Bosses work off stress in the kitchen

By Joan Tupponce
for Virginia Business
August 2006

The culinary craze isn’t restricted to corporate teams. Business owners like to unwind in the kitchen, too. Marvin Daniel, co-owner of KDW Home/ Kitchen Designworks in Richmond, cooks at home and at the office. One Friday each month, he prepares a meal for his staff. “They get a kick out of me waiting on them,” he says.

At work, Daniel cooks up everything from fried oysters with panko breadcrumbs to grilled shrimp and scallops. Last year, his passion for cooking took him to Iceland where he attended the International Food and Fun Festival and watched chefs compete from around the world. He dreams of going to the Culinary Institute of America’s culinary boot camp in New York.

Daniel isn’t the only business owner who spends most of his time away from work relaxing in the kitchen. Dr. Robert Voogt of Robert Voogt & Associates, Inc. — which provides life-care plans and programs for catastrophically injured people — recently designed the menu for an at-home dinner with former Gov. Mark R. Warner. It featured pan-roasted halibut with lobster sauce and thin-sliced tenderloin with mushroom sauce and asparagus. Warner’s response? “He enjoyed it very much,” says Voogt.

A move to New Orleans prompted Voogt’s love affair with cooking. “I lived across the street from Chef Paul Prudhomme and around the corner from Chef Emeril Lagasse,” he explains. “Most of the men I met in New Orleans cooked for their families. It was tradition for men to do most of the cooking.”

Voogt recently added a complete outdoor kitchen to his Virginia Beach home. “I have a wood-burning oven out there, steamers, everything. I find it incredibly relaxing to be able to create a meal. My dream is to take a year to spend in Paris and go to cooking school.”

As these executives are learning, cooking can be habit forming. But it’s comforting to know that after a grueling day at the office, relaxation is as close as the oven door.