In Abundance

In Abundance

Chef Eric Rupert has enjoyed a storied career over the past 50 years. Through his time cooking, he has been Chef de Cuisine at the James Beard Award-winning L’Etoile, the Corporate Chef at Sub-Zero and Wolf, and the Executive Chef at Epic Systems. Any one of these accomplishments surpasses the dreams of most chefs, but instead of resting on this resume, he decided to enter the wholesale food market– launching Fortune Favors, an addictively delicious candied pecan confection company. This venture, born out of a happy accident, has exploded and is now in over 600 stores nationwide, including Whole Foods. I sat down with Eric to discuss his career, life, and what led to this leap into new territory.

I tracked down chef and founding owner of Fortune Favors, Eric Rupert, while he was vacationing with his family on a small island in northern Wisconsin. Graciously, he invited me to attend dinner with them the day before our interview was to take place.

That morning, a storm had swept the area, and I wondered if the dinner would be canceled. Upon arriving at Eric’s cabin, one in a line of cabins filled with his friends and family, I found a series of picnic tables, sheltering under a “Fortune Favors” festival tent he had erected to guard from the rain. Undisturbed by the weather, his guests began arriving, speculating what might be on the menu. “I bet tonight we’ll get the mac n’ cheese,” a younger boy said, gleefully.

I sat myself down and Eric’s son handed me a beer. “I hope you’re hungry,” he said. Eric announced that dinner was ready and explained the items he had laid out on the buffet-style table. He wore a simple apron, a beard with a swirl of gray, and round spectacles; looking 100% like he belonged on a package of gourmet confections. 

As the rain fell around us, we loaded our plates with decadent manifestations of classic Midwestern dishes; meats, potato salad, and, to the cheers of those gathered, macaroni and cheese. Eric stood back, fixing his plate last, watching his tribe enjoy the feast. 

The rain lasted into the next day, and I made my way back over to Eric’s cabin during a break in the storm. The power had gone out and I found him in the front room, chatting with his wife, Christine, illuminated by dim cloudy light pouring in from the windows. The vibe was cozy and relaxed as I settled myself down at the kitchen table. 

“How did you originally become interested in the culinary arts,” I asked, after setting up my phone to record and leaning back into a rickety wooden chair.

“I’m over 60-years-old and I’ve been cooking for as long as I can remember,” he explained, adjusting his round-rimmed glasses. “Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, I have very early memories of food being particularly important to me. There was food scarcity in my family. As I look back on my relationship with cooking, both professionally as a chef and at home for my friends and family, it’s really about making sure everyone has enough to eat.” 

“And how did you begin pursuing your career more professionally?” I asked.

“My very first restaurant job was forming hamburgers for a joint that’s actually still in existence called Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry,” he said. “They still make really good burgers. I was thirteen and working in exchange for food. I was paid in whatever I wanted to order. Eventually, I became a dishwasher– and I think all chefs agree– if you have ‘dishwasher’ on your resume, that’s a really good thing. It says a lot about you in terms of what chefs are typically looking for.

“My first making-food-for-actual-money-job was as a baker. I noticed right away that the cooks and the bakers didn’t get along. The cooks couldn’t do what the bakers did, and the bakers certainly couldn’t do what the cooks did. Baking is much more precise, and in cooking you can be a bit more flexible.”

Taking some time to adventure, Eric moved to Taiwan and traveled around, before resettling in Madison, landing a job baking at the Madison Club, an “old boys network” serving a fancy meat and potato-esque cuisine. 

Eric’s life and relationship with food was forever altered in 1987, when he saw the film Babette’s Feast. “I’m not going to pretend I know what an epiphany actually is,” he said. “But if there is such a thing, I’m pretty sure I had one while watching that movie. I haven’t rewatched it since that first time. Somehow in that very moment I knew that if I became a cook that everything would work out. I don’t know how else to say it. I was mesmerized, transported. The next day, I went to the chef– I should have been very humble and formal– but, I just said, ‘I have to cook.’ Surprisingly he didn’t yell at me for not being respectful. They had an entry level position open, and I took it within a week.”

Despite his initial confidence and bravado, his introduction to the kitchen wasn’t a smooth transition. 

