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HATS OFF TO FEMALE FOODIES
Valley’s
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From Charcuterie Spreads to Catering, These Six Women Serve It Up Right
By Kimberly Nicoletti
Eat Dank Food eatdankfood.com 570.561.4835
WWhile men have always been predominant as chefs, more and more women are leaving their “place” in the home kitchen and moving on to the professional realm. Here are six female foodies in the Vail Valley who are spicing up the world of catering.
Dank Equals High Quality
Shelby Lewis fell in love with cooking at age 19 working on a Northern California winery and farm. She moved to Vail when chef Paul Wade accepted her as an apprentice to help open The 10th.
“I was the only person who didn’t have a culinary degree, but I think he was willing to give me a shot, because I was passionate about it,” Lewis says. “It was good, because I was a blank slate for him to teach, and I didn’t have any bad habits.”
After The 10th closed, she worked with a renowned chef in San Francisco and eventually returned to Vail in 2015 to work with Wade at Leonora. But once he left, she found herself in an environment where she didn’t feel supported. She had already been working in catering part time and realized, “I can do this, and I think I can do it better.”
She abides by chef Paul Bertolli’s philosophy that the best cooking stems from a receptive attitude, improvisation and enjoyment of the entire process. Rather than sticking to a few menus, she takes time to come up with new items each time she caters.
“It’s not just: send a pre-fabricated menu. I want to have a conversation and know the group dynamics. I [often] offer 20 options within each course category, and honestly, it’s been one of the most revered things,” she shares.
Most of her meals start with four courses and go up to eight. “Rather than catering, I’m trying to bring in a home-restaurant experience,” she says. “I like to introduce different ingredients and techniques to clients.”
For example, rather than chicken parmesan, she’ll suggest quail parmesan or a bavette steak rather than a rib eye. “I just try to keep it fun,” she says.
Foods of Vail foodsofvail.com 970.949.0282
A Pioneer in Vail
Since establishing Foods of Vail in 1981, Tracey Van Curan remains passionate about cooking. “I love how food makes people happy and how gratifying it is to prepare good food,” she says.
Her inspiration started when she met a woman who owned one of the biggest catering businesses in San Diego. “She said, ‘work with me, and you’ll learn more about the culinary world in three weeks than you will in three years of culinary school,’” Van Curan recalls. And she did.
Before Martha Stewart made a splash, Van Curan emphasized presentation. “Anybody can cook, but making food beautiful and appealing is the biggest takeaway,” Van Curan says.
Her menus started with tasty Italian recipes she learned growing up in New Jersey. In addition to catering, she opened a shop for people to buy prepared food, with everything from frozen casseroles, chicken pot pies and homemade soup to freshly prepared meals and sides. “I use the best ingredients available and make it with love,” she says.
As a forerunner in the Valley, she has acted as a mentor, helping people start their own careers. “As a business owner, it’s our responsibility to help,” she says.
Grab n’ Go + Catering
As a little girl, Lauren McElroy would raid the pantry, create various concoctions and test them out on her little brother. Some turned out better than others, so her grandma started giving her hints about what ingredients blend well.
Though McElroy was always passionate about cooking, she took a circuitous route to becoming a chef. She studied business marketing at Colorado State University and moved to Vail after graduating. After snowboarding for a few years, she pursued a career marketing insurance, real estate and pharmaceuticals.
But, when she decided she didn’t like “being worked to death,” as she puts it, McElroy earned a degree in culinary arts at Keiser University in Florida. She worked as a pantry chef, hot line cook and caterer, and in 2015, she moved back to her “happy place” in Vail. That’s when she met a personal chef who taught her the ropes.
In 2018, she opened Lauren’s Kitchen in Edwards. Her grab-andgo concept, which was somewhat unique to the area when she opened, has become immensely popular since the pandemic. Her high-quality, “healthier” comfort food classics are inspired by her Southern-raised grandmothers. Lauren’s Kitchen won bronze in the Best of Vail Valley Readers’ Choice Award for Catering category in 2020 and 2021-22.
A FOODsmith
Allana Smith grew up outside Buffalo, New York with grandparents who loved gardening, cooking and nurturing through food. After attending culinary school, she worked at some of the best restaurants in Nantucket, France, Spain, New Orleans and Chicago.
