Award-winning Chef Stafford DeCambra, corporate executive chef at the Poarch Band of Creek Indians' Wind Creek Casino and Hotel, brings to the new Alabama resort a 30-year career distinguished by versatility in the kitchen, a specialty in Hawaiian cuisine, and superior organizational and leadership skills.

      An honors graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, “Chef Stafford” is the winner of two gold, one silver, and two bronze medals as part of just two American teams who competed in the prestigious Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany which pits the world's top chefs against each other in a variety of categories. Chef Stafford took the top prize in the showpiece category for his chocolate sculpture "Hawaiian Dancers."

      Chef Stafford, who is also among 68 judges in the country certified to judge cooking competitions, honed his management skills as the former executive chef of the Choctaw's Pearl River Resort Mississippi, where he oversaw 16 restaurants and produced numerous banquets for conventions. Previously, as senior corporate chef at American Classic Voyages, he ran the busy kitchens of such vessels as the Delta Queen and the Mississippi Queen. And he served as a consultant to Norwegian Cruise Lines.  "It was a great opportunity to travel and see the world," he says.

     As with running the kitchen at a large resort, managing the kitchen of a cruise ship requires a lot more than just cooking, the chef notes. Among other roles, Chef Stafford served as zone commander of a ship's fire crew, a job that required him to be certified by a training school and to learn how to use breathing apparatuses, lower and pilot a lifeboat, and assist passengers. "A fire is going to start in one of three places: the engine room, the laundry, or the galley," he says. “But even without that danger, he says, "being the chef is an incredibly demanding job. You have a captive audience of 2,000 to 4,000 people, and you are serving food 24 hours a day – and lots of it."

     Catering to a large and confined audience also heightened Chef Stafford's already keen sensibilities about food safety. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration made frequent inspections, he said. "The laws really kept us on our toes," he says. "You cannot afford to have a breakout at sea."

    As a working chef, Chef Stafford has delighted his diners with signature Hawaiian dishes. But Hawaiian doesn't just mean "pineapple," he stresses. The island's cuisine is, rather, a fresh, eclectic taste that borrows ingredients and flavors from all over the world. "Hawaii is much more of a melting pot than people realize," observes Chef Stafford. "It's a place where everyone is a minority, and all of them bring different cultures and different foods. At the CIA, I realized how fortunate I was to have had this background. Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai – I grew up eating all these foods and incorporated them into my cooking."

     The oldest of seven children, Chef Stafford also learned lessons from an early age on operating a restaurant. His parents ran a 20-seat coffee shop and catering wagon, serving breakfasts to workers in an industrial area of Oahu. In high school, Chef Stafford concentrated on what he considered the basics: math, English, and food service. He was one of the few boys in cooking class  – reason enough to like the course, he says, "but you also got to eat what you cooked." A teacher named Linda Uyehara saw his potential and got him a college scholarship. He disappointed her by turning it down, but quickly redeemed himself with his meritorious performance at the CIA. "She was a very good mentor to me," he says of Uyehara. He speaks to her class whenever he returns to Hawaii.

     Following his graduation from the CIA, Chef Stafford took his first cooking job at what was then the Playboy Club in McAfee, N.J., where a chef named Marcel Briart took him under his wing. "He taught me a lot about the business," Stafford says. "He thought I saw in him an old fox and he saw in me a young buck. I realize more and more what he taught me." Stafford followed Briart to the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Fla., then went off on his own to open restaurants at the 1,200-room Hyatt Regency, Waikoloa as a room chef specializing in Hawaiian  cuisine.

    Since then, he has a made his own mark as a mentor, judge, and administrator. "But can I still cook? Of course!" he laughs. He gives his cooks lots of leeway to experiment with new dishes, but, he says, "You've got to reel them in sometimes; you've got to tweak things. Fusion cuisine can be 'confusion cuisine' if you don't know what you are doing."
  
  The biggest mistake cooks make, he says, is using too many ingredients and too many flavors. "I stick to the 'three to five' rule," he says. "No more than three or five flavors. I tell my cooks to keep the naturalness of whatever it is they are trying to enhance. My motto is 'simple yet elegant.'"

    So what does this nationally recognized, world- traveled chef eat when he's in his own home kitchen? Freshly squeezed juice. "I spend an hour every night juicing things," he says. "I have five juicers." That includes one for root vegetables and another for citrus fruits that will go into drinks like a tangerine, orange and pomegranate mix. For heartier fare, a favorite "gruel" is a blend of lentils, beans, and jasmati and basmati rice, chives and fresh tomatoes. Chef Stafford enjoys a head of steamed cauliflower with a sprinkling of salt-free Mrs. Dash, and he loves beets. But don't call him a vegetarian. He'll won't turn down a steak, as long as it's a prime cut. And, he says, "I will never, ever give up my butter."