Ratty dishes inspired San Francisco's Firefly chef
Stephanie Bernhard
Issue date: 10/31/07 Section: Features
Like many students, Brad Levy '81 first toyed with future career ideas while in college. But unlike many students, he didn't get his ideas from great professors or intense internships - he found his niche in a tiny kitchen on Wickenden Street.
While at Brown, Levy started working as a dishwasher at the now-closed Cafe at Brook at the corner of Brook and Wickenden streets. He was quickly promoted and within a year became the restaurant's chef. He said he would scour cookbooks for recipes and call his mother in St. Louis for more ideas.
"I found cooking by accident," Levy said.
Levy liked his job so much that, by the time he graduated, he could only consider pursuing one profession.
"I only majored in philosophy because that's what I needed the least amount of credits for," Levy said. Levy also concentrated in education, but he said he enjoyed cooking too much to consider teaching as a career. While studying at Brown, though, he knew most of his peers had more traditional paths in mind.
"I liked to cook, but I never considered it as a profession," Levy said, explaining that he went to college "before the days when (cooking) was an honorable pursuit."
According to the 2003 Outcome Report conducted by the Career Development Center, cooking still is not a top career choice among Brown graduates. The report, which tracked the activities of 2003 grads a year after their Commencement and is the most recent version of such a survey currently available on the CDC Web site, showed that none of the 754 respondents had gone on to culinary school. Food services was not listed among the 18 primary job categories for grads who were employed at the time of the survey.
But when a recently graduated Levy returned to St. Louis to discuss career options with his family, he kept coming back to the idea of being a chef.
"Nothing else seemed possible to me," Levy said. "I was a novelty among my family and friends. They kept calling me up for cooking advice after that."
While at Brown, Levy started working as a dishwasher at the now-closed Cafe at Brook at the corner of Brook and Wickenden streets. He was quickly promoted and within a year became the restaurant's chef. He said he would scour cookbooks for recipes and call his mother in St. Louis for more ideas.
"I found cooking by accident," Levy said.
Levy liked his job so much that, by the time he graduated, he could only consider pursuing one profession.
"I only majored in philosophy because that's what I needed the least amount of credits for," Levy said. Levy also concentrated in education, but he said he enjoyed cooking too much to consider teaching as a career. While studying at Brown, though, he knew most of his peers had more traditional paths in mind.
"I liked to cook, but I never considered it as a profession," Levy said, explaining that he went to college "before the days when (cooking) was an honorable pursuit."
According to the 2003 Outcome Report conducted by the Career Development Center, cooking still is not a top career choice among Brown graduates. The report, which tracked the activities of 2003 grads a year after their Commencement and is the most recent version of such a survey currently available on the CDC Web site, showed that none of the 754 respondents had gone on to culinary school. Food services was not listed among the 18 primary job categories for grads who were employed at the time of the survey.
But when a recently graduated Levy returned to St. Louis to discuss career options with his family, he kept coming back to the idea of being a chef.
"Nothing else seemed possible to me," Levy said. "I was a novelty among my family and friends. They kept calling me up for cooking advice after that."