Well Prepared

Mike Braca

Dan Soucy is the Prepared Foods Team Leader at the Waterman Street Whole Foods Market.

How did your culinary career start?
My culinary career began in 1991 at the Beef Barn in North Smithfield. I spent 12 years working there developing the timing and basics of cooking. While I was certainly not making beautiful sautees or rich creative dishes, I was able to develop a fantastic understanding of time management and efficiency.

I would say my true culinary career started at Whole Foods in 2005. With our company being on the cutting edge food, and being a foodie myself, I was able to use the foundation I had and really work to challenge myself to cook inspired dishes.

What do you like about working for Whole Foods instead of a restaurant?
Whole Foods is a place that fosters the creative spirit and is truly what separates it from working in the restaurant. Working for Whole Foods certainly does afford you more time to pursue other interests. The late nights and long hours of the restauraunt business are behind me, allowing more time with my wife and two-year-old son. The job is still certainly stressful. There are always demands to maintain a full, clean and attractive department, but that is why it is an extremely rewarding position. I’ve always said I want to work hard enough to know I deserve that ice-cold beer when I get home.

What do you pay special attention to when developing recipes?
Creativity is something I value and try to have with my cooking. I like to do catering jobs when the opportunity presents itself. That’s where I can try to go outside of the box and get into the kitchen and do some cooking. Shrimp and mango ceviche, polenta bolognese with thyme and lemon zest, and chimichurri beef skewers are a few items I made for a special event. Bringing the highest quality food to our customer drives my cooking. Even if the item is a staple, freshness and high quality healthy ingredients are always the inspiration for my dishes. I also love working as part of a team. I take suggestions from the team to help make the best food; they always teach me things I didn’t know were a piece of our culture that a restaurant can’t match.

What’s on shoppers’ minds these days, food-wise?
I certainly see health as a trend in our business. Especially being fresh off of the new year, people are looking to get healthy. Although we sell many rich foods, we are after all a health food store. Fresh produce and healthy grains are items people can’t get enough of. Customers do still look for our “comfort foods,” which might not be as healthy but are still in demand. Cheese, prosciutto and steaks are still on people’s minds.

Do you travel to or communicate with other stores to get an idea about what’s happening across the region/country?
We often travel to other stores and “spy” on them to see if there’s anything we can bring back to our own department. While our region works together as a team, we also have healthy competition to outdo each other. We also get regular information about the Whole Foods throughout the country, comparing our performance in all areas to the other regions. There are tons of great ideas out there and seeing other's best practices are very important the development of our department and store.

What are some of your favorite local products?
We carry pizza shells from the Pizza Gourmet on Hope Street. We get the shells and use our own cheese, sauce and toppings and sell them in our prepack. The flavor is unbelievable and is probably the best premade pizza you can get. I used to be able to go out and sample our local cuisine a lot more often before my son was born. Living in the Westerly area means I do a lot of travel to Providence and the car is where I spend a lot of my time. Small plates and tapas are my favorite foods. The best meal I had recently was as local as my kitchen. Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic is by far the best meal I’ve had all year. I’m not a chicken fan per se, but this recipe has turned me in to one.