'A celebration of what's possible,' dinner in Grafton prison shows rehabilitation through cooking

GRAFTON— Patrons from across the region gathered for a sold-out dinner featuring a gourmet five-course meal on Wednesday; not in a candle-lit restaurant or fancy dining room, but in the yard of a prison. The second annual Grafton Garden Dinner was held among the crops growing at the Grafton Reintegration Center, put on by the Edwins Leadership and Restaurant Institute program and the 35 GRC inmates who are members of the program. Edwins runs a high-end French restaurant and brasserie Cedar Road in Cleveland Heights, but it is also a non-profit which teaches incarcerated people about cooking and hospitality. Its online curriculum is used in over 700 prisons across the U.S. The restaurant is also staffed mostly by graduates of the program, whom Edwins founder Brandon Edwin Chrostowski said are provided with housing, childcare and further training. On Wednesday, Chrostowski directed both his full time kitchen staff and the inmates in his program, teaching the incarcerated men while providing dinner for his 78 guests. "It's a celebration of what's possible." Chrostowski said. "It really encapsulates so many different dimensions of (rehabilitation). It's the state working towards a goal, saying if we train and if we have programming, we can solve this idea of recidivism. It's the state saying that, it's our program doing that, it's the public saying, we believe in you to drive to Grafton, Ohio, to eat this and we don't even know what's going to happen. It's just a culmination of years of pressure and education and belief and hope." Several of those who were in the program and participated in the inaugural garden dinner last year spent the summer working in the Edwins' farm, which is next to but separate from the GRC's community garden, to grow the fruits and vegetables used in this year's dinner. Those men sat with their family members and other patrons during the dinner. Efrain Paniagua participated in the program last year, and worked the farm this summer. He said that Edwins has become a crucial outlet for him while he is in prison. "What this program means to me right now in this moment, is almost everything," Paniagua said. "It's what I do most of the day. It's what I concentrate on. It's what keeps me focused, what keeps me out of here. It's what keeps me kind of normalized. It's work, it's constant, but without the team, we wouldn't be able to do the whole garden, so this program actually teaches teamwork. How to work through each other's differences and stuff like that because everybody comes from different backgrounds. We work together to make it happen." Another former member of the program who helped grow the food the party enjoyed was Jermaine Davis, who proudly noted when he graduated the Edwins program two years ago, he did so as one of the top men in his class. "It was a good experience because it's a couple different people from different backgrounds," Davis said. "So I got to link with them and talk to them, learn different cultures and how people cook differently and all that stuff. … We got a Mexican guy, a guy that was in the Army, a Korean guy. So we all just get in there and it's different, you know, different aspects of life. And we just all just have fun, bringing it together." Both Davis and Paniagua said that cooking with family had been an important part of their lives outside, so learning to cook a particular way along with friends gave them a feeling of home. Chrostowski himself was once incarcerated, going in and out of jail as a young man until he said a judge cut him a break, and he ended up in a Detroit kitchen, where a chef decided to take a chance on him and taught him "practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect." Following that first job, Chrostowski went on to attend culinary school and cooked in Michelin star restaurants in New York, Paris and Chicago. He said falling into those experiences made him want to give the same chance to as many incarcerated people as he could. "I had all these amazing experiences based upon a break from a judge and mentorship… from someone who believed in me," Chrostowski said. " I just wanted to give back all these experiences to others because, really, it shouldn't have happened. In the big picture, why did it happen to me? Our responsibility, I think, as humans is when something fortunate happens to you, you're supposed to give that back. You make a lot of money, share your money. You get a lot of knowledge. Share your knowledge. That's how it (the program) came to be. " It was no coincidence that the dinner was being held in GRC, Chrostowski said. In 2011, Chrostowski approached the prison and asked if it would be interested in him starting a culinary program there. Grafton Correctional Institution Warden Jerry Spatny, who had just transferred to Grafton that same year, said prison staff jumped at the opportunity. The GRC is a part of the larger institution, which holds prisoners who are mostly six years or less away from release. Spatny said the then-new staff of the GRC had just taken over from a private operator, and had almost no programming for prisoners at the time. "We were like, 'We're in. Let's do it.' And ever since it's just been stronger and stronger," Spatny said. These guys learn skills in here and then he (Chrostowski) helps them when they go home, it's just a win-win partnership." Because of how close and fruitful the relationship has been, Spatny said when Chrostowski asked about holding a dinner in the garden the prison was immediately on board. Spatny said that programs like Edwins are crucial to teach inmates useful skills while also helping them have both a distraction and a goal while they are incarcerated. "I am more proud of the guys that are living here because they are not just living here, they are working to get better," Spatny said. "They are making themselves more accountable. They want to be a better part of the community when they go home. I appreciate that, because not every guy that lives in a correctional system thinks like that, but the guys at Grafton do. Chrostowski said that the inmates who graduate from his program know that they want to better their lives, and he simply works to give them the skills to do that. "(Prison is) an opportunity to reflect and to understand your own triggers," Chrostowski said. "It's an opportunity to dream in solitude. I think Einstein said 'It's not hard to be a genius, you just need time alone.' Now, if you've got someone who understands where they don't want to go wrong, what they want to do right and have plenty of time to reflect. All you have to do is wrap a skill around that, and now you've got one badass person. The men here are our future, I hope they teach my kids one day. I hope they change the world one day." Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.