Chef Profile: Alluette Jones-Smalls
Alluette Jones-Smalls, master of multi-tasking
The Chef: Alluette Jones-Smalls of Alluette’s Cafe in Charleston, South Carolina. Jones serves holistic soul food that’s vegan and vegetarian friendly, though chicken, beef, and fish are on the menu. She and her husband Cliff Smalls opened Alluette’s Jazz Cafe in a separate location last spring.
Toolbox: None.
Alluette's favorite bread knife.
The Tools: “I’d be lost without my Wusthof bread knife. It cuts better than most chef’s knives. And a 6-quart Le Creuset lime green covered stock pot. I like it because it looks like what my grandmother used. And a cast-iron pan that’s at least 21 years old. I have two cast-iron pans, actually, one for vegetarian and one for meat.”
A well-loved Le Creuset.
My First Tool: “When I was seven years old, my grandmother gave me a cast-iron frying pan. My brother, who was a year younger, would kill and skin squirrels and birds — mostly robins and sparrows — with a BB gun, and I was responsible for cooking them. Since the pan was mine, I was responsible for cleaning and storing it.
“Grandma showed me how some meat generated more fat than others. Then I wanted to learn how to bake, so she taught me the right way to do it, and not skimp or substitute. That’s why I’m so critical about food today.
The Tool That Got Away: “An old plaid picnic basket made of tin with a wooden top that I had since I was a kid. Three years ago I loaned it to a girlfriend, and it disappeared.”
My Holy Grail: “A complete set of Le Creuset cookware, in black and red.”