“I will tell the world, ‘Never cut a lemon with a serrated knife,’” he said, looking a bit embarrassed. “My first day, I cut the tip of my left index finger off. At that time, but pretty true to this day, when a professional chef injures themself, there are 2 things: It’s their fault and it fosters resentment because it causes the team to be down a person. The chef came over cursing and gave me a kitchen towel, already bloody with meat juice, to wrap my hand in. He drove me to the hospital, which was a few blocks away. He dropped me off, looking at his watch, and said, ‘Oh they better be fast. If you want to keep your job, you better be back before lunch starts at 11.’ I told the emergency staff my story, they stitched me up, and I ran back. I made it back 2 minutes till 11.”

“What was your emotional reaction to him saying that to you?” I asked. “That could feel pretty unfair.” 

“I really wanted the job,” he said. “There was a lot of fear involved. I’d been around a lot of kitchens and understood the culture. I had done something stupid and was afraid to lose my job. I wanted to prove that I could do it.”

“It also speaks to a kind of old school rougher attitude in the chef world that exists less now,” I said.

“The first day of any station, that chef would be right behind me yelling at me,” he said. “Not in a friendly way, not encouraging, ‘You stupid f*#ker.’ I’d leave those days despondent, but I also wanted to prove myself.”

Over the past couple of decades, as society in general examines workplace power structures, chefs and restaurant managers, in particular, have begun to face harsher scrutiny for their behavior towards staff. This shift, while not necessarily centering gender, is partially tied to larger feminist movements like #MeToo, as well as the rise of women chefs and restaurateurs. The archetype of the gruff drunk chef has become increasingly less tolerated. “Do you think that we’ve lost anything in the shift to our modern more compassionate management style?” I asked.

“Hard to say,” he said, thoughtfully. “I haven’t worked in a traditional kitchen for 22 years. It’s been a while since I’ve been in that particular type of pressure cooker. He was being a jerk, but in the end, he actually really cared about me. Once I figured out his patterns, I realized he was paying more attention to me than anyone else. One day, after one of those shifts, I came to him and said, ‘I can’t do this. I suck.’ He said, ‘No no no, you have a gift.’

“And how did you move to L’Etoile?” I asked. 

“I saw in the newspaper that L’Etoile was looking for a cook,” he said. “At this point I’d been cooking for about a year. I applied, thinking there was no way in hell I’d get it. The interview with Odessa Piper [Owner/ Restaurateur] went great, and I was offered the position. It was a totally different style of cooking. When I say that it was ‘magical,’ it’s an understatement. I’d get there way before my shift started; hang out with the bakers, hang out with the prep cooks, just to learn stuff off the clock. Everything was new and amazing. Odessa was a pioneer and visionary, up there with Alice Waters [of Chez Panisse]. I was a sponge. I was 25 and within three months she asked me to be the chef.” 

“What?” I said, laughing. “Three months? Did the Chef de Cuisine die unexpectedly?” 

“No, he left,” Eric said, laughing with me. “It’s strange. I’ve had a cooking career for 50 years, and I’ve only had a real chef above me to answer to for less than 2. It was [surreal] being in Wisconsin with this opportunity. But we had the farmers market, the respect for ingredients. My collaboration with Odessa went so well. I look back on those menus and marvel at how well they’ve aged.”

“Food culture has changed so much,” I said. “Finding a place like L’Etoile, especially in the Midwest, was a bit miraculous.” 

“Back in the 80s, food culture was nothing like what it is today,” he agreed. “The ingredients we have access to now. The cultures we’ve both been exposed to and siphoned off their ideas. The natural evolution of American cuisine, of American regional, seasonal cuisine, which really didn’t exist then.”

“A term used a lot now is New American,” I said. “To me that kind of translates into ‘anything goes.’” 

“Absolutely,” he said. “Sometimes I struggle with, ‘Where’s the line between assimilation and appropriation?’ I think New American cooking is both, but I look at it as mostly assimilation. We’ve been melding things for a long time, and we are now an even more abundant melting pot. When I think about my town, Madison, not that long ago we had one tiny Mexican grocery store, now we have at least 10. We had one tiny Asian grocery, now we have 10. We have a great farmers market, with fresh real produce and growers from all over the world.” 

