From the history of Provence to cooking with beets, chef Alex Levine takes a wholesome approach.
By: Ilene Dube
The thermometer on the car reads 97 degrees. With the heat index, it feels like 9,700 degrees. Despite the yellow striped beets from your farm share languishing in the fridge, the idea of cooking dinner is about as enticing as hugging the oil burner.
And so your car veers in the direction of the nearest prepared-food vendor, that life-saving advent of our frenzied times. But take-out can grow tiresome after weeks of sizzling weather repels you from the kitchen. In the past year, shoppers in the Princeton area have found a healthier alternative the prepared-food counter at Whole Foods Market on Route 1 in West Windsor.
Even though Whole Foods is a large chain, the kitchen is staffed by chefs who have earned their reputations in smaller, more locally grown venues.
Culinary Institute of America-trained chef Arlene Sadowsky is known to many for the nine years she prepared gourmet foods at Richard’s Farm Market, behind Nassau Park Pavilion in West Windsor. She is quick to point out that Richard’s closed last year because the owner, Michelle Vaccaro Everman, decided to pursue a different line of work, and not because of the opening of Whole Foods. Ms. Sadowsky, who lives in Titusville, just happened to luck out, with the store opening at the precise time she was seeking a new job. "Half my (former) kitchen staff is here with me," she says.
Princeton resident Alex Levine joined the staff at that time as well. His purview includes prepared foods, the salad bar and the café area, although he makes it clear that at Whole Foods, there are no managers and there are no subordinates. "We have ‘leadership’ here at Whole Foods," he says. "We all work together."
If he sounds like he’s drunk the Kool-Aid from the corporate offices at the company voted one of the 39 best places to work by Fortune magazine, he admits the philosophy is easily absorbed.
Mr. Levine, who was the chef at Bon Appetit in Princeton before he came to Whole Foods, arrives at 6 a.m. most days, and some nights he’s there until 11 p.m. But he does get two days off per week and paid vacation, which is a big deal for a chef.
On a recent morning, just before opening, the store was buzzing with staff in white aprons, emblazoned with the Whole Foods logo, and patterned pants, setting up the food in the cases. The food is prepared the night before, because it has to be cold when it goes into the case, Mr. Levine explains, assuring its made-that-day freshness. A "blast chiller" is used to get the food to cool down quickly. No preservatives are used.
About half of the ingredients used to make the prepared foods were grown organically, but the prepared foods cannot be labeled organic because they have been washed in the same sink as conventionally grown vegetables. U.S. Department of Agriculture organic certification standards require organic foods to be stored separately from conventionally grown, as well.
"All ‘leadership’ at Whole Foods go through a two-hour training program in organic certification standards and must past a quiz," Mr. Levine says. Most do well on the quiz, because the people who gravitate to careers at Whole Foods are those who have a natural interest, he adds.
"We recruit the best people we can to become part of our team. We empower them to make their own decisions, creating a respectful workplace where people are treated fairly and are highly motivated to succeed," says the Whole Foods Web site. "We look for people who are passionate about food. Our team members are also well-rounded human beings. They play a critical role in helping build the store into a profitable and beneficial part of its community." (For more about the Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet philosophy, see www.wholefoodsmarket.com.)
"Almost everyone in the kitchen has worked in a restaurant or been to cooking school," says Mr. Levine. "One person started as a dishwasher and now cooks and is in a supervisory position."
The prepared-foods case includes six windows of themed menus, with six to seven dishes in each theme, and there are 10 or more deli salads and assorted sandwiches something to please everyone in the most finicky of crowds.
On this particular day, the Italian section included halibut with anchovies and breadcrumbs; escarole with roasted garlic; balsamic marinated chicken breast; Caprese salad; and roasted potatoes with pesto and sun-dried tomato.
"The menus rotate every two weeks," says Ms. Sadowski. "Alex and I decide what to put in with help from regional headquarters."
"We always have one vegetarian menu," adds Mr. Levine. On this day it included sunflower cutlets, tofu meatloaf, wheatberry salad with Feta cheese and a vegetable salad with artichokes.
"We set it up with the color varied and the dishes angled for variety," Mr. Levine says.
Recipes for the 172-store chain are developed by region. The 62,000-square-foot West Windsor store, which opened Sept. 16 last year, is part of the mid-Atlantic region. There are 26 stores in the mid-Atlantic region, including Philadelphia.
