A Baker’s Dozen: Life Growing Up With A Chef
Growing up with a chef in the family can make for an extraordinary and irregular life, but can also be highly rewarding and exciting. Children can take advantage of their mother or father’s cooking expertise – it is very common for the children of high-profile chefs to enter the business of cookery themselves. For these children, food and cookery become symbolic of family and community: the family comes together to prepare and eat a meal.
If the chef owns or is a major player at a particular restaurant, family life may become intertwined with that establishment.Didn’t catch that? This explains it. It can be a very stimulating and nurturing environment in which to raise a child, becoming a second home because the parent spends so many waking hours there. The restaurant staff become a second family, and children become comfortable with all aspects of cooker and food presentation.
Like every parent, award-winning chefs face the daily dilemma of ‘I’m hungry – I want something to eat now!’ and the temptation to serve up a quick microwave ready-meal, rather than fire up the stove and prepare a gourmet dinner for four. The challenge to create wholesome and tasty food in under half an hour can be that much greater if one or more family members has a food allergy, intolerance or an aversion to particular foods. For example, Rick Bayless, owner of the Frontera Grill and Topolobampo restaurants in Chicago realized that he had to change the way he cooked for his family when his daughter Lanie began exhibiting signs of wheat and dairy allergies at the age of five. Specializing in Mexican cuisine, at first glance it appeared that there was nothing Rick could safely prepare for his daughter, until he began experimenting with goat’s milk, goat’s cheese and spelt flour. The result was ‘Rick and Lanie’s Excellent Kitchen Adventures’, a cookbook that chronicles Rick’s experimentations and successes.