Cindy Pawlcyn Catering

Cindy Pawlcyn Catering is a caterer based in San Francisco, California. One of my earliest recollections is of sitting in the backyard garden of my childhood home in Minneapolis with a salt shaker, watching my father pick perfectly ripe tomatoes right off the vine. I can still taste the fresh, warm red flesh that had been seasoned with a pinch of salt a few hours ago. My enthusiasm for seasonally inspired, farm-fresh dishes has never diminished throughout the years. Despite all of my years in school, college, training in France, stints in other chefs' kitchens, a transplant to the West, and all of the sweat and tears that have gone into establishing my own restaurants, I still feel like a kid in a tomato patch. The past 30 years have seen me develop gardens and restaurants in California's San Francisco Bay Area, establishing strong roots in Napa Valley with Mustards Grill and Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, among other ventures. And, owing to the excellent people at my restaurants, I've been able to cultivate the part of me that travels to different locations throughout the world, bringing back dishes that are both unusual and familiar. While my first cookbook, Fog City Diner, is no longer in print, my other four cookbooks – Mustards Grill Napa Valley Cookbook, Big Small Plates, Cindy Pawlcyn's Appetizers, and Cindy's Supper Club: Meals from Around the World to Share with Family and Friends – continue to spread the flavors I adore throughout the world. Each project is distinct in its own way, and I enjoy them all in equal measure. It's the same as with children.