Recipes are also developed by store. "We solicit ideas from anyone in the kitchen, and we encourage involvement," says Mr. Levine. A team member came up with the store’s stuffed portabella mushroom, filled with spinach and artichokes.
"The company tries to introduce foods from around the world," says Mr. Levine, holding up a platter of black rice from China. The ingredients include pineapple, rice vinegar, and fresh ginger. "Every grain of rice looks like a jewel."
Heirloom vegetables such as potatoes, tomatoes and beans are favorites at Whole Foods. "It gives us a chance to promote locally grown non-industrial vegetables," he says.
"We sell tons of beets. Home cooks are reluctant to work with beets because they’re messy, and some people don’t know how to cook sweet potatoes," another big seller. The ginger sweet potato salad and mashed cauliflower are among Mr. Levine’s personal favorites.
He is most proud of the salad bar. "In many places, a lot of these dishes would be sold from the display case," he says. There are raw vegetables, slaws, a Brazilian rice salad. "These sell like crazy. A lot of people eat in the (75-person) café, where we have wireless internet."
There also is a wood-fired pizza oven with its own counter, a gelato bar and a chef’s station that prepares 50 to 60 hot meals a day.
Mr. Levine, 46, is just the type of whole person Whole Foods likes to have on its leadership team. Having grown up in Port Washington, L.I., he attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where he majored in history and anthropology. He worked as a paralegal for two years before entering University of California at Berkeley’s doctoral program in history. He lived in France for two years to research his dissertation on culture and politics in 16th-century Provence, then taught history at Santa Clara University for four years.
"Teaching full-time and writing a dissertation at the same time is not something I would recommend," he says. "So I chucked it and started at the bottom of the restaurant and catering (business)."
He just happened to be in the San Francisco Bay area during the American food revolution of the early to mid- ’90s started by Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. "It was a great place to be in food. There were farmers’ markets, small olive oil producers… a lady in Marin County built a spring in her backyard to grow watercress for restaurants."
Having spent his lifetime getting a formal education, Mr. Levine bypassed cooking school and went straight into the kitchens of caterers, doing prep work and working the salad station. "The first day I worked for a caterer," he recounts, "I had to shape the dough for 400 mini tartlets. I wasn’t very good, but by the 400th, I had become an expert."
He moved into prepared foods in 2000 "because it is more compatible with family life," he says. "Getting home at 11 at night, six nights a week, wouldn’t allow me to see my kids grow up."
Three years ago, Mr. Levine and his family moved to Princeton for the job at Bon Appetit. One daughter is an eighth-grader at John Witherspoon School, the other a third-grader at Community Park. Joyce Howe, Mr. Levine’s wife, coordinates a literacy program at Community Park School. His parents and brother also live in Princeton. "It was a longstanding feeling we’d eventually come back East," Mr. Levine says.
While working at Bon Appetit, he learned what people in Princeton want, and learned about cheese from a "master": Michel Lemmerling, Bon Appetit’s owner. "In a smaller place you may have more autonomy, but working in a larger organization makes my life less hectic; knowing on my day off, any number of people can solve problems" is a tremendous relief.
Apart from working with food, he likes the people part of the job, and holds office hours, just as he did when a college professor, listening to and addressing the concerns of team members.
The Whole Foods lifestyle hasn’t completely worked its way into his own eating habits: "I taste all day and don’t eat meals, and drink a lot of coffee." Unlike many chefs, he doesn’t have a weight problem. And his family benefits from the wholesome approach: "I love the food I can buy here; whatever vegetable looks best, that’s what we have for dinner. We started eating quinoa the kids love it and we eat more whole grains. We’re definitely more conscious of eating natural and organic than before I started working here."
Now that he’s lived in New Jersey for three years, he is letting his friends in the food business know this truly is the Garden State. "They may have a longer season for asparagus (in California), but ours is better. The same for blueberries and tomatoes. And the small organic farms are incredibly exciting."
Whole Foods Market, 3495 Route 1 South, West Windsor, is open daily 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Chef Alex Levine will offer the following cooking classes: Sept. 26, 7-8:30 p.m., Too Many Tomatoes?: How to prepare capellini with uncooked tomato sauce, tomato and parsley salad, and slow-roasted tomatoes with fresh herbs; Oct. 24, 7-8:30 p.m., Fabulous Fall: Cool season dishes roasted beet salad with ricotta salata, acorn squash stuffed with wild mushrooms and wheat berries, celery root purée with sautéed leeks, and pumpkin ice cream. For information about these and other classes, call (609) 799-2919 or visit www.wholefoodsmarket.com