and his team of five sous chefs and 150 employees in 10 cafes across the company’s headquarters campus in Mt. View, Ca were serving 4,000 lunches and dinners of the same quality and variety that the first 40 Googlers enjoyed as his original interviewers. Chef Charlie has had the pleasure cooking for such celebrities , royalties and politicians as , Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore , Madeline Albright , Collin Powel , Michael Gorbachoff , Queen Nor of Jordan, Bono &The Edge ,Cold Play & Gwyneth Palthrow, Robin Williams ,Sultan of Brunei , including the many of the top CEO’s of the Silicon Valley and the rest of the high tech world. Chef Charlie began his professional career in New Jersey working for Hilton Hotels, at their Meadowlands; Parsippany locations in NJ, later Charlie left Hilton to attend culinary school in Providence RI at Johnson & Wales University. Since that time, Charlie has cooked at several well known restaurants in the Providence, Boston areas. However, Charlie still had the desire to learn and the itch to travel, to taste new flavors, so he decided to leave the east coast of Boston and New England behind him and headed out west. It was in California that Charlie’s love of music and food came together. Shortly after moving to the west coast, Charlie managed to make a connection and friendship w/ the Chef for The Grateful Dead, known as Chez Ray. Charlie gladly helped feed the band in exchange for admission to shows. Chef Charlie took over catering for the band after Mr. Garcia long strange trip had ended. Continuing to indulge his two loves of music and food, Charlie was frequently found backstage and green rooms catering gigs for some of the biggest acts Bill Graham Presents would bring to San Francisco. Charlie has often been called on for intimate backstage catering for large open air music festivals working along side a team of local celebrity chefs. Chef Charlie’s current endeavor is Calafia Café / Calafia Grab & Go Market. Calafia’s fundamental goal is to provide healthful artisan style hand crafted sustainable cuisine accessible to the greater public in a fast and affordable format. These will be "fast dining" restaurants that meet the consumer's desire for flavorful & healthful food delivered in a feel good environment. Chef Charlie’s new restaurant concept will demonstrate that being "green" is good for the consumer, team members, environment, and local community. The first restaurant is scheduled to open sometime 2007 in downtown Palo Alto Chef Charlie is also available for what he calls “innovative corporate well being”. To create a program, Charlie will consult any size company, restructure their corporate food service program or design a Micro Kitchen / Food Service program for the company’s needs along with developing a desired corporate culture. When Charlie isn’t consulting high-tech start-ups in California and Georgia, writing cook books, coordinating food service vendors & backstage catering teams at open air music festivals or ramping up to open his flagship restaurant operation, Charlie enjoys visiting farmers markets across the country where he will likely bee seen wearing his favorite crazy Hawaiian shirts. Chef Charlie is also available for private small cooking classes or intimate dinner parties to any destination you desire. He lives on the Peninsula near Stanford University, south of San Francisco, CA with his wife Kimberly and their son Chance. Charlie is also working on his first cookbook, which will be a collection of Smart Recipes due out in the spring of 2008. Chef Charlie currently works closely w/ several local charities, Rex Foundation, Adolescents Counseling Services, American Bechcet’s Disease Association, Headlands Center for the Arts, The International Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva Association, HaydensHope.com , Kiva.org and sits as a council chef for Cat Cora’s foundation, ChefsForHumanity.Org