A year ago, Auburn graduate Rob McDaniel was competing against chef Bobby Flay in Food Network's "Iron Chef."
Now he's serving up fresh and seasonal cuisine as executive chef for the SpringHouse at Lake Martin.
Originally from Haleyville, McDaniel graduated from Auburn in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in hotel and restaurant management.
"I started cooking about a year and a half before I graduated," McDaniel said. "First I was at Ruby Tuesday's and then Amsterdam Cafe, and I changed majors to hotel and restaurant management and knew that I wanted to go to culinary school. I just loved to cook."
After spending five years on the Plains, McDaniel attended the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont.
After the two-year program, McDaniel moved to Birmingham.
He said finding a place, and a chance, to work was not easy.
"Long hours and working for free a lot of times, which nobody does anymore," McDaniel said. "I washed dishes, reupholstered chairs--I did a lot of stuff for free just to be able to learn at restaurants."
McDaniel worked as a sous chef for Chris and Idle Hastings at Hot and Hot Fish Club after moving back to Birmingham.
He competed on Hastings' team on Iron Chef in February of 2012.
McDaniel now spends his time at SpringHouse at Lake Martin and said he wants his cuisine to be seasonal, fresh and simple.
"We're not going to serve tomatoes in December because tomatoes aren't any good in December," McDaniel said.
"There is a season for everything and that's when it needs to be served. We don't complicate things. We don't do a lot of sauces and stuff. I want people to taste the food for what it is, not a bunch of sauce and that stuff. If you've got great ingredients and they're at the peak of their season then they should speak for themselves."
His philosophy on fresh food not only means locally grown and in season, but organic when possible.
"Organic has become a very widely used term in the last couple of years," McDaniel said.
"Organic is good, yes, I would prefer local farmers who I have a relationship with. A lot of what I do these days is not necessarily cooking, it's building relationships with farmers and fisherman and cattleman and things like that."
He said opening a restaurant in Auburn would be much different compared to what he has encountered thus far.
"With it being a college town, it would probably be different," McDaniel said. "I'd love to have a place in Auburn that was part bar, part just good food, but small bites and simple and fast and focus on local ingredients, but affordable."
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