Interview with Julie Frans of Dining Details

I couldn't have called San Diego's Julie Frans, top chef and owner of Dining Details, more quickly after NBC San Diego called looking for a chef in the Bargain Mama community who helps families prepare affordable, yet healthful meals. Be sure to check out the heat in this mama's kitchen this Thursday, April 29. on NBC San Diego at 4 pm, as she shares some great tips with San Diego!

Julie's business, Dining Details, is a personal chef service. Her team members not only cook (using whole food) , but entertain, teach, and share the love of delicious cuisine, always catering to their clients' specific preferences and dietary requirements. I recently had the privilege of learning more about Julie's journey, and I am grabbing my apron right now (OK, not yet!):

Q: What led you to become a chef? How did you get started?

I had never really intended on being a chef... the career more or less found me! I went to USCB with the intention of becoming a teacher or a writer, but always had an affinity or great food and a passion for health and nutrition. After graduating college in 2000, I decided to travel instead of going straight on to a graduate program. I got the travel bug bad! And, discovered along the way, my love for cooking and nourishing people with great food. I started cooking on boats- from dive boats in California Channel Islands to private yachts and charter yachts in Mexico to Alaska. Cooking became my means to travel, explore, create, play, and pursue my own hobbies... all while nourishing and pleasing the people enjoying the same aspects of life. After 5 years of traveling the world and working on water, I decided to come home to San Diego for good, to make some roots and start a business cooking for people the way I had been doing overseas.

Q: What type of schooling did you go through to arrive where you are at today?

Although I did finally attend San Diego Culinary Institute in 2005 after cooking for 5 years, I always joke around when asked this question, saying I went to the school of “hard knocks". That is partly joke, partly serious. I was thrown into several cooking positions with no training or guidance- and basically had to figure it out. My first job cooking was working in the galley of a live-aboard dive boat, where I had to cook for 40 hungry divers- 3.5 solid meals a day for 3-5 days at a time. The boat didn’t hit land during those trips- I had to learn QUICK how to plan and provision properly, cook a variety of hearty, healthy meals for groups of 40 hungry divers, and do everything well so as not to be ridiculed by the all-male staff I worked with (who occasionally drive me to tears!) At the time, I was a vegetarian, cooking huge dishes of pork, tri-tip, whole turkeys- you name it! I read the Joy of Cooking cover to cover, and studied cookbooks and magazines in all of my free time, and learned by doing and experimenting. I definitely made my mistakes, and learned quickly from them.

Working on private, multi-million dollar yachts years later brought me and my cooking to a whole new level- the requests and demands I had to meet were several calibers higher, and I taught myself to meet those needs. I later took classes and studied in homes in several different countries where I traveled, including Indonesia, Thailand, and French Polynesia.

I continue to educate myself through nutrition classes and online resources- my schooling never ends. This chef’s education was definitely not limited to one single experience, but rather a life direction that has been one educational experience after another. My favorite aspect of my job now is sharing that education with families and children, getting them excited about cooking and eating quality food.

Q: Your company seems to have evolved a great deal over the years since it started. What has been the evolution of the company, and how does it all tie together?

Having lived outside mainstream America for so many years, I had no idea that there was such a thing as an industry of “personal chefs". I developed the ideas for my business while day dreaming between meals in a charter yacht galley in SE Alaska. When I started, I wanted to just do small dinner parties. I quickly discovered that I couldn’t keep busy enough with just that, so began providing weekly meals to health conscious eaters. As I became more well known, and developed a loyal clientele, the requests for bigger parties increased. I met my husband while searching for a chef to help me manage some of these bigger parties- I had double booked myself on too many occasions! With him on my team, the business potential expanded tenfold. Since then, Dining Details has developed into a three department Chef Service, providing “home gourmet” (in-home personal chef services OR delivered services, especially focusing on special needs and diets), boutique style, custom catering (encompassing weddings, events, dinner parties, corporate catering, etc), and “Chickpeas,” quality food for growing bodies, (covering baby food, school lunch contracts, and family dinners). Every department offers education and classes, to bring the love of fine foods deeper into peoples’ lives. All of our services tie in together by bringing people back to the table, to be nourished and enriched by wholesome REAL food, much of it straight from the local farms and fisheries. No matter what service we are providing, our chefs are pouring their heart and skill into the food we serve- and people can not only taste the difference, but they can feel the difference. Our goal is to improve lives through food.

Q: What/who were your influences growing up and how did that help shape your future as a chef?

My mom and dad were my biggest influences when it came to food. My parents raised me on homemade food, never being afraid to introduce me to foods because of my young age. My mom had a homemade dinner on the table almost every night of my youth, from stuffed pork chops to eggplant parmesan, beef stroganoff to chicken taco bar. There were no mixes or frozen foods- everything started out as vegetables, grains, and dairy.

My dad did more gourmet specialties- from Chinese stir fry’s and hot & sour soup to paellas, ciopinnos, and risottos... and even sushi rolling nights. Whenever asked what was for dinner... it was the “Ellard Special". I know now that he was just having fun “winging it” and didn’t want any labels or expectation preceding his creations. A few memorable household rules growing up: there was no leaving the table until the salad bowl was empty (everything else could be unfinished, as long as salad was eaten) and I was responsible for cooking at least one meal a week for the family before I could leave the house for college. Great rules, I can now see!

Q: Do you have any poignant memories surrounding food that have left an ever-lasting impression on you?

My father died of cancer on Thanksgiving morning in the year 2000. The family was distraught with grief and mourning- Thanksgiving dinner was the farthest thing from anyone’s mind. Sometime mid morning, I got to work in the kitchen, creating a feast for the family, whether they wanted to eat it or not. Through my sadness, I found reprieve in cooking- I was putting my whole heart, filled with so much love for my dad and the grief of his loss into the food that I was preparing for my family. I can’t remember now if anyone ended up joining me in the kitchen or if I made the entire dinner myself, but I do remember the joy I felt when we all sat down to eat together on that memorable day. It was not the typical, joyous celebration of Thanksgiving, but a new sort of Thanksgiving celebration, with a poignant recognition of gratitude and togetherness. I think that it was that day that the chef in me was born, as I realized what it means to put my heart into food, to nourish the spirit- not only the body, and to truly bring people together in love and community. These are the values that my company still brings to the tables in our client’s homes and events.

Q: Do you have any big projects in the works that we should know about?

Right now we are just trying to focus on getting our company running really smoothly. We have had a lot of growth in a short time, so want to really focus this year on making the company successful from the ground up so that we can be sustainable. We have a lot people suggesting that we write a book or a cookbook- perhaps focusing on families cooking together. Or that we have our own cooking show. Those things may happen... someday... among other projects- but right now, we want to make what we have, including our business AND our family, strong, successful, and balanced so that we can be around for years and years to come.