Gage Dawiedczyk didn’t set out to become a chef. At 14, he started out washing dishes at a local Appleton diner, just hoping to make a bit of spending money. But a few years later, a chaotic Friday morning changed everything. When two cooks walked out during the breakfast rush, the kitchen manager turned to Gage and said, ‘I need you to help.’
“It was a disaster,” Gage recounts with a smile. He remembers eggs refusing to flip and plating took twice as long. “I’d never really been that bad at something. I knew I had to figure it out.”
Gage moved on from the diner and worked for a few years at other restaurants where he studied their systems and styles in the kitchen. That experience ultimately nudged him to enroll in the Culinary Arts program at Fox Valley Technical College.
“I thought I knew a lot,” Gage says. “But I quickly realized how little I did know.”
Where making mistakes is OK
At FVTC, Gage found more than technical training, he also found a community of chefs who inspired him. From knife cuts to molecular gastronomy, baking to farm-to-table techniques, Gage says FVTC was the perfect learning environment. “It was the perfect setting to mess something up and figure out the ‘whys’.”
Ask Gage about his time at FVTC, and he’ll quickly start naming the chefs who shaped his career:
- Chef Gary taught the importance of respect in the kitchen. “The dishwasher is just as important as the head chef,” Gage says. “I’m very conscious of the words I use now.”
- Chef R.C and Chef Julia instilled discipline as Gage’s competition coaches. Working 40 hours a week while taking 12 college credits plus 40 hours of competition practice pushed Gage to the limit. “I wanted to quit so many times, but they kept coaching me back in.” The result was Gage won a gold medal from the American Culinary Federation, an achievement he said helped launch his career.
- Chef Jeff gets the credit for helping Gage fine-tune his communication skills and the importance of chefs representing themselves in a professional manner.
- Chef Mike taught Gage about the art of pasta and the value of patience. “We made a ton of pasta together,” Gage shares. “He showed me a million different ways to do that.”
Taking his skills to Lambeau Field
Gage’s education and culinary skills led him to a position with Delaware North at Lambeau Field, where he rose through the ranks. From supervisor to sous chef, then head of 1919 Kitchen & Tap, and now Executive Chef of Restaurants inside the iconic Packers stadium.
Gage’s connection to FVTC runs deep. Several graduates now work alongside him in the kitchen and he still draws on the lessons he learned there. When asked what advice he’d give to current and future Culinary Arts students, he doesn’t hesitate.
“Immerse yourself. FVTC is the perfect place to make mistakes and learn. Any mistake that you can make, I pretty much made it at FVTC, but that’s where to make it, right? You’re paying for an education. This is where you figure it out.”
