The Story of Salt Pepper & Oil
Hi, my name is Oleg Vetkov, owner and operator at Salt Pepper & Oil. Since the age of 10, I have had a thrill for the kitchen and knew that I wanted to pursue a career in hospitality. I remember the days I would spend countless hours in the kitchen trying to create my own recipes. In complete bliss, I was mixing different ingredients together, and creating extraordinary culinary breakthroughs while taking up all the counters in the kitchen, the stove top, and dining table, as well as most of the kitchen utensils. My mother referred to my efforts as “messes”, as she came home from a long day at work. I disagreed; at the time.
When I was 15, I went from restaurant to restaurant in search of a place in Bellingham or Fairhaven that would take a chance on me. I was just a naive boy trying to get my foot in the door; however, no one wanted to give me a chance. On my way back one day I stopped by a small restaurant on the Mount Baker Highway called Il Caffè Rifugio, a small Italian caffè. I came in and dropped off my resume that had an extensive memoir about my time at Rader Farms as a raspberry sorter. I had zero restaurant experience at the time, and working at a raspberry farm was what I knew up to that point, nevertheless I did know how to wash dishes. Surprisingly, a couple of weeks later I got a call from the caffè saying they needed a dishwasher; it was just the opportunity I was looking for.
I started at the caffè, and later got a few other jobs, then started to pursue my passion at Bellingham Technical College’s Culinary Arts Program a couple years later. I entered culinary competitions, both with the Hot Foods Team, as well as individual mystery basket competitions. After my graduation, I continued on to my next adventure in the south of France for three months. I visited places like Montpellier, Paris, Cassis, Marsais, Carcassonne, and Nimes where I cooked at the 4-star Hotel Imperator under Chef Thierry Plaideau.
Returning to The Evergreen State, I went straight back to work, getting a job at the prestigious Canlis restaurant of Seattle; an iconic place of dining. I worked in the kitchen for a year and a half, and one year in the dining room training from the best in fine dining service. During this time, I was attending school full-time at South Seattle College for my Bachelor’s Degree in Restaurant and Hotel Management.
Through my time working in the hospitality industry, among many things, I learned the value of time. I thought that pursuing my passion of cooking would give me the ability to cook for family and friends more, now that I knew how. I quickly realized that time is one of the most valuable assets in life, and is often overlooked and neglected. I began to understand that it wasn’t just the hospitality industry that required copious amounts of time and effort, but the same was true in almost every industry.
It was then that the idea to start Salt Pepper & Oil came about, to give people their time back and encourage home-cooked, fresh, hassle-free meals. The preparation of peeling, slicing, dicing, chopping, grinding, etc. is the most time consuming task of the cooking process; shopping is the runner up. Now you have the ability to take the hours that you would otherwise spend shopping, and prepping and spend it with the people you care about. So allow us at Salt Pepper & Oil to create the recipes, do the shopping, and prepare all the ingredients, then give you pre-portioned ready-to-cook meals. Leaving you to simply do the cooking, because now you are the chef, and Salt Pepper & Oil is your little prep helper.
Feel free to stop by the shop anytime and say hi.
Cheers!