My Story

How is it that someone decides to be a personal chef?

For me it really got started when, as the young bride of a touring musician, I started reading my cookbooks... cover to cover. I had always loved making myself food that I craved, but the more I learned, the more my world opened up. There I was, a food obsessed cook in her 20's, living in LA, exploding in every direction.

The intricacies of pairing foods with wine, beer and spirits absolutely fascinated me. I found myself trying combination after combination. How far could I customize a dish to go with a much anticipated bottle of wine? It was a magical time for me. The restaurant industry in LA has been a hotbed for all sorts of wonderful cuisine and I got the chance to connect and study with some of those local chefs. With everything going on in the city, it wasn't long before I found myself volunteering for a local charity, catering and helping organize the program. My own self study kept going, landing me with a library rivaling the size and quality of most book stores. Then there were all the cultures I had the luxury of being surrounded by in one of the most diverse cities in the world. I soaked them up like a sponge: Thai, Cuban, Korean, Ethiopian, Greek, Chinese, Peruvian, Japanese and on and on.

Still, none of that accounts for leaving a fairly secure job in the real estate industry to start cooking for hire in the Central Coast, does it?

Despite constantly being told to open a restaurant or that I’d made someone the best meal they’d ever eaten, I'd always avoided cooking as a profession because I never liked the idea of being stuck in the back of a restaurant where the people you're cooking for become faceless tickets. But personal chef work is so different. It's an experience and a relationship. It considers your diet needs, but gives you the option to explore whatever foods you want at the same time. In this situation “healthy” doesn't have to mean mundane and “extravagant” doesn't have to mean you’ll end up in a food coma.

California being what it is, my husband and I started taking frequent vacations up the Central Coast 10 years ago. We fell in love with the land, the people, the pace and oh-my-goodness the air. The more we visited, the more we found great produce, great meats, great wines, even great local cheese. As a chef, I’d finally found my home.

ABOUT