By Jeanne M. Hoban

Rodney Reckner, executive chef in Conference Services for Northeast Ohio Medical University, learned to cook by cooking.

He honed his culinary skills in the kitchens of fine-dining restaurants where he was trained by various chefs.

But he learned the basics from his mom.

When Ignite asked Reckner to share a recipe that was meaningful to him, he chose to share one based on his mother’s chili recipe.

“When I was growing up, my mom was a single mom, and so meals had to be easy to produce for me and her and my brother,” he said. “We did a lot of crockpot meals. This is one crockpot chili that we would have, especially when it got colder, because you could just dump everything in the crock pot, turn it on, Mom goes to work, kids go to school, come home, and the house smells like chili and you're good to go.

“it's a nice hearty meal and you can either pair it with cornbread or tortilla chips or whatever to make it stretch it out. She was trying to feed the whole family on a budget, you know, and a little bit goes a long way.”

The Art of Cooking

Food is art you can eat.

That’s the lesson Reckner learned while working at his first fine-dining restaurant, Magnolia’s Beachside in Cocoa Beach, Florida under Chef Jason Clark. He also worked at a yacht club on Put-in-Bay, Ohio and a ski lodge in Vail, Colorado.

“Funnily enough, I went to school for film and video production at Florida Metropolitan University. But I cooked all through school,” Reckner recalled. “When I graduated, I got an internship at a news station in Orlando, and it was terrible. It turns out I hated the industry, so I just went back to cooking.”

With 7-year-old twin boys and a 13-year-old son, the Reckner family spends a lot evenings and weekends driving to and from practice and games for various sports and other activities.  

“We do track and soccer presently and karate. And then in the wintertime, the oldest plays basketball,” Reckner said.

To keep up and make sure the family is eating well, Reckner prepares two or three meals in advance that are then refrigerated or frozen.

“It's really helpful to just be able to throw it in the microwave and go, you know?” he said.

A Foundation for Flavor

Reckner didn’t have his chili recipe written down.

“It is a little bit of this. A little bit of that,” he said. The base is just a foundation for creativity and personal taste. Sometimes, he throws in beans. Sometimes, the chili includes ground beef or another meat. He always takes it easy on the heat.

“I like to make my chili not spicy, so that people can adjust to their own taste,” he said. “With spices and other strong flavors, some people love it. For some people, the littlest bit turns them off, so I always like to serve chili with hot sauce on the side,” he said.