Pete Silvano started the Chef’s Life Facebook group to network with other chefs and sell products from his apparel company. But the St. Petersburg chef knew he needed to do more than vend graphic tees online after coming close to deleting the group, which has grown to more than 11,000 members, last year. Flack from his fellow Chef’s Life compatriots rolled in, as Silvano tells it, because the group was making an impact.
“You can’t do this to us.”
“Let me take over the group.”
“We need this.”
“Right then and there I knew I needed to do something more than just sell T-shirts because there’s people out there that need something more substantial than that,” said Silvano, a Massachusetts native who’s been in the hospitality industry for 28 years. “And I’m one of those people.”
A few admins help manage the closed group that began four years ago, answering member requests and ensuring folks are posting their real food photos through a reverse image search. Chefs and cooks worldwide — locations like India, Australia and the U.K. are represented, though the group’s core is U.S.-based — share everything from articles on topics like “avocado hand” and their worst knife experiences to brief updates on what they’re cooking (a recent video showed a chef handling live daggertooth pike conger eel). Questions and advice regarding career and family have also allowed Chef’s Life to become what Silvano says is more than a Facebook group.
So, what’s a network within a social network to do next? Connect IRL. Silvano, who sets up his global barbecue biz, Barbacoa Inc., outside places like Fubar and Local 662 once or twice a week, has organized a laid-back weekend getaway known as Chef’s Life Throwdown for 30 or so members since 2015. They’d fly into town, get hotel rooms, grill out together, visit downtown, rent a boat, have a beach day, cook some more and catch a fish or two.
“It was basically let’s network, let’s get together, let’s have a nice relaxing weekend and get away from the monotony. And get to know each other because we see each other in the group every day, we talk to each other,” he said.
This year’s two-day congregation, however, is the biggest yet. Open to the public, the Saturday portion of Chef’s Life Throwdown III, hosted at Green Bench Brewing Co. from 2 to midnight June 24, plans to spotlight chef-driven vendors (think cutting boards and hot sauces), a cigar roller, live DJ, and Battle of the Chefs, which pits six locals and out-of-towners — chef Chris Frakes of Clearwater’s Sheraton Sand Key Resort among them — against each other in a multi-round food fight with secret ingredients. The winner, as chosen by a panel of judges that includes Hell’s Kitchen alum Ashley Nickell and Kristin Barone, scores an engraved Ergo Chef knife, an engraved cutting board from Chef’s Life member Christopher Stavely, and possibly entry into Alabama’s World Food Championships in November.
According to Ashley Giasone, executive director for the Ryan Wells Foundation, a nonprofit supporting the culinary and hospitality programs of Pinellas County, community events like these give students the opportunity to apply what they’re learning in a real-world setting, network and build relationships that could lead to employment, and increase their confidence and public-speaking skills. The foundation’s in the process of rounding up Northeast High School culinary students as event volunteers.
"They are the future leaders of the hospitality industry, so why not get them started young?" Giasone told CL.
With a local and sustainable theme, the event’s educational element comes in the form of several culinary demonstrations throughout the day — one of them being animal preparation and charcuterie. Chef’s Life member and Georgia chef Josh Trusler will showcase samples of charcuterie made with the curing agent koji, plus walk the crowd through the process of breaking down a whole hog.
Silvano’s set to cure parts of the pig in a 55-degree wine cooler until Chef’s Life Throwdown next year (where they’ll taste the 2017 charcuterie), and the rest will be cooked on-site alongside a whole lamb, asado style.
“A lot of these guys that are coming don’t know how to break down a whole hog. But if you learned it and you go back to your restaurant, now you’re gonna buy a whole hog. Go buy it from a farmer in your town, break that whole hog down, utilize the whole thing and bring your food cost down,” Silvano said. “Now your restaurant’s doing well, you’re doing well. It’s all building yourself back up to where you want to be.”
Raising spirits speaks to what Silvano calls his “end result,” a goal the event is ultimately a catalyst for. He’s looking to start a nonprofit geared toward back-of-house staff, and perhaps front of house eventually, that provides benefits to folks working in the stress-driven environment that is a professional kitchen: a month’s salary if they’ve unexpectedly lost their jobs, addiction therapy — whatever it may be.
A $75 ticket to Chef’s Life Throwdown III, available online in advance, includes craft beer and wine on Saturday (as well as a swag bag filled with a T-shirt, spices and other goodies), while a $125 ticket grants access to the Saturday festivities and the group’s Sunday Funday on June 25, when their annual beach-day tradition will continue under a Fort DeSoto gazebo with a seafood cookout. A portion of the ticket sales benefits the farming industry and a charity in the area.
“I want this industry to flourish,” Silvano said. “The one that raised me, because that’s all I know.”
