About the Chef
About Chef Deb
Hi there! Welcome to Let’s Eat Personal Chef Service website and blog. I’m Chef Deb Fraser, the author, cook and chief vegetable scrubber. I live in Portland, Oregon and my primary work is running a personal chef service and small event catering company. As you can imagine, I love to cook and as my friend Kaaren says, I gotta a need to feed! I cook
Here I am in my kitchen!
for individuals, couples, families, those that can’t cook any more, those who don’t want to cook any more, those that don’t have any time to cook anymore…and a few famous basketball players, too boot. I hope I can cook for you, too. This little page is designed for you to get to know me a bit better…so here’s my story…
I once lived in San Francisco. I love San Francisco. I once lived in New York City, too, but I loath it; great place to visit but a real nightmare to live there. In San Francisco I was practicing law. Yuk. Endless paperwork, piles of mail, 125 files over six inches thick with nasty grams from other lawyers, briefs, reports, letters, medical records, etc. The firm I worked at was great. The folks I worked for were fun, cool and really good people. I liked them a lot. The work itself however, just sucked. My only outlets were hiking all over Point Reyes, visiting as many hot springs and spa resorts I could manage in my budget (the more rustic, the better), the Farmers Markets up and down the coast and cooking classes. I just loved the cooking classes.
I started out at Sur La Table and took as many classes as I could afford. Then I went to Home Chef (now Viking Home Chef) in Laurel Heights and took a bunch of their classes. Then I went to Taute Marie’s in North Beach and took a load of their classes. I had the bug. I dumped all my old pots and pans from my first marriage and bought All Clad everything. I invested in all sorts of equipment: A K-6 KitchenAid mixer and food processor, a Cuisinart hand blender and ice cream maker, a Krupps blender, and a slow-cooker. My kitchen drawers are filled with all kinds of gizmos. I’m kind of a gadget junkie. Take after my dad.
I remember sneaking out of the office one Wednesday evening because I had a Seafood class at 6 pm and didn’t want to be late (parking can be a nightmare in SF). Nobody left the office at 5:30 pm except the admins. Usually, the lawyers were there until 7 pm or later. This was way more important than some long winded report to the client who wouldn’t read it anyway. It was way worth the sniff and scorn I got the next day.
I probably would have stayed at that law firm but my mom died and my life changed. I had to leave in order to have the time to take care of stuff so I started my own practice. I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN AS LONG AS I LIVE!!! It was awful, awful, awful. Everyday was a complete nightmare. I’d wake up with Gordian knots in my stomach. I came to despise the phone and the mail. After a year I was so burned out and in such despair that I had to do something or I’d be on meds. I had had enough!
That’s when I decided to go to cooking school. Real cooking school. The big one in San Francisco: The California Culinary Academy on Polk Street (I think they have another campus South of Market, now). So, I applied, got a student loan, re-arranged my work schedule and went for seven months from 3 pm to 10 pm five days a week. In June 2005 I
Some bread for the soul
became a certified pastry chef (it’s all I could afford…the main chef course is like fifty grand. More than I paid for law school). And then, September of 2005 I bought a little house in Portland. By the end of 2005, whatever cases I couldn’t settle I got rid of. I was officially retired (read:escaped) from law.
I began Let’s Eat! Personal Chef Service in June of 2006 and have been working fairly steadily ever since. I have great clients and from time to time I cater parties. I discovered that when you cook every day for others you get pretty good at it. I found that it’s a load of fun and overall it’s a whole lot better than working as a lawyer!
I’m rather picky about recipes. I get a lot from cookbooks (and, of course, I’ve got a ton like all crazy cooks) and loads
One of many cookbooks I own
from the internet. But, I don’t like my food too complicated with ingredients you have to go on safari to locate. I don’t care for packaged or processed food, fake food, genetically altered food, weird food, insect food or stuff only a Klingon would eat. I’m not a big “Chinese” food fan, either; at least not what passes for Chinese food around here. Honestly, food doesn’t need to be “fancy”, just good, clean and fresh.
Cooking shouldn’t take all day long, either. I do enjoy experimenting with processes. It’s a scientific bent I have. So, I can get into making bread, preserving fruit, making jam, ice cream (a personal favorite), and other great things. I like to find out how things work, what makes a dish great and what went wrong and why. And, boy! I’ve had some spectacular failures.
One time my friend David and I were making pizza. We put a load of fresh mozzarella cheese on top. Well, after a few minutes in the oven the whole kitchen began to smoke. OMG! The cheese melted in molten rivers pouring down like lava from the edges of the bread, down over the pizza stone and pooling at the bottom of the oven floor. It burned and burned, forming charcole bricketts and sent smoke streaming out of every possible opening. We had the fan going and the backdoor open while we watched in horror. After we turned off the oven and the smoke finally diminished we took out what was left of the pizza. Completely inedible…we couldn’t even recognize it. Well, once it hit the trash can we threw up our hands and headed out for sushi. It took me three days to clean that oven. What a mess! Well, I certainly learned from that fiasco.
I’ve also re-discovered gardening. After years of living in apartments and having so little time the houseplants died from neglect, it’s been great developing a garden. There’s not much room here on my small urban homestead so lots of plants end up in buckets and pots. Half the time I’ve no clue what I’m doing, but the plants survive in spite of my ignorance. I’ve grown tomatoes, herbs, eggplant and summer squash. I’m learning by trial and error…mostly error. Every year I try something new. I’ll let you know how this experiment is going.
Well, that’s just about it regarding myself and my misadventures. If you need to contact me, send an e-mail to chefdeb@lets-eatnow.com.