Fathers feeding families in faith

Chef John Besh and restaurateur Tommy Cvitanovich are masters of creating food that allows people to share the joyful gift of a meal at the table.
The two high-profile New Orleans restaurateurs told the 19th annual Morning of Spirituality for Men March 15 at St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Orleans that what they do for a living encompasses who they are as Catholics and as fathers.

“As men we are called to sanctity through our daily actions, through what we do every day,” said Besh, who operates nine restaurants, is the author of two cookbooks and has earned an international reputation as one of New Orleans’ top chefs. “My goal is to show my faith through my food, through my actions and through my daily works.”

Cvitanovich, who jokingly called Besh the “rock star” of New Orleans chefs, said he did not attend culinary school as did Besh but has worked his entire life with his parents – Croatian immigrants Drago and Klara Cvitanovich – serving up food that people love to eat.
“John is a rock star chef – I’m just a good cook,” Cvitanovich said.

One day Cvitanovich experimented with a butter and garlic sauce that the restaurant had been using for years when cooking barbecued redfish.

“I thought to myself, ‘I wonder what would happen if I put oysters on the half shell on the grill and used the same sauce?’” Cvitanovich said. “Now we’re selling about 3 million of them a year. What a great honor that’s been.”

Son’s Father’s Day card
Of all the accolades that have come his way, Cvitanovich said he was bowled over two years ago when day when his son Josh handed him a Father Day’s card during an especially difficult period in his life.

“It was after midnight so it was technically Father’s Day, and my son gives me a piece of paper,” Cvitanovich said. “He wrote, ‘Dear Dad, My gift is small, I know, but it’s a couple of quotes.”

The quotes were: “Even if you stumble, you are still moving forward.” And, “Sometimes good things have to fall apart so better things can fall together. All great changes are preceded by chaos.”

Josh signed the note, “I love you, Dad. You’re my best friend.”

“Today, it’s framed in the middle of our den on the credenza,” Cvitanovich said.

Besh said being professionally successful can be an impediment to leading a family. At one point his business ventures were taking so much of his time away from home that he was letting his wife Jenifer “raise the kids without me, without me really being the leader, without me stepping up as a man.”

There was Besh, a world-renowned chef, but his wife and four sons were eating fast food for lunch or dinner, simply because he wasn’t home to share family meals with them.

“She lit into me,” Besh said. “I tell you, fellas, never argue with an Irish Catholic attorney. She told me if I was half the man I thought I was, I would take care of my family as much as I was taking care of all my highfalutin customers and focus more on family and a little less on the business.”

Made a big change
Because most of his evenings were occupied, Besh decided to get up a little earlier each day – at 5:45 a.m. – and make the family a hot breakfast before school.

“We can go through the daily (Mass) readings,” Besh said. “We can say, ‘Bless and thank you, Jesus, for all the gifts you’ve given us. Help us to use these gifts.’”

Besh said he never thought any of this truly had sunk in with his sons until he attended a Jesuit High School father-son breakfast on St. Joseph’s Day, where his son turned out to be a featured speaker.

“It brought me to my knees,” Besh said. “I didn’t think he listened to a thing I said. That stewardship worked. That is the strength of the family table.”

Both Cvitanovich and Besh used whatever resources they had after Hurricane Katrina to set up stations around the city to feed first responders and anyone else who needed something eat. Cvitanovich said it was something his parents first saw Ruth Fertel, the founder of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, do after Hurricane Betsy.

“I mentioned it to my mom, and she said, ‘Let’s go back and do that,” Cvitanovich said.

Besh is the son of fighter pilot, Ted Besh, who died recently. When John was 9 years old, Ted Besh was paralyzed for life when he was struck by a drunk driver while he was riding a bicycle.

When John started cooking for his father as a child – and his father praised him for his efforts – he figured out that “happiness equaled food,” and he decided he might one day embark on a food career.

All along the way, Ted Besh was there carefully suggesting the educational steps his son might take if he was going to be a serious chef. Besh came back from a tour of duty in the first Iraq War when he was unsure about his future. He had been a eucharistic minister, carrying the Eucharist inside his flak jacket, and he even thought briefly about the priesthood.

“Then I started talking to a few priests, and basically everybody said, ‘Nope, you’re not called to the priesthood,’” Besh said, laughing. “So, what was I called to? My dad believed in this little thing called vocations. He said, ‘We need priests – we always need priests – but the vocation that’s most needed is the vocation of fatherhood, the vocation of married life.’”

Spend more family time
Cvitanovich said his family has made a practice of supporting numerous charitable causes, especially Padua Pediatrics of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans. He also stressed that men should be intentional in their desire to spend more time with their loved ones.

“I know everyone is busy, but you have to share a cup of coffee, dinner or maybe a bowl of ice cream with the people you love,” Cvitanovich said. “Try to do it as often as you can, because those are the most special memories you’re going to have.”

Each year, the John Besh Foundation selects promising hospitality students from inner-city New Orleans to go to New York for advanced culinary education, with the expectation they will return to New Orleans, work here professionally and then inspire others to follow their path.

“How are we going to change certain aspects of the city that just kill us, like the crime?” Besh asked. “I don’t think this is a good thing we’re doing. I think this is the least we can do.”

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].