After a pause, he added, “As far as, ‘anything goes,’ yea, sure, but not all ideas are good ones.”

“It’s interesting to see the level of fusion and play taking place within the medium,” I said. “You can make foie gras lumpia and call it New American at this point.” 

“You can,” he said, with a tad of skepticism. “I’m sure there’s a way to make that tasty, but you are threading a needle there, and only a few people could really pull it off.” 

“After L’Etoile you moved into the corporate world, becoming the Corporate Chef at the luxury kitchen appliance company Sub-Zero and Wolf,” I said. “What inspired that shift?”

“There were two reasons,” he began. “The money was better and the hours were much better. I was newly married. I had a young family. It wasn’t sustainable, working nights and weekends and holidays. Also being around a lot of alcohol and drug abuse wasn’t good for me or my family. Making money in restaurants is hard. When I was the Chef at L’Etoile in the 90s, my salary was $28,000; very hard to support a family on that. I started teaching for Sub-Zero and developed a training program for them, which was revolutionary in the industry.” 

“Did you feel like a bit of a sellout moving from the auteur cooking world into the corporate world?” I asked. 

“No,” he said with ease. “For me it seemed like the natural progression of my career. I did that, and it was a chapter, and I took it pretty damn far. But prioritizing my life and my family was going to be my next chapter. It took a few years for me to realize I hadn’t been prioritizing them the way I should have. Though, to be fair, that probably had more to do with my drinking than the hours and stress alone.”

“For a lot of people in kitchens alcohol can become a necessary painkiller,” I said. “Was that the root cause for you?”

“A bit, but there can be a pervasive culture at restaurants, especially back then,” he explained. “So many restaurants even have ‘shift drinks.’ If you’re friendly with the bartender it’s never just one. There was definitely a social aspect to it, but after a shift, I really wanted to get home. But when I got home, that didn’t stop me, I’d continue drinking. It was less physical pain, than it was discomfort with life.”

“How long have you been alcohol free at this point?” I asked. 

“16 years,” he said, raising his glass of water in a toast. 

The rain picked up and I saw that my phone’s battery, which I was using to record us, was running a bit low. I hoped that the power would come on before it ran out of juice. 

“How did you end up moving to Epic?” I asked.

In 2009, during the financial collapse, I got laid off,” he recalled. “Thankfully, Sub-Zero left me with a parachute, but jobs were hard to come by. I applied to a culinary position at Epic– they ran me through a litany of tests: math, verbal, cognitive. I was up here [on the island], actually, and on my last day, Epic called me to offer me a position, while I was on a boat.”

“Were you immediately brought on as Executive Chef?” I asked. 

“I was brought on without a title,” he said. “Things were a bit chaotic within the team, which was about 35 people. I started getting brought into meetings with the team leaders and the owner [Judy Faulkner]. I found myself disagreeing with what the leads were saying a lot of the time. Judy would press me to tell her more. It lost me some friends, but she ended up offering me the Executive Chef position.”

“Epic is huge!” I said. “How many people a day were you responsible for feeding?” 

“Over the 12 years, an average day had 9,000 people, all cooking from scratch with menus that change every day,” he said, tugging at his beard. “Usually when a chef is in their 50s their body starts to break down, they’re mentally burning out, but this was such a challenging and rewarding job [that it felt revitalizing]. No two days ever looked the same. Too many meetings, not enough cooking, but I learned so much.”

The clouds outside began to part and the room filled with a warmer yellow light.

“Tell us how Fortune Favors [formerly Nut Krack] was born,” I said. 

“I was making candied pecans one day, the way I always did, and was a bit absent minded,” He explained. “I accidentally put them in the wrong pot. I fished them out of the pot with a slotted spoon, thinking I had ruined them. I was cursing under my breath. It made a huge mess. I put them on a sheet pan to cool off, so that I could throw them out. After they cooled, I looked at them, and they had this beautiful shine to them. I ate one and it wasn’t at all what I expected. It was really good. I’m a very harsh critique of my own food, and I ended up eating all of them. The next day, I recreated them, this time intentionally, and made 7 pounds for the staff, adding in a bit of salt at the end. For years, I made them at home and gave them out as gifts.” 

