Photo by: Zoe Mcdonald
Behind the doors of the Main Event kitchen, Dwayne Ingraham finishes up a cucumber, basil and gin sorbet. As the last fragrant bit drizzles into the carton and smells of summertime sweets waft through the air, Ingraham remains focused on the task at hand.
“I try and get in here by eight in the morning,” said Ingraham, the executive pastry chef for the City Grocery Restaurant Group and recent competitor on Food Network’s Spring Baking championship. “And then what I do is, I take the prep list from all the different restaurants – from Snackbar, City Grocery, Boure, Lamar Lounge – and then we analyze what the day is going to look like. Once we then figure out what everybody needs, then we turn around and write it on the board. Then we do productions from there. We hopefully will wrap that up around three or four and then get everything delivered to each place around town.”
Ingraham’s typical day working for John Currence’s City Grocery group may seem like a breeze compared to the Spring Baking Championship, which wrapped up almost two weeks ago. Eight pastry chefs – including Ingraham – were selected to compete in 12 competitions (two per episode) to win the ultimate prize of $50,000. The chefs were told right before the three-hour clock would begin what the challenge would be. From Mother’s Day to red, white and blue desserts, Ingraham flawlessly flaunted his skills, winning four out of the 12 competitions and making it to the final episode – a feat accomplished by only three of the competitors.
“It’s really a gift from them [the producers] for people like me— you know, folks outside of the city of Oxford or the state of Mississippi might not know who I am,” Ingraham said. “It was a great way to show what we’re capable of doing here at the City Grocery Restaurant Group and what we do on an every day basis. So, I would definitely do it again. I enjoyed it and it’s not often you get to meet that many people who share the same passion for what you do, and it was really like pastry chef/baker’s boot camp. You really get to know people, you get to understand where they’re coming from, what their point of view is in life as well as cooking.”
Ingraham said he had always enjoyed baking, but when he was a child growing up in the small town of Ponchatoula, Louisiana he was never exposed to the possibility of becoming a chef, much less a pastry chef.
After starting college at The University of Southern Mississippi, his Sigma Nu fraternity brother went to culinary school. At the time, Ingraham was working at a restaurant called Chesterfield’s and simultaneously losing interest in his classes. After speaking to his fraternity brother and letting his passion for the restaurant business grow, Ingraham decided to apply to the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vt., and was accepted.
“I decided that this was maybe my calling,” Ingraham said. “I remember my first baking and pastry class, Bake Shop 101 with Chef Dan Tabor, and rolling out that first croissant. I’m like ‘this is it. I can definitely do this for the rest of my life.’ It’s kind of a blessing, I mean; I get paid to do arts and crafts – that are edible on top of that.”
Through various internships and jobs, Ingraham found himself in Las Vegas. Eventually, he began working in a restaurant called “Switch” under Jackie Caraballo.
“She completely changed my life from there,” Ingraham said. “That was the first time I actually got to focus on plating desserts. I mean that’s what my love is, where my passion lies. Of all of the things I’m capable of doing, I would much rather put desserts on a plate any day of the week.”
While continuing his work under Caraballo, Ingraham applied for a pastry chef position posted by Chef John Currence. On March 30, said Ingraham, he flew to Oxford for a tasting, and Currence offered him the job before he got back on the plane. On June 7, 2010, a little more than five years ago, Ingraham began his work for the City Grocery group.
A born-again Southerner, Ingraham said he allows the region to influence his dishes for the City Grocery restaurants. Whether it’s the molasses and pecan pie at Lamar Lounge or the cornbread pudding with a blueberry compote and buttermilk ice cream at Snackbar, flavors of the south can be found throughout each of the menus.
“The flavor definitely drives it, but what really inspires me about (the South) is the culture,” Ingraham said. “That’s what I think you really get through my plates. I try and tell a story with every plate I put forward.”
For instance, Ingraham said, the strawberry dish, which he put together to complement the sorbet, draws inspiration from his young years in Louisiana, where he would peruse the strawberry festival and return with crates upon crates of strawberries.
Photo by: Zoe McDonald
“My grandmother would get home and she’d make some strawberry preserves out of it, and we would have it on biscuits for days,” Ingraham said. “So what I’m trying to show on this plate is not necessarily a plate of strawberry preserves, but what it’s highlighting is that strawberry at the peak of its season, and saying, ‘welcome to my table.’ If you were coming to my house now, that is what we would serve and there’s a story behind it. And that’s what really shines more than anything through my food. Not so much just the flavor of the South but more the culture of it.”
Ingraham, who said he has a competitive nature, owes that aspect of himself to his success in his line of work. Ingraham also possesses a meticulous attitude and eye for creative plating, two traits which he says are important for bakers and pastry chefs.
“I don’t like to lose, and, to me, pastry allows that to not happen,” he said. “As long as you know what you’re doing, there is a formula that is going to give you the same exact product every time. It’s just that simple.”
Now that life has slowed down a bit for Ingraham he has begun working on a food blog, dwayneingrahamjr.com, which he tries to update every month.
