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Bon Appétit
When chef Carole Peck leaves her restaurant in Woodbury, Connecticut, she comes home to a kitchen filled with lots of color and country charm
BY SARAH BELK KING
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL LUPPINO
The phrase "chef's home kitchen" usually conjures up an image of an ergonomically correct space with pristine white walls and lots of professional appliances; a no- nonsense room where fun is less of an issue than efficiency. Chef Carole Peck challenges this notion in her restored eighteenth-century home, where a passion for collectibles and a fearless use of color are the preferred design ingredients.
Carole-who with her husband, Bernard Cabernet-Jarrier, owns the Good News Cafe in Woodbury, Connecticut-is not about to hide her beloved flea-market finds in stainless steel cabinets or trade in her charming, 60-year-old Chambers stove for some high-tech number. Their cider- mill-turned-home is a personal canvas, and their kitchen is a real "chef's special."
But the room wasn't always so cheerful and full of character. "When we moved here three years ago, the kitchen was dark and cramped and inefficient, with cabinets and closets that didn't make sense," Carole says. "We pretty much changed everything except the original ceiling and chestnut floors, mostly because we liked them, but also because they retained the character of the rest of the house."
One aspect of the room that was not historically driven was color. "Bernard and I weren't interested in doing a preservation project," she says. "We chose the colors we liked, colors that would set off our collectibles." Carole's bold palette reflects the bold beginnings of her career: She was among the first women to attend The Culinary Institute of America in New York.
No matter how busy she is at work, Carole finds time to have a dinner party at home at least once a month. "We usually have between twelve and twenty guests; some parties are sit-down dinners and others are buffets," she says. These dinners are eaten in the dining room, but set up in the kitchen, where guests can serve themselves while looking at the vintage stemware and the collection of miniature stoves. (Buffets are something this chef knows a thing or two about; she is the author of The Buffet Book [Viking Press, 1997], which includes timesaving tips and over 175 recipes for the home cook.) In winter, Carole and Bernard often use the fireplace for cooking and serving. "There's nothing quite as cozy as letting guests help themselves from a big copper pot set right on the hearth," Carole says.
Considering the high-tech look of many chefs' home kitchens, you might think Carole's devotion to color and whimsy is the result of working in a sterile restaurant kitchen. When she is asked what the cooking space is like at the cafe, Carole replies, "It has mint walls and a pink refrigerator:" Well, consistency is certainly one of a chef's greatest assets.
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