A Life of Taste Loving
No good endeavor ever pops out of thin air, rather, they grow. In our last blog, Full Body Inspiration, we told the story of how FlavoryTX grew as an idea into the fully fleshed-out movement that it is today. Another way to tell that story is through the people that brought it into being because good endeavors are really the fruit of the lives, experiences, and passions of the people behind them. So take a dive with us into the life story of our board member Jim Mikula. It will help fill in the picture of Flavory's delicious mission.
Flavory's ambitions are as wide-reaching as the culinary landscape of Texas, stretching from malbec to malt whisky, but one part of the dream is to be that spark that somehow lights a fire for flavors in a young kid's heart and sets the course for a culinarily charged life. There has been a fire like this burning in Jim Makula's life which has taken him around the world many times.
A creative fire lit
When he was a teenager, a local hotel sponsored a cooking course for Jim's high school. He was open to anything and saw the opportunity for some work experience so he signed up. The course gave him a taste of every aspect of the food industry, he got to try out prepping ingredients, salad making, desserts, grill, line cook, and probably washed a few dishes along the way. The chef in charge of the kitchen really took Jim under his wing. Through lots of good coaching, he started collecting valuable skills. But more importantly, a passion for all things food and drink was kindled. He soaked in the endless ways ingredients came together under the creative hand of an inspired chef. For a kid raised in a family of modest means, this also gave him the key to a college career. Working in the kitchen paid his way through culinary school in Las Vegas, and so he was off to the races.
One thing led to another and he eventually found himself in the kitchens of Four Seasons cruise ships. This is where the wider possibilities of food and drink really opened up for Jim and the fruit of this time is written into the DNA of Flavory. A cruise ship is nothing if not a carefully curated experience. There is no aspect to a guest's day onboard that doesn't seek to inspire and create memories that will last a lifetime. It is in these spectacular and creative environments that people light up, their imaginations work overdrive, their senses are heightened. This is the key insight at the core of Flavory's mission: inspired and full-body experiences create the best memories, so creating these environments is the key to deep learning.
Working with the best chef's in the world on these cruise ships and traveling the globe, Jim was in this mode of inspired learning every day, taking in the sights, tastes, and smells of the world. On a cruise, you have this intensely rich experience that pulls together every aspect of the culinary world. When you hear Jim talk about Flavory you hear this passion for pulling all the different aspects of the Texas culinary landscape together under one roof and banner. When he's tasting a special single cask bourbon at Garrison Bros Distillery, for example, it's so smooth and sweet that he thinks "I'd put this on vanilla ice cream. Somebody call the best creamery around and let's have a bourbon/ice cream experiment party." It's that kind of wide-ranging curiosity, cultivated in Jim's early career, that drives Flavory's passion for flavors.
Passing the torch along
This passion, ignited as a young man, is exactly what Jim is hoping Flavory will be able to pass on to the next generation of culinarians. As a sort of pay-it-forward act in honor of the high school teacher who inspired him, Jim helped found a culinary arts program at the local high school in Fredericksburg. It has been particularly gratifying for him to see the story come full circle as students from this program were invited to work alongside a local chef preparing food for our recent holiday party fundraiser, Holiday Prelude 2022 (event report coming soon in our next blog)!
Hopefully, some creative young food maker was inspired by the experience and will catch the flame that has burned brightly throughout Jim Mikula's career. We also hope you've gotten a taste of how his unique life experience has shaped our unique mission at FlavoryTX.
