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The Chopping Block owner is making friends, one dish at a time.

Friday May 11, 2007.     By Michael Nagrant

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Most chefs are downright intellectual about cutting-edge ingredients, but it's rare to find talented cooks who can also rock the accounting books. That's why Shelley Young, who transformed her small, antique cookware shop and cooking school, The Chopping Block, into a Chicago institution, is like the Donald Trump of cooking. (Though, her pixieish haircut is more stylish than his bouffant comb-over.)

The formula of Young's success is part Cook's Illustrated magazine, part Food Network and part uber-marketing. She knows what her customers want to buy—solid equipment and stellar ingredients—and how to walk them through the basics of getting started. She also knows who to have on her side: savvy partners like local sommeliers to run her wine classes and premiere food vendors like Dirk's Fish and Gourmet Shop and Paulina Meat Market to cross-promote her business.

But it's not all cold commerce. Young first learned the power of food while working at a nursing home, seeing how a special meal "lit up the faces" of her elderly charges. "Food," she says, "is the catalyst for friendship." It's also what keeps us going day after day. So we might as well learn to cook well.

What do you wish you could change/pickle about the Chicago restaurant/food scene?
Chicago has almost everything a food scene needs, but the one thing I wish we had more of is really good, healthy, inexpensive, quick-service food. Places where you can get fresh, great food in five minutes for five dollars.

What would your last meal be?
Split pea soup, apple pie, homemade bread, to start.

What Chicago chef would you be most willing to share a kitchen with?
Koren Grieveson at Avec. We did a cooking competition together and really had fun working alongside each other. I was really impressed with her no-nonsense, focused cooking style.

What's the can't-miss class at the chopping block?
Definitely the Boot Camp series because it is the most thought-provoking and life-changing class we have ever offered.

Editors note: Boot Camp crams a basic culinary curriculum into five intense days, with lessons in knife skills, butchering, techniques for soups, sauces, vegetables, menu-planning and flavor dynamics.

What should we know about the Chopping Block that we probably don't?
I never opened The Chopping Block to get out of restaurants and was actually working as a full-time chef and a full-time personal chef when I opened the first location. I really liked working in restaurants and never really realized I would have to give it up. I guess I was just being impulsive.