About 28 years ago, a culinary school friend urged her to apply at Sweet Basil, which immediately hired her as a pastry chef. She left Vail for a bit to work in the Napa Valley and then open a restaurant with a boyfriend in St. Louis. But after about a year, the relationship ended, and she drove back to Vail at 4 a.m. It was a good move; she took a job at The Lodge at Vail where she met her husband, a pastry chef. Then, she met Thomas Salamunovich, who asked her to help open Larkspur, as well as other restaurants.
After 15 years at Larkspur, the Valley’s labor challenges, which included training 100 new employees annually, added up. She envisioned opening her own business; her husband already ran his
FOODsmith foodsmithvail.com 970.688.1925
own kitchen for Mountain Flour bakery since 2001.
In 2014, Smith opened FOODsmith, a name Salamunovich came up with. Now, the personal chef and private event company focuses on creating memorable experiences through quality ingredients and attention to detail.
“I thought, ‘If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this with the quality of ingredients and processes I want. If it doesn’t work, I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to compromise and use less expensive beef or fish or produce,’” Smith remembers.
Currently, the happily married mother of four is considering adding more employees, rather than just on-call servers. She and her husband are also thinking about offering classes or chef-curated retail.
“I think what I enjoy the most about my current business is the way I’m being a chef … Seeing families grow and enjoy time together — as a chef in a restaurant, that’s pretty rare,” she believes, adding she loves the “connection with the giving part of it, the nurturing part.”
Swiss Meets the Rockies
Kathryn Matthews had so much fun sharing raclette with friends that she ended up launching Rocky Mountain Raclette. Coming from the luxury hospitality world, she was great at hosting parties. After learning from Splendido owner Brian Ackerman and studying the art of raclette in Switzerland, she opened her gourmet raclette catering business in 2015.
The Swiss dish, which consists of melted Swiss raclette cheese scraped onto potatoes and artisan bread, is meant for sharing ingredients and stories around the dining table. Matthews adds a Rocky Mountain twist to the tradition by bringing in heartier seafood, steaks, game meats and vegetables to grill and dip in special sauces.
A couple summers ago, she introduced her picnic concept. Armed with anything from Swiss raclette to local Colorado cheeses, meats, fruits, jams, homemade chocolate and more, she sets up full picnics for people in picturesque places. The location may be an easily accessible park, a hiking or horseback destination, or a fishing excursion.
“I love seeing the amazing homes in Vail, but it’s spectacular to have raclette outside and actually melt the cheese near a river,” she adds.
Either way, what sets her catering business apart is the slow, interactive dining experience, she says.
The Grazing Fox thegrazingfox.com Picnic Vail picnicvail.com 970.279.1342
Fourth-Generation Valley Success
Pamela Davis is a fourth-generation, small-business success in the Vail Valley. Her great-grandparents homesteaded in Cordillera in the early 1900s, and her grandfather helped build Vail’s ski resort.
After working at Beano’s, Allie’s and Zach’s cabins, she knew the food industry was where she wanted to be. “The people I worked with were fun and different,” she says. “At that time, one in four waiters had Master’s degrees, and we were all here for the same reason.”
She met her husband at a bar they both worked at. Then, Peter Knobel, developer of Solaris, offered the couple a partnership in Bol, which they built from the ground up. Like Smith at Larkspur, Davis learned a ton, but managing a huge staff of over 100 consumed them.
In 2012, they opened Yellowbelly, with the goal of serving fun, healthy and delicious food. When Davis got pregnant, she stepped away to focus on their son, but when he turned 2, she got the bug to “do something.” She had always created charcuterie boards for friends, so she turned it into a side gig in 2016.
Last fall, her son started first grade, and she decided to let the business grow, since she had more time. “The floodgates opened,” she shares, explaining how she began partnering with various resorts.
Her secret to success lies in her attention detail. “It’s the small things,” she feels. “There’s a lot of love that’s poured into the boards — things like cutting the cucumbers to put on crackers seamlessly, so there’s no fumbling. Food should be fun and it should be enjoyed with other people, and I think we nail that.”
She had always envisioned a picnic component but didn’t have time until the pandemic shut down. Now, her mountain-inspired, luxury picnics cater to the outdoorsy, and not-so-outdoorsy, types. +
