When a musician gets off the stage after belting out tunes for two hours, one of the biggest things on their mind is food, according to Sandra Gajovsky, the Institute of Culinary Education graduate working as the Lead Chef at Dega Catering.
Chef Sandra leads the life of a culinary nomad, cooking across the United States and the world on tour with famous performers like Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift and The Lumineers. Working with a team of expert catering cooks, she puts together multiple meals daily for musicians and the vast support crews needed to keep the music playing every night. But her journey didn’t start with cooking up tapas between taping sessions.
“I never envisioned myself here,” she says. “But now I travel with musicians, feeding them and their staff. You have to have grit in this slice of the industry. Our day can start at 6:30 a.m. and end at 10 p.m. or later, depending on the show and the city the band plays in the next day.”
Chef Sandra did not start her career cooking on the road. After working as a florist, she realized she wanted something more. That’s when she discovered ICE. The Culinary Arts program at ICE offered plenty of instruction, information and essential training — perfect for Chef Sandra, as a career changer.
“What sticks with me all these years later are the memories of other people like me — people going through a career change,” says Chef Sandra. “There was a lawyer, a teacher, someone running a family business unrelated to cooking, just a lot of different stories all coming together to cook.”
After graduating and completing her externship, Chef Sandra got her first taste of catering-style cooking at a ritzy country club in Northern New Jersey. She split her time between restaurant-style cuisine and catered buffets for banquets, golf outings, baptisms, weddings and graduations. However, the seasonal nature of golf courses in the Northeast meant a slow winter season, so Chef Sandra moved to Nashville.
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After working in the restaurant scene in Music City for a few years, she found a role at TomKats Hospitality, a Nashville staple for event and on-location catering. She fell in love with the work but wanted to take her career to a new level. After speaking to a friend who worked in marketing and production for the Warped Tour, she learned about her dream job.
“‘You know what you’d be awesome at? Tour catering,’” Chef Sandra recalls her friend saying. “Cooking food for artists, bands and the crew! As a big music fan, this was a great way to merge two worlds.”
Soon after, Chef Sandra discovered Dega Catering and began a two-year endeavor to get on the company's radar. She got her lucky break with the Country Music Awards, where they needed another set of helping hands to feed 300 to 400 people a day. With a contract secured, she proved her worth by working local events and filling in for people out on tours. Soon, Chef Sandra worked on her first tour with the Zac Brown Band.
“People on the road love their comfort food,” Chef Sandra says of the band’s favorite dishes. “They enjoy simple, home-style meals.”
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Her tour days begin with local runners in each city shopping for fresh ingredients while her crew sets up the mobile kitchen. Breakfast is served buffet-style, followed by lunch, which is prepared during the artist's soundcheck. The crew and band grab a quick bite of dinner before the show, and then the traveling kitchen usually starts breaking down around 10 p.m. Chef Sandra always has a plate or two of food ready to warm up in case of late-night munchies.
“We won’t cook up a meal in the middle of the night, so no midnight grilled cheese sandwiches,” she says. “But we always have a little after-show meal ready for the artists and crew.”
Life moves fast when you're cooking for performers like the Foo Fighters. But between tours, Chef Sandra found time to compete in season 22 of Hell’s Kitchen. The experience was challenging, as she found not only her cooking scrutinized, but also her social interactions.
“The psychology of the show was wild — you’ve got all the stress of the kitchen in a pressure cooker social experience where you’re prepping meals with 17 other cooks you’ve never worked with,” she says. “They even take notes of your facial expressions to ask what you were thinking about in the confessionals!”
Though being on the road is a way of life for Chef Sandra, she eventually plans to open a gothic-themed bakery. Until then, the Chef Sandra Gajovsky International Tour continues.
For those thinking of getting into culinary arts, Chef Sandra has crucial advice.
“Put your head down and work your butt off," she says. "Be a reliable employee and do the best job you can do. Other people will see the value in you, your work and your ethics.”
