10 QUESTIONS WITH 1. Who inspired your love of cooking? My mother, Connie. Her Neapolitan meatballs in tomato sauce are my first food memory, and I was inspired from day one. They’re off the charts! And she never forgot that scoop of ricotta cheese. 2. How did you start your journey in food? My first paying job was as a busboy at the Scottsdale Hilton at age 16. One Mother’s Day, I was carrying a tray of water glasses to a table. Somebody bumped me, and I spilled ice-cold water down the back of an unsuspecting mother. She screamed … I screamed … I ran. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to work in the dining room, so I begged the executive chef for a prep-cook job. For whatever reason (probably pity, because he knew what happened) he gave me the job, and the rest is history. 3. What does cooking mean to you? Cooking for me is a craft and an art form. I love Chief culinary officer at M Culinary Concepts CHEF MICHAEL D e MARIA 6 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | MAY 2019

the challenge of perfecting my technique and then deciding which ingredients to add or delete to create new dishes. 4. What’s your favorite meal to make? Meatballs. Any kind of meatballs. My absolute favorite, of course, are my mom’s meatballs — classic Neapolitan-style beef in marinara sauce. 5. Favorite ingredient to work with? It’s a tough call. I’ll give you three — great fish, fresh cauliflower and handmade pasta. The order depends on my mood, and what I’m cooking! 6. If you weren’t a chef, what would you be? A globetrotting fly-fishing guide. My go-to spot is the North Platte Lodge on the North Platte River, just outside of Casper, Wyoming. And my absolute favorite is Wollaston Lake in northern Saskatchewan for giant pike on the fly. 7. M Culinary caters the Waste Management Phoenix Open for more than 200,000 people. What’s the biggest challenge to catering the world’s largest cocktail party? Finding enough talented culinary staff to cook for more than 200,000 people over six days. Catering chefs have specific skill sets. Sometimes it’s like finding a needle in a haystack. 8. What’s your favorite charity event that you participate in, and why? Every year we partner with The Thunderbirds to feed families at Homeward Bound. I get to run the hot dog cart and, for a tubular meat enthusiast such as myself, it’s the greatest job! I even get the kids to help me. It’s the best feeling to make huge FUN (one of M Culinary’s core values) with those boys and girls. 9. Why is giving back to your community so important to you? Feeding people is an intimate experience. It brings people together. For M Culinary and me, we can use food to bring our community together. We envision a community nourished by selfless difference-makers, and we want to be among those making a difference. 10. What big thing is coming up next for M Culinary? We are going to spend the summer driving innovation with our team. New food and beverage concepts. Interactive chef-action stations. Reinvented classics with new twists. The 2019−2020 event season is going to be something spectacular! To learn more, go to mculinary.com . When asked who he’d most like to cook for, award-winning chef Michael DeMaria chooses Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway. MAY 2019 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 7