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Recipe for success
Despite being the Spinazzola Foundation’s first female and non-family-member executive director, Michelline Dufort is leading the nonprofit to greater heights
BY TAMARA WIEDER

WHEN IT COMES to Boston, the Anthony Spinazzola Foundation Gala Festival of Food and Wine is arguably the Super Bowl of the culinary scene. And when it comes to the Spinazzola Foundation, Michelline Dufort is arguably the organization’s quarterback. At 34, she’s the first non-family-member and first woman to hold the position of executive director of the foundation, a nonprofit established in 1992 that awards grants for hunger-relief efforts, culinary education, and job training for the homeless. Just back from maternity leave after the birth of her second child, Dufort is currently putting the finishing touches on this year’s Gala, an event that raises more than $600,000 annually by featuring the cuisine of more than 120 of Boston’s best restaurants, and wine from more than 90 international vintners.

Q: What’s the path you took to get to Spinazzola?

A: A lucky one. My first job out of school was with a charity, the Genesis Fund. I absolutely adored what I did there, which was events and helping others. When I left there in ’96, I thought I wanted a big change; I had in my head, "Oh, I’ve done the nonprofit thing." And I quickly realized that I really wanted to be in the nonprofit world. I happened to hear of an opening at Spinazzola, sent in my rŽsumŽ, and Chris [Spinazzola] quickly called me. I came in for an interview, and it just seemed that what they needed was a good event person. So luckily everything was in the right place. Came in, worked with Chris, and we worked really well. We both wanted the same things. I picked up where he wasn’t able to do things, and he was always there for me. And it was pretty quick that I went from being event person to being associate director, and then when [Chris] went on to open his own restaurant, he recommended me to the board in the summer of 2000, and luckily that all worked out as well.

Q: Did you have any experience in the restaurant business prior to coming to Spinazzola?

A: Only waitressing. I did that all through college, all through graduate school. My father was a part-owner of a restaurant back where I grew up, so I worked there even younger than college. But nothing as far as running a restaurant.

Q: How much have you learned about the restaurant business and about food in general with this job?

A: Oh, it’s unbelievable! That’s the biggest education. I mean, even waitressing all those years, you know when you’re having a good night and everything clicks, but you still don’t know what it’s like to sit in the executive chef’s shoes. This has given me the opportunity to know those people. To be honest, there’s a lot of times that I have to make a decision about something we’re doing here, and I don’t want to make that decision until I can call a couple chefs, or a couple people in the business who I know, and say, "What do you think of this? How does this sound to you? This is your gig."

Q: Would you consider yourself a foodie now?

A: Oh, God. I would love to be considered a full-out foodie, because I love food and wine, and I love this industry, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than trying to be a real foodie.

Q: How often do you eat out?

A: Not as much as I would like. Unfortunately, on a side note, whenever I’m pregnant, I can’t eat. I’m one of those backwards people, and I have morning sickness all the way through. The first time I couldn’t digest garlic, this time I couldn’t have anything with white flour. But there’s nothing we enjoy more, my husband and I, we have a group of friends, and we go out whenever we can, we go to a different place in town.

Q: Do you have a favorite restaurant right now?

A: I couldn’t even give you a favorite. It would be suicidal.

Q: What’s it like being the first woman and the first non-Spinazzola to hold this job? Do you feel extra pressure?

A: Being a woman I don’t feel any extra pressure, because the hospitality industry could not survive without women, whether they’re running it or they’re the executive chef or they’re the people making things get done, the general managers. I think more of the challenge is being the non-Spinazzola. It has its advantages and disadvantages. You certainly have people who only concentrate or put their mind to Spinazzola once a year, so perhaps when they hear that I called, it’s not a name that they recognize. Well, now we’re going into year three of me as executive director, so hopefully they’re getting a little more used to it.

And then sometimes there’s an advantage to not being a Spinazzola, because there’s times that there may be a tough decision that it would be really hard for a family member to make. When you’re doing something in your father’s name — say you have to turn down someone on something. Something might not be the right fit. And it was probably a lot harder for Chris, being that someone’s trying to do something in honor of his father, and how do you say no?

Q: You have a lot of restaurants and people getting involved in the Gala every year, but of course some of them don’t get involved with the other things that Spinazzola does throughout the year. Does that frustrate you?

A: Sometimes I think it’s a double-edged sword; we could probably do a better job utilizing those people at different times of the year. One thing that we’ve gotten involved with is Restaurant Week, and one reason we did get involved with Restaurant Week is because it kind of gave us a chance to revisit the same pool of people at a different time of the year. You feel like you go out of that radar, and then all of a sudden, that big billboard goes up on the expressway, and then people come back.

