Jose Sanchez, Executive
Chef, Tradition Golf Club,
La Quinta, California
Jose Sanchez is the Executive Chef at the exclusive Arnold
Palmer-designed Tradition Golf Club in La Quinta, California.
He is also a scratch golfer. Jose’s story is an interesting one
from his family farm upbringing in Mexico to his move to the
United States of America where he learned to play golf in a
very unusual way. By Diana DeLucia
Tell us about your life before you were a Chef.
I grew up on my father’s 750-acre farm in the state of
Michoacán, Mexico. We grew and raised everything that
we ate. I come from a family of seven kids, and I learned to
farm at a very young age, helping my parents. That is where I
developed my pa ssion for cooking. I watched everything grow
from chickens to cattle, fruits and vegetables.
One of the things that I treasure about my childhood growing
up on the farm, versus a city kid, is that I was very fortunate
to be a part of the entire process. Everything we ate we
created from the beginning to the end. As an example, if we
were going to bake bread, we had to build the clay oven with
our parents. If we made tortillas, which many think of as such
a simple dish, it is in fact a long process. We had to plant the
corn, then grow and care for it organically without using any
chemicals. We learned ten different ways to prepare a potato,
and the same with corn. We had every different variety
of corn. When the corn dries, it becomes the base for the
tortilla. It is also used to feed the animals. We had to get up
at 4 a.m. to help grind the corn, so by daylight the prep would
all be done, and the tortillas were ready for the entire day.
Our days were spent working on the farm, going to school,
and then coming home and working on the farm again. In
those days, the nearest market was a six hour horseback
ride away. We had to be self-sufficient. To me, the process
of seeing the food grow from the beginning to the end is
the ultimate experience, and I feel it is something to which
everybody should be exposed at some point in their lives.
When I teach cooking classes here at Tradition, I take my
students to the local farms to show them the harvest. I
can’t show them the entire process, but at least they are
getting the feeling of where and how the food is produced.
The flavor of food that is organically produced is entirely
different from the mass produced foods that have become
commonplace.
Volume 3 • Issue 41
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