MICHAEL CARTER is the executive chef for Skillet:Counter in Seattle Center Armory. Here, he talks about his culinary roots, as well as Skillet’s special brand of cuisine.
“So my mom had a very eclectic sense of taste. She was born and raised in Israel, and her mother, my grandmother, was German, so a really wide variety of tastes I grew up with, from Eastern European to Northern, all the way down to Middle Eastern. And my father is from Trinidad. So all kinds of Caribbean and Eastern fare. She cooked everything. I mean she was the one Jewish mom on the block that cooked her own egg rolls: from egg rolls to blintzes to bourekas, you name it, to curries. So I really had quite a large background of culinary influence.
I think approach-ability is important. [If] it’s approachable, it’s comfortable, it’s welcoming. Skillet is a food hub. It’s warm, it’s inviting. And it makes you feel good. It’s things that you ate as a child. It’s things that are just good. And they’re good because they’re made right, there’s care involved. And whenever you put care into whatever it is you’re making, it just comes out better.”
