One Year In New York : Extra Activities...(5)

Outside the French Consulate, I also cook for private clients. I enjoy the direct contact, from conceiving the menu regarding the taste and dislikes of the client to his/her final satisfaction. Yes, satisfaction, the kind of expectation I had lost in my previous professional life.

So far, every client who I’ve cooked for has always returned to me for other events: that gives me great pride! In order to keep control of every step of the cooking process, I prefer to cater for a maximum of 20 guests.

Plating is what I like most since I look for the aesthetic aspect in the dish, simple, colorful but not pretentious (I hope…).

I have also given demos and cooking lessons to a Japanese and Korean audience, at Isabel’s Gourmet.

My main objectives are to communicate tips and ideas I learned from school, restaurants or the Consulate and to choose simple, tasteful and beautiful dishes, easily workable in a home kitchen (I attempt to show that expensive professional equipment can most of the time be substituted with simple tricks, work-arounds or bypasses…).

I also enjoyed the interaction with the audience.

Whenever I get free time, I spend some hours a week in restaurants’ kitchens, such as DB Bistro Moderne or, more recently L’Absinthe…or write on the Blue Chef’s Blog, in fact, more a note pad from things I have learned and seen than a blog…

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