Q: One of the things you guys do is give money to hunger-relief programs. And then you have an event like the Gala, where people with lots of money get to eat really well. Does that ever bother you?

A: It is the total irony. But that’s what we always say, that people can afford it, we take that money and turn it around. But you’ve got to remember, even though that event is so big and you’ve got people spending so much money ... for instance, the amount of food that’s picked up at the end of the night by Second Helping. It’s sick if you think about how much that event would cost us if I didn’t have all the people donating what they donate. Then, then it would be a real problem. But because I have the restaurants donating all the food ... I’m able to turn around the money that the people with the discretionary income have, and we can give it back. [So] I’m still comfortable with it.

Q: What do you consider the foundation’s main goals?

A: The main goal of the foundation is to take what we have, the resources that we have in this industry, and the people who are so into food and wine, and use that to turn it around for people who don’t. The people who don’t have enough to eat, and all the groups out there who are on the frontlines feeding those people. And then also the culinary-education piece. That’s something we’ve tried to pay more attention to. All the culinary schools that are involved at Gala — people may not know this, but they’re there, and they’re cooking with the celebrity chefs — we also give them money toward their scholarship funds. And then we also do our culinary-apprenticeship program. And the other thing that we do, and we’ve done quietly, but we’re starting to talk about a little more, is that there’s times when someone in the industry will come to me and say, "We have a young student who’s going to have to drop out of school because they don’t have the money." And then we’ll step in and do that. Sometimes that’s the most satisfying, because then you have a name and a face.

Q: Do you have a most-memorable success story?

A: We have a lot of good ones. One of my favorites is we have a young man over at the Four Seasons, he’s been there for three years. And he is the best kid you’ll ever meet, and he works right there alongside [chef] Ed Gannon. He calls me about once or twice a year now: "If there’s ever anything I can do for you guys ... " He’s so good. So I said, "Carlos, you know what you can do for me? When you have your own restaurant, will you hire one of my kids?" And he said, "You bet!" He was all excited. That’s like his goal now.

Q: How has Spinazzola been affected by the downturn in the economy and September 11?

A: It’s so scary. Because that year, when that happened, the economy wasn’t good, and then we hit Super Bowl Sunday — because of September 11, [the Gala was] on the same weekend. And then we also had a snowstorm that they kept talking about. And then lastly, I didn’t know, how were people going to feel about coming to a World Trade Center in any city? But we’ve been lucky and we’ve grown; last year I think our sponsorship was up like $4000; this year it’s up another $10,000. We really try to have a good, close relationship with [the corporate sponsors] instead of just using their name, and showing them what we do with their money, making them feel good about writing that check.

Q: How much of your time during the year is focused on the Gala?

A: Oh, God, you know, I would say even when I’m not working on it, it’s in the back of my mind. I would say 80 percent.

Q: Do you ever worry that that leaves some of Spinazzola’s other events and issues unattended?

A: I would say certainly sometimes, like in December and January, someone might call me on something that I would love to pay attention to, but I just can’t. So, yeah. I think for anybody in my position — small staff, nonprofit — yeah, there’s times that you almost want to say, "Bear with me!"

Q: You were named one of the Boston Business Journal’s 40 under 40 this year, and one of the most powerful people in philanthropy by Boston magazine. What’s it like getting these honors? Do you consider yourself unusually accomplished for your age?

A: I consider myself unusually lucky. I really, really do. I have an amazing board of directors, an amazing staff. And also having an unbelievable husband allows me to be able to work the way I do with two kids. I think I work hard, and I think this is what I’ve always wanted to do, but I think I’m unbelievably lucky.

Q: What’s new at the Gala this year?

A: A new look. We used to have a band on a stage over in a corner; we’ve done away with that. We’ve taken our dance floor and put it in the middle of the room. We’re going to have a DJ. We’ve played around a lot with the cigar thing; I think we’ve finally got it down: we put it in a separate room. So it’s port in one room, beer in another, cigars in a totally different room. I think we would’ve lost all of our port pourers. We’re going very, very vibrant this year with colors. The theme this year is just red. It’s going to be over the top.

For information on the Anthony Spinazzola Foundation and the Gala Festival of Food and Wine, visit www.spinazzola.org. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com



A complete archive of our weekly Q&As
Issue Date: January 23 - 30, 2003
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