Less than three years ago, Carlos Poche was working for a rustic pizzeria in Alabama after being displaced from his native New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. He moved to Nebraska in 2006 and, after cooking at the Cornhusker Club in the tiny south-central Nebraska town of Orleans, was hired recently as executive chef at the new Bourbon Street Blues Bistro & Bar at Kearney’s Ramada Inn.
“I come from a melting pot of food, art, music and people in New Orleans, and I’ve tried to bring a little bit of that back to Nebraska,” Poche says. “I’ve been cooking Cajun food for years, and I enjoy sharing what I know with people here.”
After working many years as a loan officer, Poche started cooking in restaurants in 1994. He has worked as a chef since 2001, including a stint on a cruise ship and jobs at many upscale restaurants in New Orleans. “I didn’t go to culinary school like most chefs. I came up through the ranks and learned that way,” he says.
Carlos Poche learned to cook as a young boy while working in the kitchen of his father, a Sicilian chef and pastry maker. “I was cutting onions and whipping custard by hand as soon as I was big enough to stand on a chair,” Carlos Poche said. “My father was tough as nails. He would never let me rest the bowl on anything. He would have me stand there and whip custard or hollandaise for 25 or 30 minutes straight while holding that big bowl.”
For years, Carlos Poche says, he has kept a notebook by his bed for when he dreams up new recipes. “I’ll wake up with these great recipes in my head, and if I don’t stop right then and write it down, I lose the thought and won’t remember it later,” he says. “I always keep a notebook nearby so I can jot ideas down. “I constantly am thinking of food and different ways to please people’s palates.”
See and enjoy Carlos Poche’s entire menu of Culinary delights at:
Bourbon Street Blues Bistro & Bar
Address: 301 Second Ave., inside the Kearney Ramada Inn
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