(Do) Play With Your Food

At first thought, one might not think construction and food art have anything in common.

But for Fenton resident Douglas St. Souver, using skills from one to the other has helped him become an award-winning chef.

St. Souver, formerly a construction worker, has won three Food Network Challenges, owns Artisans in Culinary, teaches at Mott Community College and on Saturday will open a new Artisans Gourmet Deli at the Flint Farmers Market.

It will offer handmade sandwiches and wraps put together fresh. St. Souver is hoping to help the Flint Farmers Market, which nearly disappeared a few years, become a destination every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for patrons. St. Souver will also often bring in chefs to do live demonstrations.

“We are going to offer all this fresh fare of Michigan products,” St. Souver said. “And a lot of it is going to be not only form Michigan, but from local vendors.

The path from putting together houses to carving up fruit and vegetables wasn’t a grand brainstorm.

“I just wasn’t inspired with the business end of construction,” St. Souver said. “I was watching the Food Network and I said to myself, ‘I could do that.’

He had no idea how right he was.

St. Souver said when he got into the food business, he was 35 and knew he had to do something quick after spending the first part of his life in a another career.

“In construction you put materials together to please a customer.  I just switched mediums, I’m still doing what I do,” he said. “A lot of people spin their wheels. I didn’t have time to do that."

St. Souver, originally from Waterford, moved to Fenton in November and said, “it was the right move,”because of the location and his desire to get out of the city.

His peers have often praise his work.

Matt Cooper, owner of  in Fenton, has worked with St. Souver on many projects.

"I think he does great work. To see what he does with fresh fruit is pretty amazing," Cooper said. "I am always very impressed."

St. Souver learned the culinary arts at Oakland Community College in Waterford. His specialty of fruit and vegetable carving came pretty simply as well. One of his teachers had suggested ice carving because of his eye for detail in carpentry. St. Souver then saw a seminar for food carving, went and fell in love.

“My teacher told the class, go home and set a cantaloupe on the table in front of the TV, if you can remember what was on TV, you are not a fruit carver,” St. Souver said. “I didn’t remember what was on TV.”

Before he was even out of school in 2005, his teacher, who had also appeared on the Food Network Challenge, received a letter looking for people to participate and he suggested St. Souver.

“I’m sure they thought they were going to have this carpenter who thinks he can cook will get his butt kicked and that will be good TV,” he said. “But the carpenter won and I guess that made for good TV as well.”

St. Souver is 3-1 in Food Network Challenges and was named the  Chef of the Year for 2010 for the Flint/Saginaw Valley Chapter of The American Culinary Federation in January.

“I enjoy it a great deal. It’s almost Zen-like for me,” he said. “I’m loving where I’m at and where I’m going.”

The Flint Farmers Market is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.