Mark Timms got into the restaurant industry because he was hungry. Raised in England’s foster care system, Timms experienced horrifying incidents that have prompted him to help kids in the Vermont community he now calls home. Last summer, he organized the Rising Star Chefs Food & Wine Show to bring more attention to the cause of childhood hunger, and this winter he held a gingerbread-house contest at Topnotch Resort and Spa in Stowe, Vt., where he’s executive chef, to collect money for the children’s oncology department at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vt.
Title: executive chef, Topnotch Resort and Spa, Stowe, Vt.
Birthplace: Sheffield, England
Birth date: April 13, 1969
Education: Granville culinary school, now known as Sheffield College, in Sheffield
Career highlights: cooking at the James Beard House in May 2009, earning four diamonds from AAA as chef-partner at Tristan restaurant in Charleston, S.C.
Personal: married with two daughters
What was it like growing up in England? It was a working-class area. There were lots of steel mills. Sheffield was bombed pretty hard in World War II, and I remember in the late ’70s playing in the areas that were bombed out. Recovery didn’t start there until the late ’80s.
Tell me about last summer’s Food & Wine Show. Based on my own experience as a child, I wanted to organize a fundraiser that would help feed local children.
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