Kitchen Job Hunts & International Culinary Intrigue

In preparation for pounding the pavement, looking for kitchen work in my small yet-full-of-great-restaurants town, I did some research for my résumé and dug around to find my old bosses. Nearly all of them had moved on to another position or establishment, but I still knew where to find them. One boss--one of the best I've known--however, remained aloof.

Back in high school, I apprenticed at the $50-a-plate fusion restaurant Empire Global Cuisine in Carlisle, PA. "Apprenticed" means I worked for food--that is, I was literally paid in food. And it was the greatest renumeration I've ever received! Chef Carrie Bogar was CIA-trained (that's Culinary Institute of America, the top American culinary academy, not the sleuthy torturers we all love to hate) and creative beyond anyone I had personally known. She got me to love sweet potatoes (it's all in the seasoning), and her Moroccan peanut soup (I think that's what it was--I'm thinking back almost 15 years here!) was to die for! One of the most memorable moments was a feast night fashioned after the menu of the film Big Night about an Italian restaurant under threat of closing that throws a party with jazz singer Louis Prima invited as the headliner. The music is fantastic in the film, but the food is a thousand times better. And I got to eat it, in nine whole courses. It was one of the best nights of my life.

To give you an idea of what the meal was all about, here are eight sensual minutes of the dinner scene from Big Night.



Back to Empire Global Cuisine, I still have family in PA and occasionally drive through my old hometown town, past where Empire used to sit. A few years back I noticed there was no more Empire, but instead a Japanese place in the old storefront. I figured Carrie either switched from global fusion to Asian cuisine or moved on to a different town. When I plugged the old restaurant name into Google, the results were more than I expected.

Someone from Philly named Dave H. reviewed Empire in February 2008, sometime after its closing. The webpage has its info all backwards, with the name entered in as "Global Empire Cuisine," a confusing inversion that implies oppressive cuisine (as in the other CIA!), and the category as "Asian fusion," speaking to, I assume the new Japanese restaurant. But that's not the suspicious part. Dave H. gives an update that reads:

I heard Empire has either closed or changed hands, and now serves Japanese fare. (I believe the owners left the country for legit, law-abiding reasons, not tax evasion.) Can anyone verify this?

Wow! Talk about juicy rumors of international intrigue! Wondering if Carrie had joined the other CIA afterall, I did some more Googling and found her latest refuge on the tiny island of Anguilla near the British Virgin Islands. It is a British territory, so it appears she has left the country. It turns out she has a place called the Veya Restaurant with a similar fusion flavor. I found that Carrie blogged about prepping the restaurant to open in November 2006. I guess I have an excuse to go to the Virgin Islands after all...some day!

...BTW, I just found a Carlisle foodie blog post confirming the closing of Empire and the opening of Veya. Belated congrats to Carrie, and consider your rumor verified Dave H!