Tuesday, August 27, 2013

A day in the life of a personal chef....


5.00 AM.... alarm wake up and a desire to hit the snooze button but an intense one hour workout of kickboxing gets me very very awake and ready for my day ahead... my Monday client is one of my favorite as they eat so so HEALTHY and it always feels so good to produce such nourishing creative takes on dishes that are all vegetarian.  I always said I learn the most from my clients as it is truly the case with this one  as I am now very familiar with aspect of a  rotational diet and gluten free cuisine. I love meeting people that truly raise the bar of standard in every aspect of my life and the energy of being surrounded in your work in a peaceful home, organized pantry and kitchen, no junk food anywhere is so powerful and motivational!  Since pictures speak louder than words, I have create a small collage of my work yesterday where I produced gluten free sweet potato and applesauce muffins, vegetarian fahijtas with pomegranate and mint studded guacamole, 3 bean carrots and dandelion green soup ( super good for the liver)potato, chickpea and cabbage stew with celery seed, from scratch vegetarian thai curry with broccoli, and lentil spinach "hamburger" helper.
As we all know a woman's work is never done so once I am finished at the client ( typically 4-5 hours later) I come home and think about our own family evening meal.... and usually I find myself making something I was inspired by during my work morning, in this case the 3 bean soup, the guacamole and a desert of local melons with a glass of fine white wine..
A good personal chef service requires extreme attention to detail, excellent culinary skills and of course good communication skills for correspondence with the client. In most cases, the menu is decided the week before and a complete list of every ingredient ( including salt and pepper) is sent to the client for approval before I shop for the ingredient items. The food is all cooked in a very special type of cookware called Ceramcor that is just amazing and which I have also converted to using for my own family home cooking. To find out if a personal chef service might work for you, I would be happy to talk or email with you!

Thai green curry


Carrot and leeks "sweating" out their flavor for the 3 bean soup

Fresh Dandelion greens added in to the soup

Chickpea, cabbage and potato stew with celery seed

Gluten free sweet potato muffins

Pomegranate mint guacamole

Organic tricolor of peppers for the fahijtas


My  work here  is complete!                                                                                                                             















My own family evening meal inspired by my client work

Monday, February 11, 2013

Italian cultural evening!

How do you bring a culture to life in your lives when you live thousands of mine away from that culture?  Host an Italian themed evening of music, poetry and of course food from the culture! That' just what I did this past weekend.... menu was pretty special with a variety of cuisine from different regions... Ferrara, Liguria, Emilia-Romanga, followed by a splendid slide show from the Ligurian region and some inspirational poetry by Montale. Five hours goes by very quickly when the body, mind and soul is engaged with such sustenance....
So to the menu... Asparagus wrapped with prosciutto and baked in the oven, Fava-Bean Crostini, winter salad of escarole with oranges, olives, and pecorino, pasta with pesto from the Genoa region, a delightfully delicious cappellaci di zucca from Ferrara ( stuffed home made pasta with butternut squash, Parmesan, ricotta, armaretto and ground hazelnuts, served with a brown butter and sage sauce, followed by a delightful "torta al vino rosso" red wine chocolate cake with whipped cream and macerated raspberries and a variety of gelato!
If you would like to host such an evening in your home with a food theme from Italy, France, Germany or Ireland, please contact me!