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The dynamic duo met while sharpening their skills under one of the Northwest's most beloved chefs Thierry Rautureau at his flagship restaurant Rovers. Both are still working at the fine dinning mecca by day and have been putting all their energy into being Seattle's newest culinary vigilantes by night.

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Kalen Schramke

Like many cooks, I come from a family of great cooks. For my mother, grandmother and great grandmothers, creating and eating great food is/was a key part of their lives. As a child I was lucky enough to be able to spend most of my summers on my grandparents farm and I think it was in my grandmothers kitchen that I found my inspiration.

In many ways my grandparents were pioneers. Their farm was completely off the grid, getting all of its power from wind and the sun. The two of them worked hard to produce some of the first (and best) certified organic table fruit in Michigan. It's easy to say that the time I spent there as a child significantly influenced the way I feel about both food and farmers.

My first real dinners were put together as a teenager at my aunt's ski house where I spent my winter weekends learning to love the mountains in northern Vermont. It was in that house that I started to go through cookbooks and put together meals for an aunt who was happy to buy any ingredients I might need as long as it meant she didn't have to cook. Then, one evening when I was 18, after enjoying a meal I'd cooked at home my dad remarked, "Hey, you're good at this. You could do it for a living." That off-hand comment was like the starting gun for my career and since then, I haven't looked back.

My first job was as a dishwasher working for a chef who knew that I had culinary aspirations. He wanted to make sure though that I got a real feel for restaurant life and nothing gives you that quicker than the dish pit. After a year in the pit working my butt off and learning the skills to my new trade I finally made it on to the line as a real cook. I spent a little over a year working there before finally deciding to go to culinary school. I spent the next two years learning all I could about food and the biz at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. After school I bounced around the country from Colorado to Hawaii working my way up in kitchens and learning all I could. I left Hawaii in late 2009 to come to Seattle. What drew me here was the city, but from my first bits of research into my new home I knew I wanted to work at Rovers. With luck a year and a half ago, I was hired there. It's been a wonderful experience to continue honing some of the skills I've been working on for the past ten years as a cook.

David Howe
    I started cooking, like most young men first time to college and without his mommy cooking for him; at school. Aside from cooking Top Ramen and the infinite array of matching the stale, borderline, and leftovers of college dorm accompaniments, such as McDonalds ketchup packets with Oboy O' Bertos cajun meat sticks and generic oriental seasoning, I soon became disillusioned with the horrors produced at said dorm kitchen. Shaking off my MSG high, I decided that I needed to learn how to cook properly, and quick. These were the experimental years; figuring out the difference between a clove of garlic and a bulb of garlic, how to melt chocolate in a double boiler, not on direct heat in a pan, and what overcooking fish does to a not so ventilated studio apartment.

   In the meantime I dropped out of school, partly due to malnutrition no doubt, and I got a “real“job driving forklifts and packaging books at Amazon.com. Slaving away - frigid in the winter, unbearably hot in the summer in an always dusty and dirty warehouse for over 2 agonizing mind numbing years, I quit and went back to school, this time to University of Washington, graduating with a BA in Political Science. But I liked working my hands and having a proper 9 to 5 job in a cubicle framed in disposable partisans, sent icy shivers down my spine. The fear was real, was I suppose to go back to warehouse work or other forms of menial labor, become some uninteresting drone in a office tower, or continue onto higher education. And then I read “Kitchen Confidential” and it all became clear, I wasn't afraid to try different things, I tend to gravitate towards hard work, and I really enjoy the company of derelicts and artists. I should be a chef.

   With no formal training or experience at any restaurant AND being 24, I couldn't find anyone willing to hire me. Wouldn't a restaurant want a young man willing to do anything for little money just for the opportunity to learn? Nope. Many doors shut. Applications to hotels went unanswered. Small mom and pop restaurants gave me one look, ask me who I've worked for, and immediately say not even an internship was available. It was clear, I needed to get my foot in the door somewhere/anywhere so I attended Seattle Culinary Academy. I "lucked out" and answered a handwritten flyer for a garde manger position at Lampreia.

   I couldn't have been more naive or foolish. I should have saw the looks of my peers and instructors gave me when I mentioned an interview at a place called Lamp-per-ia. Shocked look of, "Ok, dude, good luck...never been there...he is mean...if you can deal with him...". Showing up at the door, Chef Carsberg let me in and after a brief three minute interview, consisting of, "Your a little old for what I'm looking for, I don't pay very much compared to other restaurants, if you want to learn AND WORK and I will work you, come back tomorrow after school, pay is $9.00 an hour". I sold myself to this little man and started a two year apprenticeship with the most intimidating, bipolar, talented, bastard in all Seattle.

   Now, 7 years later I've worked for other great Seattle chefs, namely John Sundstrom of Lark, Tamara Murphy of Brasa, Ericka Burke of Volunteer Park Cafe and Marketplace and finally Thierry Rautureau of Rover's. My career is a culmination of all my previous training, and exceptional guidance from all my previous chefs. Also, all the cooks and front of house staff I have been blessed to work and toil with, a special thank you to them is in order; so thank you.

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