Head Chef Wayne Murphy

Ask Wayne Murphy for his fondest memories during his years as a university student in France, and he remembers stacking pots one atop the other to make succulent, aromatic meals on the camp stove he had spirited into his room at residence. And then there were the trout he kept in his bidet.

One way or the other, all the stories come back to food - which is fitting for the head of the culinary program at the Canada Pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

Although Murphy, 50, didn't set out to become a chef when he grew up as a military brat at CFB Trenton, Ontario, or even when he studied international development at Guelph University and French literature at the University of Nantes, that experience in France changed his life. It led him to food.

"When I was in France I started fiddling around with anything that had to do with food - working in a vineyard part-time, trying to eat as much as I could and to learn as much as I could about food and wine. It just overtook me," Murphy says.

But it was the bold move of presenting himself in the kitchen of a restaurant in Japan - despite his ignorance of the language - that really set Murphy on the path to his current career as a chef and a teacher. After two years of working in the kitchen of that Japanese restaurant, Murphy knew that he had found his calling. He had also devised a way to marry his love of travel and curiosity about international cultures with his passion for food.

"Cooking is such a great window into a culture," Murphy says. When he returned to Ottawa, Murphy began working at several well-known French restaurants, and then joined the staff of La Cite Collegiale, a francophone College of Applied Arts and Technology. Eventually, he became the coordinator of the school's Culinary Arts Program.

Five years ago, Murphy came up with the idea for a culinary program at the Canada Pavilion at Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. He brought six promising young chefs from across Canada with him to cook special meals, featuring Canadian flair and ingredients - a program he will duplicate in Shanghai this year.

Murphy and his chefs will cook for VIPs, invited guests and special events at the Canada Pavilion throughout Expo, as well as hold cooking demonstrations at other venues in Shanghai. They will also invite students from culinary schools in Shanghai to work with them.

The experience allows Murphy to extend his teaching and mentoring skills to both the Canadian chefs accompanying him and the Chinese students.

Although Murphy acknowledges the honour that he feels to be representing Canada at Expo 2010, he is more excited about the prospect of changing the lives of the chefs working with him.

"If this helps them in the same way that travelling and working internationally helped me that means much more to me" Murphy says.

Above all, Murphy - whose favourite dishes often involve organ meat - will transmit his love of cooking, of food, and of life.

"It's a passion - and it's a lifestyle," he says with a laugh.