by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Derek Dammann

Age: 28

Occupation: Chef

Bio: This heaping hunk of a Westmount resident started life in the cooking game only a short nine years ago. Born to an Italian mother "who loved to cook," Derek says he has always had a keen interest in food, although he admits that until his late teens, said passion was more about consumption than actual preparation. Nevertheless, his god-given talent and delectable dishes enabled him to score an enviable gig working directly under Jamie Oliver, aka the Naked Chef, first as a sous-chef at the great man's London, England, dining establishment, and now as Oliver's go-to guy in the topsy-turvy world of international catering. Most recently, Derek returned from L.A. where he oversaw a joint Variety/Dreamworks mega-bash that involved preparing grub for over 900 Hollywood phonies. He drives a 2004 Volkswagen Golf.

Something he and the Naked Chef worked on in London: A charity program to take homeless and "under-privileged" Brit kids, "turn them into cooks and spit them out to work in really good restaurants."

Did any of their courses offer more pragmatic information for homeless chef wannabes, like how to prepare a superior Baked Alaska from materials commonly found in dumpsters? "Um, no."

The number of kids who apply every year: Approximately 20,000, looking to fill approximately 20 spaces.

How they'd filter out the riff-raff: Through a series of rigorous tests. "For example, we'd put them in teams and have them set up a tent with blindfolds on, you know, to see who'd flip out first and who worked well with others. For one tasting [test] we'd set up a tray of raw oysters, call applicants in one at a time, and see how they reacted [to eating them]. And okay, sure, sometimes [the oysters] would come back up on them, but that wasn't the point. The [exercise] had nothing to do with the taste of oysters, it was all to gauge personality. But once they got accepted, we'd take them to Italy to taste olive oil, to France to taste wine. They learned a lot. Many of them now work in top restaurants around the world."

Was another thing they needed to taste in order to get into the program actually swinging between Jamie Oliver's legs? "No, thankfully not."

Does he think he could personally kill the animals he turns into dinner? "Of course. Oh, I'd love to wring the neck of a chicken, but Canadian laws kind of forbid that. I went boar hunting recently and that was pretty cool. We kind of knew where the boar was going to be because he'd been chewing up [our host] farmer's fence, but [the farmer] told us that if we couldn't find it he'd let us shoot one of his penned up pigs, which is not very sporting, I know. But we found and shot the boar, so it was all okay."

Musical preferences: Ska, 1980/90s punk.

Fave film of all time: Made

Fave TV show: Columbo

Last book read: Comfort Me With Apples, by Joe Fiorito.

Words of wisdom: "Meat is not murder."

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca