Chef Trisha

I was born and raised in beautiful Portland, Oregon, the city of roses.  Living in the Great Northwest made it possible to dine on the freshest of seafood possible.  My mother would bake whole Chinook salmon and serve it on a platter with plenty of fresh lemon, succulent pan fried oysters and pots full of steamed clams with melted butter and crispy French bread.  After the clams were devoured, the clam juice at the bottom of the pot was soaked up with the remaining bread.

Christmas always consisted of platters lined with fresh oysters on the half shell, along with Dungenous crabs piled high; served with cocktail sauce and again, plenty of fresh lemons.  And if we were short on crab tongs, we’d waste no time by cracking the crabs with our teeth to get to the delicious meat as fast as we could before our dining companions could reach for more.  And the perfect winter was when the small boney fish called a smelt swam in schools for a few days into the mouth of the Columbia River.  

Sunday afternoons consisted of aunts, uncles and cousins gathering at our grandparent’s house for an Italian feast that lasted until night fall.  Grandpa always started out with pickled herring, bowls of olives and antipasti, followed by slow roasted pork roast and large bowls full of spaghetti, homemade sauce and pork hocks.  The dining room was always filled with a lot of laughter and carafes of Chianti being passed in every direction, sometimes mine!

I can’t imagine my childhood without the kitchen table.  This is why cooking and traveling are very important to me, they both give such a euphoria of belonging.   I have had the opportunity to spend summers cooking in the south of France, Tuscany, Spain and Germany.  They are all countries that are accustomed to having long, leisurely meals at the table with their families.  Most people pack suntan lotion when they travel, I pack my chef knife! 
  
There is nothing like the camaraderie that a dinner table has to offer and I love it when I have helped another family capture this wonderful experience also.   This is why I became a chef, to continue my passion for the first love of my life…..food and share it with friends and family! 

Training:
I always wanted to learn the correct way to hold a chef’s knife, so in October of 2002, I began my year long training at the Art Institute of Atlanta in the culinary program.  What an awesome experience!

• August 2005 – Graduated from the Culinary Business Academy, becoming a personal chef.
• August 2005 – Began my personal chef business called, “The Traveling Chef”