Whether you are a reader from across the street, or across the continent, a student in one of my group classes, or a private coaching client, I hope you’ll have an experience that will bring the magic of cooking into your life and transform your relationship with food. My goal is that you will eat better, cook better and live better by knowing me, and have a blast doing it.
Why Food Fix Kitchen? Because I think that there isn’t much in life that good food can’t fix! And because, in many ways, in America, and increasingly in other parts of the world, our relationship with food and cooking needs a “fix.” With soaring obesity rates, and the nearly epidemic status of degenerative diseases that are directly related to poor diet and lifestyle, (diabetes, heart disease and many cancers), my mission is to somehow address what’s broken in this relationship in all that I do. I believe that cooking—the art and craft of working with food, knowing our food, where it comes from, what it’s made of and learning what to do with it to create healthful, soulful meals is part of that “fix” equation.
My writing, teaching and coaching style is all about honesty, laughter, spontaneity and being at ease in the kitchen. I love cooking because you have to be mindful, you have to focus on the here and now—after all, knives and fire are involved! Whether peeling vegetables or stirring a pot or salting to taste, you must tune into your instincts and senses pushing everything else you have to worry about to the back burner. Pun intended!
My Story
Like a great meal, my food journey has had many courses. My earliest memories were laced with the fear that my fragile mother, Trudy, might die. She suffered from the long-term effects of starvation from three years spent in Nazi concentration camps, and another two in hiding, before the war ended. Her circumstances forced me to become aware, from a very young age, of how the foods we eat, or the lack of good nutrition, can devastate the body. It set me on a path of eating well and living well at an early age. After the war, my mother found work as a restaurant cook, and later, in America, she was a private chef for over 30 years. Trudy spent her life celebrating food and nurturing her clients, family and friends with wonderful, abundant meals. She showed me that while food nurtures the body—it’s cooking that nurtures the soul. Food was her artistry, her meditation, and her gift to the world around her.
Becoming a chef and teacher may have been my destiny, but I didn’t know it. As a former actor, model, stand-up comic, graphic artist, writer and teacher—it seemed like all the diverse paths I took in life always led me back to cooking. Wherever I went to pursue other careers—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta—I ended up in kitchens, “flying by the seat of my pantry” and making people happy with my food. It’s where I felt most at home. I worked in restaurants through my teens and college years, doing practically every job there was in the front of the house and the back; I had my own private catering business in my 20s, cooking for celebrities in Hollywood; and I fed and nurtured family and friends for over 30 years, before deciding to turn my passion in the kitchen into a bona fide career.
The Chef Formerly Known as….
I used to be Rachel Willen and I mention it here only because of Google! If you found me through a search engine you might be confused! I was on Food Network’s Chopped and won as Rachel Willen. I’ve been on Good Morning America twice as Rachel Willen and have many recipes and guest posts all across the Internet under that name. I was Rachel Willen for 23 years. Not anymore.
Part of what is exciting and satisfying for me in writing this blog (and in living my life) is the opportunity to be REAL—to share my sweet and not so sweet take on life, in-and-out of the kitchen. There was the day my dog Ruby died and I posted a meaty recipe for homemade dog biscuits that I wished I’d made for her. When my marriage fell apart, I seized upon the irony of my first Valentine Day in 21 years in which I was NOT getting or giving a Valentine card and posted that stunning news along with a comforting recipe for soup. I changed my name, letting go of the one I took on in marriage decades earlier, foregoing the decision to return to the name that belonged to my father, and taking on one that would allow me to forge my own, singular identity, while paying homage my hero—the mother who helped make me the resilient, strong woman I am today. If you become a reader, client or student of mine you’ll find out that my work allows me to continuously do “mise en place” on my own life, organizing my thoughts and feelings, putting the ingredients for my “recipe for reinvention” all in place on a regular basis.
My Kids
My daughter Lily, is an honors student a Tulane University in New Orleans, (of course, she’d pick a great food town), whose recent epiphany about cooking while sampling my braised short ribs, went something like this: “Wait. This is delicious. I’m totally spoiled because I’ve eaten food like this all my life. I better learn how to make stuff.” She now pays attention in the kitchen when she’s home on breaks.
My son, Max Robbins, 30, followed early in his mother’s and grandmother’s “foodsteps” knowing he wanted to be a chef by the 8th grade. It’s his journey toward his goals that set me on the path to mine because I dissolved into tears on every culinary school tour I went on with him. Seeing all those sparkling kitchens and just thinking about the idea of standing in one of them wearing my own white chef coat, made me feel hungry down to my soul. I knew what I had to do. After I packed Max off to The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, I enrolled in the French Culinary Institute in NYC (currently The International Culinary Center) and completed the year-long professional culinary arts program. The rest is history, all documented here on Food Fix Kitchen. You can even read posts from a blog I kept while in school, Mrs. Fabulous Goes To Culinary School here.
Since graduating from CIA, Max has worked at Eric Ripert’s Le Bernardin and Danny Meyer’s Modern, then he worked for three years at Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York City, and four years at Keller’s The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. Max is currently the Chef de Cuisine of The Penrose Room at The Broadmoor Resort in Colorado, a Forbes and AAA 5-diamond resort. I’m a proud mama!
Healthy College Food?
In 2015, I was offered a unique opportunity to make big impact for a big university. Working with the loose title of “culinary development and instruction” for Rutgers University, I was asked to work on developing a healthy eating venue within the brand new New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health. The venue was to be a restaurant, open to staff, students and the public is called Harvest (I got to name it and design its logo, as well as it’s menus) and I’m proud to have created something from scratch (including all the food, which is all-natural, no preservatives, additives, anti-biotic free, hormone free, etc. etc.) and to have had the opportunity to have a positive influence in the future of dining on all of Rutgers’ campuses.
I left Rutgers to come back to private teaching and cooking…where my heart and passion lies. I look forward to cooking with you or for you soon!
For more information on working with Chef Rachel click here.