When we left off in Part One of our chat with chef Mary Bass of Haak Vineyards, she'd recently gone back to being a stay-at-home mom after closing a very successful bakery. Haak Vineyards asked Bass to come evaluate the kitchen staff after their previous chef left and Bass warned them ahead of time she had no interest in getting another job yet. Sometimes plans change and different decisions are made. Here's how that conversation went:

MB: [The Haaks said] "No, just come see if the staff can run the kitchen"

EOW: That's how they get you.

MB: They got me! (laughs) So, I came in at the end of June 2013 and decided that I didn't think the staff that was here could run the kitchen full-time on their own. [Haak Winery] was like, "So, don't you want to work for us?" and I was like, "No, I don't want a job, like, I've been working nonstop." By this point I'd only had like eight months off.

They said, "Well you can do whatever you want. You can cook whatever you want. You can write your menus, you control your food costs, you control your labor, you can hire whoever you want."

They gave me full freedom and when they said that, I was like, "I can hire who I want. Okay."

We gave the staff here the choice to stay or go and most opted to leave. They were very loyal to the previous chef. Kitchens work that way and I understood.

So, I was blessed to be able to hire students. Teaching, you get a good wealth of workforce but they've been doing an interview for you the whole time, you know? So, you knew you how they worked. I hired my sous chef Tyler. I hired one of my first year students, Alisha, and we've had multiple students come and go throughout the kitchen doing their internships here. They always work out the best. They stay the longest and it's nice because I already know their work ethic before they ever step foot in the kitchen.

EOW: That's a very symbiotic relationship because they have an opportunity to intern somewhere and you have an opportunity to evaluate them before they ever set foot in your kitchen.

MB: Yeah, it worked out really well. I love the college for that. All my jobs now are so that I can be a better instructor, I teach saucier, American Regional and garde manger. It's a very similar program to the one I went to. The director of the program in Galveston left and started the program in Alvin. So, we have a great program. This is my fifth year teaching and next week I'll start American Regional and that's my favorite class.

EOW: How old are your kids now?

MB: My oldest has just turned nine, my son is seven and my daughter six and they're true chef kids in every sense of the word. My oldest, if she wanted to go into the industry, she would be very good at it. She does competitions now and is very active in the food world. She understands it better than some adults that I talk to so she's definitely a chef kid.

EOW: So, they must be pretty proud of their chef mom.

MB: Yeah, and they are very interested in what we do and its cool because my kids eat Brussels sprouts and they like, you know, eggs over easy. They understand the whole food world, have been exposed to it and have really good palates.

EOW: Since you work at a vineyard that does a lot of events, as a chef, what do you have to think about when you are helping plan a menu?

MB: So, it's cool, we've got several different styles of events here. Weddings are our biggest event and we have a set menu. The brides choose their food. We just redid our menus for this year. We have to think about food that hot-holds well that we can serve a lot of people because we do buffet style service.

But, then we get to do private dinners where we sell tickets to the public and get to write a custom menu similar to the one that we photographed today and we pick a theme. We did a Titanic-themed, eight-course dinner. We've done farm-to-table where we use all of our local farmers here and create food around what they're growing.

Then we do concerts, which is what we do during the summer. So, every single week we write a new gourmet, concession-style menu and the customers come knowing that only two things on the menu are going to stay every single week and everything else is going to change. You won't eat the same thing the entire summer. So, every time you come in, there's a new band and a new menu.

EOW: How would you describe your culinary focus?

MB: My culinary focus is "from scratch," like everything that we make is from scratch--all of our sauces--and then that true American regional farm-to-table style that becoming more and more popular. We've been doing it for years but now everybody else's catching up with this trend.

But, you know, using locally-sourced food and then just making clean food. That's the best way to put it--but we don't shy away from our butter and our cream. Julia Child was one of those: "If you don't use butter, use cream," so we're definitely one of those that stick to that aesthetic.

EOW: What are some of your favorite dishes that you make here pretty regularly?

MB: My favorite dish that I always tell my students, especially my guy students, "Hey, you want to get a girl on the first date? This is what you make. It's called poulet au fine herbes , or chicken with fine herbs. Basically, it's a sautéed chicken breast. You finish it off in the oven when you pull it out. You let the chicken breast rest and then you sauté mushrooms and onions in a pan.

Add fresh herbs, deglaze the whole pan with white wine, heavy cream, butter and then it's got this beautiful cream sauce. Served over garlic mashed potatoes--can't go wrong.

We probably make it for nine out of 10 weddings. Brides love it. We love it too.

EOW: You have the good fortune of working at a winery. What your favorite wines here?

MB: My favorite by far is the madeira. The white madeira, the blanc de blanc, has buttery tones to it. The last batch to me tasted like buttered popcorn but everybody was like, "I don't taste that," and I'm like, "Well, I have a different palate than you!" It's got really good caramels. It's a dessert wine but we do make a chicken sauce dish with it really, really delicious.

Today, we poached pears in the red madeira and so it's got very, very good tones. It's one of the most popular here at the winery and by far one of my favorite wines here.

EOW: If you're off duty and you just want something to just chill and relax with?

MB: I would definitely get the semisweet, white blanc de blanc. It's got really good fruit and citrus tones to it and it's nice and light. It makes really good sangria. It's definitely my favorite sangria base to start with.

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