bios •

ERIK BEGAN COOKING for his family at the tender age of five, and beginning to cook whole meals for his family by the age of eight. His introduction into the restaurant business began with his first job in the service industry mopping floors in a local coffee shop. Eventually he progressed from that to dishwasher, barista, and cook. From then on he was hooked into the fast paced and demanding world of restaurants.

While in college he supported himself by cooking, serving, and bartending while attending Regis University in Denver. At each stop along the way, he learned better methods of cooking and was exposed to a variety of new techniques and ingredients. Every new restaurant presented a new challege: some were busier, had different methods, were more busy, had higher volume, or were “finer dining.”

By the time he moved to Seattle, he was determined to make it in the fine dining world. He was lucky enough to land a position at one of the fine dining destinations in the downtown area: the legendary 727 Pine restaurant. This experience opened his eyes to the possibilities of fine dining and classical techniques combining to make a truly first rate restaurant. It also opened his eyes to his lack of formal training, and helped push him towards attending culinary school. Several stints at other highly rated restaurants such as Campagne, Tulio, and Union helped solidify his resolve to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.

Attending the CIA proved to be the life changing event he was hoping it would be in more ways than one. Its proximity to New York City allowed him to work and eat at several of the best restaurants in America including Alain Ducasse New York, Aureole, Bouley, and Gramercy Tavern. His work allowed him to have a paid externship at the famed Le Bernardin where he helped make some of the most refined cuisine in the city.

While attending the CIA, he also met his wife Rebecca (who is also a gifted and talented pastry chef), who is his greatest support as well as best motivator. They were married last year in Paso Robles, California. After the CIA both Erik and Rebecca began work at the historic Inn at Little Washington, in Washington VA. They both succeeded while there, but the siren song of Boston proved to be too much to resist. After relocating, he worked at a variety of restaurants in the Greater Boston area, and after careful consideration, decided to open a catering operation with his good friend Jason Vickers. They wanted to be able to bring the fruits of their knowledge to the refined tastes of discerning customers in the Boston area.

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ONCE WHEN HE was a little boy, Jason’s Great Grandmother asked him if he’d like to make some cookies. The kid was a little hyper and she thought it might give him something to focus on. The recipe was a 1956 4H award winner - no-bake cookies. He accepted, made those cookies and promptly ate himself dizzy.
In hindsight it was an auspicious beginning.

A good friend of Jason’s got him a job a few years later in an Italian kitchen in Seattle, working under an opera singing Neapolitan named Luigi. Some nights, after the work was done, Luigi would tell the guys from the kitchen stories from his life into the small hours of the morning. They would then move on to his modest apartment for some middle-of-the-night pasta with his own marinara, which he liked to store in wine bottles. There they would cook and eat until the sun shone through the curtains, walk home and sleep until it was time to get up and do it over again. At 17, Jason saw that this was the life!

Jason grew up as a cook in Seattle’s hotels, delis, nightclubs, diners catering houses, and of course restaurants.The 90’s were the years of his apprenticeship, moving from restaurant to restaurant, soaking up all he could from the greatest chefs in the city in one of its most groundbreaking and exciting eras to date. Maniacs and Brainiacs, young upstarts, James Beard award winners and experienced old timers all in their turn took Jason in and offered him what they knew. He enjoyed the very rare opportunity to learn by paying attention what most saw only through paying tuition. Jason could be found at no less than the finest, most challenging kitchens in the city. French mainstay Campagne, the Historic Edgewater hotel, cutting edge concepts-turned-institutions such as Carmelita, Brasa and the Flying Fish, doing what he loved and loving what he did.

Early on in this trip, Jason was asked by his close friend’s mother, Washington State Representative for the 42nd District Dawn Mason to cater a small affair in Seattle’s exclusive Mount Baker neighborhood, and so he took his father, his mentor Jose Luis Ugalde and the same friend and created a near perfect soiree (Thanks to Jose Luis). Thus a caterer was born. In the years since Jason has enjoyed catering for everyone from Outkast to The King of Spain, Hillary Clinton and Chinese Premier Hu Jintao, Both of the founders of Microsoft at their respective estates and weekend getaways, as well as Conductor Gerard Schwartz of the Seattle Symphony and Peter Boal, Director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company. For these individuals and so many others, Jason embraces the notion of serving his clients that which they would only find in the finest restaurants or better in their homes, and HE does the dishes!

Being a cook in Seattle granted Jason special access to the city’s famous Pike Place market as well, cobblestone block after block of farmer’s stalls, fish mongers, butchers and spice merchants making it the place Jason learned what to look for and how to seek it out. Over the years he made a host of friends there who added much to his experience as a chef.

After later stints as a food advocate, teaching many of the world’s cuisines as well as their secrets and techniques all over the pacific northwest and occasionally in New York, Jason finally ventured forth in the past few years and traveled extensively, taking up residence in Honduras for most of 2007, dividing his time between working as a personal chef, acting, foraging in the jungle and exploring the lush lively reefs of the bay Islands.

Upon his return to the US the following year, Jason took up residence in Brooklyn,NY pursuing creative collaborations with painters (his other passion) and designers, seeking ways to channel his creativity with food into new and exciting directions. There he met his Fiance, Kerrin, then a personal assistant to a fancy-pants fashion designer in TriBeCa. After a lengthy whirlwind romance, the two realized they would soon be a trio, and have returned to their families in Massachusetts and await the arrival of Lucia Gloria, their daughter-to-be!

After a fateful union with Chef Erik, the two have joined forces to bring their talents, abilities, and perspectives on the perfect meal, whatever that may be at any given moment to New England as eandjfoodways.