Chef Profile: Elaina Vazquez
Sharpie Love
Chef Elaina Vazquez
The Chef: Chef Elaina Vazquez runs Boutique Bites, a fine catering company based in Chicago. Her resume includes stints at Tru and Avenues at the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago, and The Mansion at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Note the prominent placement of the Sharpie.
The Toolbox: It’s clear that Vazquez has nothing to hide from the world: she uses clear plastic storage boxes with snap-on lids to store her tools. “They’re easy to store, stack and label,” she says.
The Tools: Her list is a long one, so inhale first: “Paring knives, offset spatulas, masking tape, spoons, tweezers, rubber spatulas, a bench scraper, peeler, ruler, ring cutters, candy thermometer, label maker, minitorch, Japanese mandoline, gram scale, calculator, mini strainer, microplane, digital thermometer, and scissors.” There are more in her arsenal, she assures us, but we ran out of breath.
All lined up perfectly, ducks in a row.
“But I simply can’t get through a day in the kitchen without an offset spatula and my Sharpie,” she admits. Ah, she’s not alone...
The Sentimental Tool: A friend once gave her a mini-skimmer with a dark brown wooden handle that she can’t do without, though she uses it for a rather obscure task: “It’s great for cleaning the water in between poaching eggs.”
The Long-Gone Tool: None. Really? “I usually don’t subtract from my toolbox,” she says. “If I need more space, I just start a new one.”
Her You’re Kidding, Right? Tool: A pair of tweezers. “When I worked at Joël Robuchon, every chef had a pair of tweezers for delicate placement of herbs and small garnishes on dishes,” she says. “They were absolutely essential to plating in that restaurant, and I use them regularly in my kitchen now, especially for my food photo shoots.”
What A Psychologist Would Say Her Tools Say About Her: “They’d say that I’m organized and neat, and like everything to be in its proper place,” she says. “They’d also say that I love kitchen tools…you can never have too many.”
Her Voyeuristic Side: “I’d like to find out the kinds of spoons other chefs like to collect, since spoons seem to be a bit of an obsession for many chefs,” she reveals.
A tweezers to help with plating was a surprise for me. The attention to detail does make a difference even for a casual meal at home.