![]() ![]() A recipe for souse, or chicken soup with lime, was inspired by a meal she ate with fellow contestant and friend Tiffany Deery in the Bahamas. In the new cookbook, one of the 130 recipes includes a Vadouvan curried carrot soup introduced to her by "Top Chef" contestant Jamie Lauren. Hall still stays in touch with her "Top Chef: All-Stars" castmates, especially chefs Antonia Lofaso, Mike Isabella and Richard Blais. Hall says her cooking style is just as it was portrayed on "Top Chef." Does she follow food trends? Two stints on Bravo's "Top Chef" cooking competition series in 20 – she was voted "fan favorite" after the latter season – led to a 2011 job on "The Chew," which also stars chefs Mario Batali and Michael Symon, along with Daphne Oz and Clinton Kelly. She later worked as a chef at several hotels and a private club. ![]() Inspired by the food she sampled along the way, Hall changed careers again and enrolled in L'Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, Md. The Nashville native who enjoyed watching her Grandma Thelma cook until the age of 92 didn't start out wanting to become a chef.Īfter earning an accounting degree from Howard University and working as a CPA, she traveled through Europe as a fashion model. Hall's quirky, open arms, cooking-with-love attitude has served her well. We met these strangers and it was great," says Hall adding she still stays in touch with the night's guests through Twitter. Hall laughs when she says she asked owner Aimee Olexy if they could muscle in on someone's dinner. Just one problem – the couple didn't have a reservation and the lone table was already booked. During her last visit to the festival in September 2013 – which was featured on "The Chew" – she and her husband, Matthew Lyons, wanted to have dinner at Talula's Table, Kennett's critically acclaimed gourmet foods store and one-table restaurant. She recently appeared on QVC in West Chester, Pa., and has been a guest chef several times at the annual Kennett Square (Pa.) Mushroom Festival. Hall, who still lives in Washington when she's not in New York taping "The Chew," is well acquainted with Delaware and its surrounding areas. A version of the savory greens and cheese pie she served is one of the recipes included in her new cookbook "Carla's Comfort Foods: Favorite Dishes from Around the World" (Atria Books, 2014), written with Genevieve Ko. Hall says the Delaware party guests gobbled up the spanakopita. Then, he started offending the hostess of the party. "This kid shows up and has all these bloody nicks all over his bald head. And, as it turns out, so did his social skills. His barbering skills left a lot to be desired. Hall says the young man, whom she didn't know ahead of time, decided to shave his head shortly before the party. The second mistake came when she hired a local bartender. "We were exhausted by the time the party started." "We were folding and pinching all night," she says. She only had one assistant to help her with the preparations. She thought the hand-held Greek savory snacks, good served at room temperature, would be perfect for a summer evening.īut Hall forgot about the amount of time and effort that goes into brushing tissue-thin layers of filo dough with butter and then sandwiching the spinach-feta filling into hundreds of tiny triangles. ![]() Her first mistake, Hall says, was deciding, the day before the big bash, to make lemon-scented, mini-spanakopita pastries. This turned out to be no day at the beach. You can bring someone with you!' " she says. More than 15 years ago, a client asked her to travel to Rehoboth and cater a big Fourth of July blowout. Long before she was a contestant on Bravo's popular "Top Chef" TV competition series, and well before she became a co-host of the ABC talk show "The Chew," Hall was a caterer based in Washington, D.C. A Rehoboth Beach party involving labor-intensive spinach pastries and a bartender's bald, bloody head almost made Carla Hall rethink her culinary career. ![]()
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