Let me begin this message by wishing each of you and every member of your chapters a very sincere Happy New Year!  My prayer is that you all enjoy good health, happiness with many smiles and achievement of your personal and professional goals.
It is on goals that I want to focus this letter as we open a new year, 2003, with great expectations for ourselves, our families, businesses and colleagues. 
In my opinion, life set into motion with out goals is a life lacking vitality, passion, but mostly, lacking purpose.  It is the goals we set for ourselves which motivate us, that permit us to look ahead to an accomplished end, to projects and profit from the successes enjoyed through achievement.  It is reasonable goals that catapult us to professional prominence, into the "sky" we all want to explore in one way or another.  But setting goals is not an arbitrary thing. We must look at where we are, analyze what we see or perceive where it is we want to be in days and months from now.  The years will take care of themselves if we plan our goals reasonably, looking to short term accomplishments.  Arriving at the desired destination and embellishing your goals with yet another to pursue, and so on………you get the idea.
What do you want from yourself?  Where do you want your career as cook/chef to go?  Do you want and see adventure in your professional life?  Yes, adventure!  Ours is an ancient trade which has always presented adventure to the willing.  Cooking: the art of it, the science of it, the joy of it, the design it presents, the challenges it confronts us with all add up to adventure.  Brillat-Savarin once said that the "discovery of a new recipe is greater than the discovery of a new star!"  How, awfully right he was.  He, like each of us, approached food in his time, with great expectations and wonder.  We take into our hands a raw food product and see in it endless possibilities.  We feel and sense its freshness, texture and immediately begin to create an artistic result in our mind's eye using the science of conversion by fire, smoke, liquid and air and go about discovering that our notion, our dream, our conception is doable.  Adventure?  You bet it is!
You and ACF.  The combination conjures up a goal, as I see it.  ACF is simply a static organization with out live by itself.  We are the life of the ACF.  It is through us that this professional association of culinary focused men and women takes on a heart, its breath, blood and guts.  We set the goals of this thing we call The American Culinary Federation…….some good, some not so good, but it is we who establish where the ACF is going.  We establish goals which we, each member, must follow.  Successes far out weigh failures.  The mix of the two is good…with out both, how would we know that we are accomplishing the goals we set?  With out failures folded into the mix, we would be blinded by pretense and pompous notion that we are perfect, even false, security.  Dangerous place to be in.  I'm sure you've been in that dangerous place several times before….as I have, but seldom admit to it.  We recognize the need to grow and develop, to progress and re-think the old ways and remodel them, modernize them…setting goals for everyone to strive for.  Attainable, reasonable goals that focus and magnify our talents for all to take note of and gaze in wonderment at who we are.
As this winter progresses into spring and as the Northeast Regional Conference draws near (March 14-17 in Philadelphia) I will have asked for the Chapters of New York State to meet and share ideas and set goals.  I will ask that the western Chapters gather in Syracuse, the Eastern Chapters gather in Albany and the down state Chapters meet in or near New York City.
Certification will be a major issue to be discussed and clarified.  The new goals set forth by the certification Committee of the ACF are doable and reasonable.  We looked very hard at what we would be asking for and what the results of that request would bring to the members who seek certification.  We studied the "track" to the Master Chef and how it might be more user friendly.  We carefully deliberated on the matters and challenges that would face the men and women in all aspects and at every level of certification.  We, through discussion discovered that, in reality, everything put on the table was a goal that could be accomplished with some effort.  We did not single out any one segment of our ranks and isolate them.  We had no intention of not allowing the promises made and set in print to be "thrown out."  We, in fact, embraced what was in place before today and blended into tomorrow!  The National Board, Certification Committee and Educational Services factored in everything we could collectively see that would be good and benefit the professionals inside ACF and beyond.  Sure, we may have forgotten some detail, and we knew from the get go there would be the scanner-types who always look for something to criticize attempting to pick our work apart.  But, I guess they didn't see that we welcomed their scrutiny.  For it was through their (negative) efforts that we revisited our efforts and sharpened the program.  As a member of the National Certification team (Northeast Region) I thank them for pointing out weak spots and we addressed them…..we, The National Board, Education and certification teams together. 
This and other programs that are planned for the ACF national membership fall squarely in President/Chef Edward Leonard's 5 year business plan.  We will, bit by bit, slowly but definitely see changes o our great 70 plus year old Federation….good changes, solid changes, attainable goals for everyone of us to grasp on to and move forward toward perfecting what we can, eliminating what we believe is cumbersome and creating new and exciting destination in the adventure we call, ACF.
I want to do something a little extra with the Chapter symposium I will call as the weeks go on.  I will ask that the Academy Chairs and Chapter certification Chairs (advisors) join us in these deliberations.  They are not only part of who we are, they are the limbs on the body that make us functional.  The AAC is, or should be a goal, the ultimate goal, for every ACF member, just as certification should be a goal and not stop until they reach the CMC platform. 
This is an election year.  It is my intention, and I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I want every ACF member in good standing cast their vote.  I would ask every Academy member to look at what has been accomplished in the AAC recently and cast their ballot.  Maybe I'm bias, but I can only focus on the men who live, work and serve the Northeast Region to again take charge.  They have proven, beyond doubt, that they are goal setters, that the goals they set are achieved, that they are not smoke and mirrors……Leonard, Taylor, Wright, Gerry Murphy, AAC's John Minitti and Tom Macrina.  Coupled with the other outstanding leaders from The Central, Southern and Western Regions, we will have a team that will work for us, one and all.  We will have an honest, up front, no nonsense board with vision and the guts to "make it work!"  Now more than ever we need ACF to work…in so doing we will grow because we will be indeed a proven force in the world culinary community and a beacon for all cooks and bakers in the United States to look to for guidance and be willing to join their talents to ours.  But, once again note the core of the leadership…..our very own Northeastern, seasoned, balanced and in nearly perfect harmony with the goals we, ourselves, would set for the ACF, nation wide.
Please watch for your invitation to attend one of the symposium in your region of our great state.  Come prepared to offer input constructive or not, it all counts.  On my behalf, invite your Chapter's American Academy Chair and the certification advisor and anyone else you feel will offer sound advise.  We will then have some concrete material to offer at our March NE Regional that will again set the pace for the ACF, the goals and aspirations which will make even greater than we are today.and.................
Remember: Cooking's fun, and always a snap!
Chef Don


note my new e-mail address: chefdon@wroctv.com thanks!