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Hanging up his toque Chef James Williams. Photo by Graham Lewis / Graham Lewis Fine Photoraphy Friday Nov 4, 2016 at 7:20 PM Nov 4, 2016 at 7:20 PM By Jim Flint For the Tidings Not all great chefs start off as dishwashers, but that job eventually led James Williams to chef jobs in some of Oregon’s finest restaurants. He recently retired after an 18-year gig at Omar’s in Ashland where they’ll celebrate his career on Nov. 10. Thursday night he was one of the former Top Chef winners of the Ashland Culinary Festival who prepared one of the six courses at the festival’s opening big dinner. “I did the dessert,” Williams said, “which used chocolate style espresso three ways — in a chocolate cake, ice cream, and a Crème brûlée.” About 40 years ago, when he started working in a restaurant kitchen, it wasn’t quite so fancy. “I was 14 when I started washing dishes at Hamlet’s Roost, a restaurant in downtown Ashland that is now Macaroni’s,” Williams said. He knew since the seventh grade that he wanted to be a chef, and if washing dishes was the only way to get into a kitchen at his young age, he’d take it. “I remember in school when we had to write career reports,” he said. “The teacher wanted us to write about three different careers. I told her it would be a waste of time, because I was interested in only one career, being a chef. So she let me do one.” He didn’t jump directly from the dish washing job onto the line. “I washed dishes at Brothers’ (restaurant in Ashland) in high school and then after graduation got a dish washing job at Omar’s, and it was there that I moved up rapidly,” Williams said. It was a con job that got him a job cooking there. “I buffaloed my way onto the line. They needed a sauté cook and asked me if I had any line experience. I said, 'oh yeah,' and they put me to work.” He learned fast and worked in the kitchen for 10 years, at which time he decided to enroll in Western Culinary School in Portland. He and his wife, a cocktail waitress he had met at Omar’s, moved north. He attended school while she worked. He graduated at the top of his class and got a job in 1991 as executive sous chef at the Portland Golf Club. While there, he competed as a member of the Oregon team at the Cooking Olympics in Frankfurt, Germany, and came home with a silver medal. “Our team captain was the executive chef at Timberline Lodge and he offered me a job as executive sous chef there,” Williams said. He worked there for five years and then went out on his own, opening a restaurant at Crooked River Ranch near Bend. After a couple years, he returned to the Rogue Valley and helped out at Omar’s before being offered the executive chef job there when his predecessor retired. He began updating the menu and imprinting his style. “I liked using mostly local and regional products,” he said. “This is a great area, with so many small farms and artisans, making it easy to locally source.” Williams said he tried to combine a menu of restaurant favorites, such as hand-cut, extra-aged steaks and seafood, with six to 12 daily specials — “That’s where I get to play,” he said. “Too large of a menu is a killer. You can’t control quality.” One of his favorite genres is Thai food. Thai and other Asian dishes often found there way onto the specials-of-the-day menu. “I just like the explosion of flavors,” he said. “It makes it fun and delicious. Asian flavors are unique and bold and in your face.” At home, Williams does most of the cooking. One of his favorite dishes to make is a roast chicken. “I stuff the cavity with aromatic vegetables — onions, carrots and celery — along with fresh herbs and some butter. I also lift up the skin on the breast and push in slivers of butter, garlic, herbs and lemon zest.” He roasts the bird in a 350-degree oven until the juices run clear when he pokes a joint. He has a special trick when it comes to roasting the Thanksgiving turkey, a trick that avoids undercooked or overcooked meat. “I don’t cook the bird whole,” he said. “I break it down, breast pieces and thighs and let them sit overnight in a brine.” The next day, he places the pieces, seasoned with salt and pepper, in a sheet pan on a bed of carrots, celery, and onions, adding a little water. “By doing that, I can pull out the various pieces when they’re done,” he said, avoiding undercooked thighs and dried out breast meat. He uses the turkey carcass to make stock, which he uses to make gravy. Williams, 53, retired from Omar’s, where he became part owner in 2004, but he isn’t finished. He said he has another project in the works which he’ll be able to talk about more in the near future. He and his wife Lorie live in Talent. They have a daughter who lives in Australia and another daughter and son who live in the Rogue Valley. Jim Flint is a retired newspaper editor and publisher living in Ashland. You can reach him at [email protected].