'Everything I make tastes good'

Aspiring chef Michael Gaddy, 17, has more than a pinch of confidence in his future.

By Erin Sullivan, Times Staff Writer
Published February 11, 2008

High school junior Michael Gaddy applies white chocolate almond butter-cream frosting to a two-layer strawberry and French vanilla swirl cake he baked for his aunt's birthday. Michael, 17, won first place in the youth division for his kumquat fantasy cake at the Kumquat Recipe Contest.
	[Brendan Fitterer | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Brendan Fitterer | Times] Michael Gaddy gives a swirl to mix the strawberry and French vanilla near the end of baking a birthday cake Wednesday at his home in Dade City. [Brendan Fitterer | Times] "I'm going to be a chef," Michael told his mom when he was 10. "And I'm going to college."

DADE CITY

He's 17 years old and he loves baking cakes and sculpting sugar into butterflies and he's not ashamed of it at all, as you might imagine a teenage boy might be.

High school can be cruel, with its cliques and who fits in and who doesn't. But Michael Gaddy, who lives in Dade City with his mom and dad and goes to culinary vocational school for half the day and Wesley Chapel High for the rest, doesn't care about all of that. He knows how this will help him later in life, when he's searching for the woman he'll marry and have the five kids he plans to have, after he's done with college at the Orlando Culinary Academy and has his own restaurant.

"Women love a man who cooks," Michael says quietly, then gives a smile. He says he's outgoing and that he's not shy. But he speaks softly, at least to people he doesn't know all that well. Even with his low volume, he has a confidence about him. He knows what his passion is in life and that he's lucky. Many people flounder their whole lives and never find their purpose.

So that's how he can do things like enter a kumquat recipe contest, where most of the other entrants are retired women, and win his category and tell people about it with pride. If he does something, it's cool, he says. His sweet tone tempers his cockiness, as when he looks flustered after being asked how many cooking disasters he's had. "None," he says. "Everything I make tastes good."

Michael can't remember a time when he didn't want to cook. He started as most chefs do, watching his mom and imitating her, and then, soon after, taking over, mixing and making.

"I'm going to be a chef," he told his mom when he was 10. "And I'm going to college."

"Whatever you want to be, you can be," his mother, Timiko Vaughns, says she told him. She works long hours at a nursing home and when she'd drag herself home so tired at nearly midnight, there would be dinner waiting for her from Michael. He's done this for years.

Michael's recipes come to him like magic; they're just there, in his head, and he scribbles them down in notebooks. He names them things like "Rainbow Dazzle Creme Cake," "Darkest Secret Cake," "Full Moon Bridal Cake" and "Sock It To Me Cake" - all things sweet and colorful and comfortable.

He doesn't mess around with exotic, expensive ingredients - not that he could afford those now, with his paycheck from his part-time job at Checkers. His focus is turning regular grocery store staples into something wonderful - sharing his passion, making people happy and using that to fulfill his dream: restaurant owner by 35, having a wife who doesn't have to work, kids, taking care of his mom and dad.

"I'm going to do it," he says, in the way youth makes us do, when all things seem so simple and certain, like a recipe to follow, with the outcome known.

Erin Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@sptimes.com or 813 909-4609.

[Last modified February 10, 2008, 21:32:47]