By Ben Crandell | bcrandell@sunsentinel.com | South Florida Sun Sentinel
Among the many ambitions of the Community Classroom Project in Delray Beach is to nurture a new generation of food entrepreneurs -- there may be no better example of what is possible than local chef and restaurateur Michael Salmon.
After decades as a made man on the New York culinary scene, which included a turn as a finalist on "Food Network Star," Salmon is now the owner of FlyBird in Delray Beach, an elevated comfort-food spot on Linton Boulevard that specializes in chargrilled chicken.
Salmon will be one of the chefs taking part in Pub at the Hub, the annual fundraiser for the Community Classroom Project on Saturday night at The Hub at Space of Mind in downtown Delray Beach. The party will feature a 1980s theme, illustrated by the menu, music from The Heavy Pets, and the appearance of the DeLorean from the hit film "Back to the Future."
Other top chefs working in the CCP's commissary kitchen that night will include Blake Malatesta (The Wine & Spirits Kitchen), Jimmy Everett (Driftwood), Katt Dreyfuss (The Butcher & The Bar), Daniel Dore (Dada), Eric Lamb (Windy City Pizza), Aaron Schiffman (Delray Pizza) and Nicholas Eddy (Florida Fresh).
A spinoff of Space of Mind, the innovative schoolhouse located next door that was founded by Ali Kaufman more than two decades ago, the Community Classroom Project is a nonprofit that provides experiential learning and entrepreneurship opportunities to students facing unique challenges, along with resources for parents, teachers and mental-health providers.
"The mission is to combat learning- and life-related stress through the creative arts and community building," Kaufman says.
Anyone at Saturday's party looking for an authority on '80s pop culture need look no further than Salmon -- he lived it.
After graduating from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America at the beginning of the decade, the New York native worked in kitchens at some of the "it" restaurants in Manhattan. He was the saucier at the famed 21 Club under future Food Network star Geoffrey Zakarian, then as chef de cuisine helped Anne Rosenzweig open the celebrated Upper East Side dining destination Arcadia.
Beginning in 1989, Salmon served as executive chef at Mickey Mantle's eponymous restaurant, where the fun-loving New York Yankees icon once autographed the back of his chef's jacket with an expletive.
"There I met every celebrity who's no longer alive," Salmon says, laughing.
Later, he was working at Union Square restaurant Steak Frites when they hired a new guy named Anthony Bourdain, who immediately clashed with the chef over the menu.
"He lasted a week or so. Smoked Newports outside with him. Cool dude," Salmon says.
But his most memorable moment in the kitchen came during his four years as private chef for former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who routinely hosted parties for a who's-who list of A-listers from entertainment, publishing, sports and politics.
In Koch's Fifth Avenue apartment, Salmon says he cooked for Barbara Walters, Cardinal John O'Connor, Hillary Clinton, Jon Bon Jovi, Derek Jeter and Henry Kissinger, who entertained the room with predictions for U.S. involvement in the 1991 Gulf War the day before it happened, as the chef listened through the kitchen door.
However, none of these celebrities left Salmon "in awe" like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
"Certain people have an aura. There was just something regal about her. The way she walked, the way she sat down. None of this was scripted, it was just who she was. When someone comes into a room that way, with them comes the music," Salmon says.
And that was even before they had their moment in the kitchen.
"She was so sweet and so polite," Salmon says. "She came in and she just looked at me and touched my arm and said, 'Chef, I just want you to know, everything was so delicious. Truly.' And she squeezed my arm a little with the 'truly.' [Laughs] I actually melted. They had to sweep me up."
About five years ago, Salmon and his wife, graphic designer Tone Stray, decided they wanted to get out of New York and get closer to family in South Florida (he has a daughter in Boca Raton). Then a consultant for a number of restaurants, Salmon was also weary of the grind of the dining business in his hometown.
"I decided I had enough of that. I'm throwing it all away, and I'm now going to cook food I love to eat. That's how FlyBird came about," he says. "It's an extension of what I love to make, of the people who have fed me, who have trained me and worked alongside [me]. It's a culmination of all the good vibes and good juju that can go into a place where people come and eat."
For the party on Saturday, Salmon's chicken will turn up in a unique form -- as the chicken-fried rice at FlyBird that has surprised the chef with its popularity among regular customers. It is a variation on a traditional recipe he got from a Chinese chef friend from New York.
"It's as close to authentic as I think we can find here," Salmon says. "Just as an eater, there is a real lack of quality Chinese food down here."
Salmon has been an enthusiastic supporter of the work Kaufman is doing at Space of Mind and the Community Classroom Project since he moved to South Florida.
"I found her to be a nice human being, and I like hanging around nice human beings. I thought her school was beautiful, my next-door neighbor had one of his children enrolled there, so that's how I became affiliated with them," Salmon says. "They have a nice little thing going on and a really nice kitchen. I said to her, anytime I can help, cook, promote, fundraise, I will."
WHAT: Pub at the Hub, the annual fundraiser for the Community Classroom Project