Chef Jack Serves Up Hope at Event

With TV cameras rolling at a fundraiser at in Riviera Village on Wednesday evening, Chef Jack Witherspoon, 11, was the focus of attention from the press and public alike.

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With his red baseball cap turned askew as he dished out peppery asides, Jack served pancetta-wrapped shrimp to guests and talked about his new cookbook, Twist It Up, co-written with his mom, Lisa Witherspoon.

“It was a lot of hard work,” he conceded with his typical astuteness, “but it taught me how to perfect my recipes.”

That Jack is minus the trademark blond hair that graces the cover of his cookbook—the result of his third recurrence of leukemia last month and a series of brutal chemotherapy treatments—no longer seems to dampen his spirits.

“I was kind of shocked [the cancer] came back,” Jack said, adding that he was “bummed” about his hair at first but “getting used to my new look.” Then again, he added wryly, “everyone has seen me this way before.”

Preparing to undergo a bone marrow transplant at UCLA Medical Center in mid-August, Jack says his hair loss is there to remind him of his primary task in life—to bring help and support to kids with cancer and their families.

Jack has raised nearly $100,000 toward pediatric leukemia research, enabling the Witherspoons to establish The Jack Witherspoon Permanent Endowment at Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach, where Jack has received treatment.

“When I had leukemia the two times before, I was younger,” he wrote in his Chef Jack blog while hospitalized in June. “This time I know exactly what’s going on and I will remember everything … I think God made this happen to me to remind me why I am doing all this.”

The bone-marrow transplant will require Jack to remain at the medical center in West Los Angeles for three months before returning home to Redondo Beach in time for Christmas. Jack hopes to finally enter Richardson Middle School in 2012.

In the meantime, he's keeping a positive attitude. “If you believe there is the slightest chance something good can come from it, you just have to believe in that chance and hope for the best," he said.

Just 2 years old when he was first diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), Jack endured 39 months of chemotherapy, only to have the cancer return in 2006. An even more intense round of treatment followed, including injections of steroids directly into his spine and lengthy hospital stays.  

It was during one of those stays that Jack began his romance with the Food Network, starting with Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels and tutorial on mac and cheese. 

Quickly graduating to a more sophisticated palate and celebrity chefs such as Bobby Flay, he rattles off his current “top [Food Network] faves: The Next Food Network Star, Chopped, Good Eats, Throw Down with Bobby Flay, Boy Meets Grill, Grill it!, and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.”

When asked about Master Chef, however, he says, “Mom doesn’t let me watch Gordon Ramsey. Too much bad language.” With a cocky smile, he adds, “but there’s bad language on the Food Network, too.” 

Hooked on cooking, Jack saw his destiny as a chef, something his parents, John and Lisa Witherspoon, supported with fundraisers called “Cooking up Dreams.” Along with benefiting his endowment, the events allowed Jack to act as guest chef.

In December of 2007, Bob Pool, a Los Angeles Times staff writer, wrote about Jack’s “four-course fundraiser” at .

“Those who crowded into a Redondo Beach restaurant could scarcely believe what 7-year-old Jack Witherspoon cooked up Wednesday night,” Pool wrote.

“There were hors d'oeuvres such as mushrooms stuffed with spinach and three cheeses. A spinach ravioli appetizer with wild mushrooms, sherry and pecorino. A salad made with his own sun-dried tomato ranch dressing.”

Food is Chef Jack’s passion—and not just any food.

Deep into everything Julia Child of late, he is in a French frame of mind and has already whipped up a cheese soufflé.

In an interview the day before the fundraiser, he said, “I’d like to try making beef bourguignon and ratatouille the way Julia makes it.”

To gain a foothold on his subject, he is reading Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I and corresponding with blog fan Susie Davidson, the executive director for the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. (Davidson is sending him more of Child’s books.)

He has watched the 2009 movie Julie & Julia twice (“I understood it better the second time,” he said) and completed a fifth-grade research project entitled, "How Did Julia Child's Style of Cooking Influence the Home Cook?"

Chef Jack is what you call an old soul.

