{"id":234579,"date":"2016-08-19T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T20:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=234579"},"modified":"2016-08-19T06:00:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T20:00:11","slug":"local-boy-makes-big-food-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/local-boy-makes-big-food-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Local boy makes it big in food industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_234587\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-234587\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Hocog-pix-1-225x300.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-234587\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chef de cuisine Inas Hocog, a local island boy from Rota, beams as he talks about the upcoming Brazilian barbecue night\u2014 Churrasco\u2014at the Hyatt Regency Saipan.<br \/>(Joan L. Taitano)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Hyatt Regency Saipan executive chef de cuisine Inas Hocog was just a simple Rota boy who had big dreams.<\/p>\n<p>When asked how his passion for cooking developed, Hocog said he got it from watching his mother. \u201cIt started simply from hanging around my mom as a young boy. I was always asking what she was doing and why?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When Hocog was a senior at Rota High School his interest in food did not subside. \u201cI went on to seek higher education in San Diego. It was there where I took my schooling full steam ahead and at the same time began my first cook job as a line\/short order cook at a Hawaiian L&amp;L.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After working in six kitchens in a span of a decade, he is now an executive chef de cuisine at one of the premier hotels on island. <\/p>\n<p>Hocog attributes his success as a chef by learning from other chefs that he has worked with through the years\u2014the first and most important one being his mother. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOther chefs who have greatly influenced me are chef Joe Orate, my mentor from culinary school; chef Keoni Simmons, who gave me my first line cook job; chef John Zamurra and chef Cesar Avila, who saw a sous chef in me and put me through the rigors and reward of creating a restaurant from scratch; and lastly chef Allan Rast, who exposed me to the finesse and finer things in this career choice.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Hocog\u2019s passion for cooking stems from the fact that it simply comes naturally to him. \u201cI find it gratifying when patrons are satisfied with a meal that I have prepared. There are no words to describe the joy that I find in my chosen career.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hyatt Regency Saipan executive chef de cuisine Inas Hocog was just a simple Rota boy&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":234587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[233,7232,13008,13009],"class_list":["post-234579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-hyatt-regency-saipan","tag-inas-hocog","tag-joe-orate","tag-keoni-simmons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}