Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/800856
8 2 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t WINE COUNTRY CHEFS The Wunderkind: SEAN STREETE, Sous Chef, Meadowood Napa Valley Meadowood isn't Sean Streete's first Michelin-starred gig, but he chuckles at the memory of the days when he thought he knew everything. "That was before I went to work for Philippe Tessier at Bouchon," he says. His lilting laugh, like his cuisine, is tinged by his Caribbean heritage (his mom is from Trinidad; dad, Jamaica). The family used to have a "Taste of the Caribbean" booth they would take to San Francisco Bay Area markets, and Streete still loves the oxtail and goat stews from those days. Streete is all about taking souvenir ingredients and flavors and creatively refining them. In shepherding the next generation of chefs, it's not just the culi- nary fundamentals he wants to pass on. "My parents taught me about the value in every single morsel of food. The other day, I saw one of the cooks about to throw away mango seeds. I stopped him and said, 'Man, you don't understand—these are like gold!'" PHOTO: KENNY TIEKS