His charm and élan come not just from his way with a soufflé, his  appearances on shows like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, or his deftness at pitching his and his mom’s new cookbook. It’s as if he had been rehearsing his lines since birth.

In a way he has.

“Jack was like that when he was 2,” Lisa said. “He never spoke baby talk. He spoke with perfect diction, every word, clear as a bell.”

The young chef, who still stands on a footstool in the kitchen to mix sauces and knead dough, is his mother’s “major critic,” Lisa said.

“Jack has made me into a cook. I was always pretty good, but he’s taken me to the next level. And he doesn’t hold back if I do something wrong. If I get a compliment from him, I’m very happy.”

Though Lisa glowed with pride Wednesday evening, as did her Realtor husband, John, and son Josh, 9, in private, she sometimes perches on the edge of despair.

Calling Jack “the love of my life,” Lisa said her son’s third bout of Leukemia has been “just devastating.” In our phone interview the day before the fundraiser, she said, “I have to be strong, and I am, but Jack is amazingly strong.”

More often than not, she said, Jack is the one who comforts her.

“He taught me the power of love,” Lisa said, her voice breaking. “It’s the love we have together than fuels all the events, the book, believing that he will be okay.” It’s the same with the entire family, she said.

The new cookbook, Twist it Up, is a labor of love 2 1/2 years in the making. The title is Jack’s “catchphrase for taking recipes and putting my own twist on them,” he said. (The book can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com.)

The twist “depends on the recipe,” he said. “The key is how to season.” Adding beef stock to marinara sauce, for example, “gives it a lot of flavor … And I add dried cranberries to my turkey meatloaf.”

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The idea for a book stemmed from a “Cooking Up Dreams” event, when Jack and Lisa realized they had amassed an amazing amount of recipes.

Along with donating proceeds from book sales to Jack’s endowment (“the whole basis for the book,” Lisa said), the authors wanted to tell Jack’s story.

“It’s not just collection of recipes,” Lisa said. “It’s an inspirational cookbook.”

Consequently, each recipe has a story, such as when Jack prepared Shepherd’s Pie for Jay Leno on The Tonight Show.

“The recipe calls for some vegetables,” Lisa explained. “But Jay doesn’t eat vegetables.”

Chef Jack told Leno, “Eat them anyway.”

Anyone who has ever coped with finding an agent, writing a book proposal and satisfying editors can appreciate the time and toil involved. Fortunately, Jack’s appearance on The Tonight Show helped with contacts. He was soon set up with an agent.

“We had to write everything in proposal format,” said Lisa, who dealt with “the mechanics” of writing while committing stories in “Jack’s voice” on the computer.

The proposal “made the rounds of publishers,” until Chronicle Books made an offer. “They have been absolutely wonderful,” Lisa said. “They love the book and they love Jack.”

So do celebrity chefs who know Jack personally, like Bobby Flay, Fabio Viviani and Paula Deen—all of whom wrote raves for the back cover.

Jack blogged about his first press release in June. “Promoting my book from my hospital room wasn’t what I had planned, but sometimes you just don’t have a choice and you have to go with what life deals you,” he wrote.

All 60 of his “favorite comfort food recipes” in the book, he wrote, are “kid tested (by me and my brother) and family approved.”

Along with benefiting his endowment, funds will also go in part to the Beckstrand Cancer Foundation in Newport Beach, for whom Jack is the pediatric spokesperson.

The Beckstrand Foundation was founded in 1974 by Dr. Grant Beckstrand and a group of doctors specializing in the treatment and care of cancer patients.

One of the guests at the fundraiser Wednesday night, Anne Vonderahe, was a dear friend of Grant and Millie Beckstrand. “We were neighbors in Palos Verdes Estates,” said Vonderahe, who now lives in San Pedro.

Seated at the Tapas & Vino bar, Vonderahe dug in her purse and brought out four glass candle holders inscribed with “Beckstrand Foundation L’Affaire, 1988.”

“I was there,” Vonderahe said, breaking into a smile.  “I thought Jack would like to have these.”

As far as Jack’s take on his upcoming bone-marrow transplant. “If you believe there is the slightest chance something good can come from it, you just have to believe in that chance and hope for the best.”