“How did you end up walking away from Epic, a literal dream job, to pursue Fortune Favors full time?” I asked

“It was a hard leap,” he conceded. “That job at Epic was the best job I could possibly imagine for a chef in the entire country. I gave the pecans to the owner, Judy, I made them for events, and there was always this seed of an idea in the back of my head. I met with Judy to go over our normal logistic notes. She’s an incredibly busy woman, the meetings were very succinct, maybe you’d get 15 minutes a couple of times a year. She’s a Steve Jobs-level person. At the end I blurted out, ‘I’d really like to start a business with these pecans.’ Without skipping a beat she said, ‘I’d like to find a way to help you do that.’ We spent an additional 15 minutes figuring out how I could slowly back out of my Executive Chef position.”

“What came next for you once you decided to go for it?” I asked. 

“I was looking for a production space and stumbled upon a retail/production space owned by a chocolatier who was moving,” he said. “We took over the building and Fortune Favors was born. For three years, I did both jobs. I look back and think, ‘How?’ Working 80-90 hours a week. The pandemic came around, and we thrived. We doubled our business every year. Now we are in 600 stores around the country.”

“So wild that all this started from you accidentally putting some pecans into the wrong pot,” I said. 

“I am a big believer in mistakes,” he said. “Nobody should be afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be embarrassed by them. New mistakes that you own and learn from are an asset. Mistakes are a big part of my story. You can’t take yourself too seriously.”

“Are there any other secrets to your success?” I asked.

“I always knew I wasn’t very good at much,” he said, humbly. “I can make things delicious very quickly and I’m resilient. That’s it. Everything else; I found people who are good at the things I’m lacking.”

Just then, the lights came on in the cabin. We looked up and cheered. 

“That will be fun for the interview,” Eric said, chuckling.

“I probably won’t include it,” I said. “The timing was a bit too perfect and nobody will believe it really happened.” We both laughed, and I took the opportunity to ask something that had been on my mind for a while. 

“Thank you again for dinner yesterday,” I began. “It was delicious and so decadent! It was great to see your whole family, along with friends and acquaintances all feasting together. You said that your root motivation has its origins within food insecurity. Does cooking for others like that feel purely joyful, or are there some darker undertones for you?” 

“It’s both,” he said. “There’s definitely an aspect of therapy for me. Bringing a little joy through something as simple as macaroni and cheese. It creates memories. We are very fortunate to be able to come up here every year, and I always have people come up to me asking, ‘Are we going to have macaroni and cheese this year?’ But also, the fear of not having enough runs through a lot of what I do.”

“It strikes me that with your new venture, there’s less opportunity to see that joy up close and personal,” I said. “Do you miss it?” 

“It’s a little apples to oranges,” he said. “But I like both apples and oranges. I’m able to do a lot of demos in stores, still to this day. That immediacy of providing that you get with line-cooking and cheffing is replaced in those demos– seeing people’s reactions in real time. There is less immediacy, but there are probably 100 people, maybe even 1,000, eating something I made right now.”

The next day, still in town and bored out of my mind in the rain, I went to the island’s one grocery store in order to purchase copious amounts of alcohol. Upon walking in, I saw Eric standing at a Fortune Favors booth, doling out free samples, and chatting up the customers. 

“Eric!” I reflexively shouted, before worrying I may have startled the nice Midwestern sensibilities of his customers. He smiled warmly and I made my way over to him. “This is maverick CEO crazy behavior! Why are you doing this?”

He handed me a paper cup full of the pecans, and I knocked them back. They were delicious. Salty and sweet, with a beautiful shine and satisfying crunch. “It’s the connection,” he said, laughing at my surprise. “Not only with the customers, but with the companies. This is how we got into Whole Foods. Everything comes down to relationships. We feel we have a phenomenally good product, which is rare, but the relationships are what will let us scale. I know it seems a little odd, but in my head I’m a big goofball. I love it.”

I thanked him again and walked away. Turning back, I watched him handing a cup to an old woman. As she tried one, she began beaming, and in Eric’s face I could see that same satisfaction I had seen him have at his dinner. A feeling that he was not only providing someone with something to eat, but an opportunity to build memories and an abundance of pleasure and sustenance.