For Leesburg Chef, Food Keeps Alive Familiar Traditions
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Sunday, July 27, 2008

Patrick Dinh, 44, born to Vietnamese parents with a taste for French cuisine, is the executive chef at Tuscarora Mill in Leesburg. He spoke recently with loudounextra.com staff writer Sydney Wilmer about his life, why he loves to cook and what he enjoys about Loudoun.

Q You graduated from George Washington University with a degree in finance in 1986. But today you are a chef. When and why did you decide to switch career paths?

AGeorge Washington was and is a good school. I didn't know what I wanted to do with myself, and business school was a good, well-rounded thing to do.

I probably knew I wanted to be a chef in 1989 when I moved to California. I worked with Jeremiah Tower, and I saw how good it could be. It was probably one of my most formative cooking experiences. I also was with David Robins, working with a great organization. I ended up using that as my standard.

I enjoyed cooking a lot, and as finance and banking started going to the wayside, cooking became more and more what I realized I wanted to do. I could feed myself. It was a career for a lifetime; I could always learn something new. My parents owned a restaurant growing up. Working behind a desk just seemed really foreign to me.

Also, I don't have that high degree of greed in me. One of my finance professors once said you must prefer more to less. So everything you do in finance is about getting more. It made sense to me, but I didn't want to work that hard for that kind of dollar.

How long have you been cooking, personally and professionally?

Professionally, since 1987. I started at an Italian restaurant in Washington called Vivande. It is no longer there.

My father was the chef in the house. I pretty much taught myself how to cook, but my father taught me how to eat. He lived in France for a while, but he was Vietnamese. So culturally, he was about half-Vietnamese, half-French.

What role did food play in your family when you were growing up?

We grew up at the family table, so even through high school it was about sitting at the family table and eating. We didn't eat in front of the TV. It was a way of continuing the culture through Vietnamese food. All we talked about was the food.

It is part of what keeps us rooted to who we are. This is a facet that doesn't exist as much in American culture. In Europe, there is the family table. It is something that is really important.

What does food mean to you and your family today?

My wife is an Anglo. She didn't grow up in the food culture I did. When I cook, I try to convey who I am through my food. It thrills me to no end when my children can enjoy that food in that way.

One dish, pho -- it is one of my daughter's most favorite foods in the world. I would like to see her cook that in the traditional manner one day. Not anytime soon, but when she is like 24. It would be something she could fall back on, a way to feed yourself well and cheaply that reminds you of where you come from.

Some dishes, flavors, tastes and scents are big memory stimulators. If I smell a spaghetti sauce that has fennel sausage stewing in it, I see my dad and it is stone cold outside. Steam is dripping down the window. I remember the scene completely. These are little memory snaps that stay with you.

What is your favorite dish to prepare and why?

My favorite things right now -- I love big braises. It is a transformation of a lowly meat that can become wonderful after several hours of cooking. It is very rewarding.

I also love making ice cream. I probably don't do it enough. You take this sweet creamy liquid, then you freeze it through this process, and it is better than anything you can get in a store.

Cooking is all about mood. What are you in the mood for? What are you having a hankering for?

If you could name your biggest culinary influences -- people, places or things -- what would they be?

Here, I work for Kevin Malone. He has taught me to cook for the audience here. He has a much more classical sense of food and the cooking technique. I learned most of my technique from Jeremiah Tower 19 years ago.

I love what I see on TV, too. Mario Batali -- his food is almost exactly the kind of food I'd like to cook on a regular basis. It is simple. It emphasizes certain flavors. It is well thought-out food without being particularly fussy.

Years ago on the BBC there was a show called "Chef." It taught me the three most important things to know in cooking: It is about the best ingredients, timing and restraint.

People-wise, I am an emulator. If I see something that is great, I will try to make it my own.

How did you find your way to Loudoun County?

I had lived in the big city, in D.C. proper, most of my life. I was in Alexandria when I got the job offer at the Tuscarora Mill in 1992. I made the commute for eight months, then decided I couldn't do it any more; it was a 45-mile trip. This was my shot; I have to make the most of it.

What is your favorite part about living in Loudoun County?

It has changed so much. We love our house; we converted a barn into a house. Some parts of the county are like rolling hills and meadows. I love that.

I wish there were more cultural centers here, though. If you want to go to museums, you have to go to the city.

Tell us something about yourself that might surprise your customers.

I love beer, and I love shooting guns. I haven't shot guns in a while, but I drink beer all the time. And I love photography. I was not built for the business and banking industry. When I struggled through my finance classes and wasn't having any trouble in my photography classes, I knew.