A life shaped by soil, travel, fire, and the deep pleasure of feeding people well.
Although Texas-born, Chef Sherrie began her cooking career on her parents’ farm in Ohio. The family raised beef and poultry while her mother baked fresh bread. The vegetable gardens and fruit trees were used for daily meals and canning. Sherrie quickly discovered that she enjoyed entertaining and cooking far more than the mundane chores of harvesting and gathering.
While traveling and exploring the globe, Sherrie’s enthusiasm for food from other cultures grew as she experienced a variety of cuisines from other countries. She trekked through Mexico, the Caribbean, and the Asian Pacific Rim. Sherrie learned first-hand how the local seafood was caught and prepared, what spices were used, and which fresh produce came from each region. A lifetime of new knowledge traveled back with her, inspiring her to pursue a career in the culinary arts.
California became her new home when she began attending the California Culinary Academy (CCA) in San Francisco. Attending the academy, she developed a love for baking and pastry. She decided to intern at an Artisan bread bakery in Petaluma, California, before graduating in 1999. The age-old practice of mixing, hand-shaping, and baking wild-yeasted organic breads in wood-fired brick ovens has had a profound impact on how she prepares food even today.
After graduating from the CCA in 1999, Sherrie worked her way up the culinary ranks, first as the assistant pastry chef at the renowned Bay Wolf in Oakland, California. Chef Sherrie has cooked for several prominent Bay Area and San Diego County residents as a personal or private chef, in addition to owning and operating a small catering company.
In 1991, Sherrie, along with Sharon Anderson, opened her first restaurant, Purple Plum, in the Glenview district of Oakland. With the success of the Purple Plum, Sherrie went on to open her second restaurant in the Bay Area, Blackberry Bistro, with Chef Robert Dorsey. Both restaurants were successful in an area filled with dining choices, earning many accolades from local papers and the Zagat Guide.
Sunny Southern California now benefits from the culinary stylings of Chef Sherrie. She has started Chef Sherrie Personal & Private Chef Services. Sherrie wanted to focus on the more personal aspect of cooking.
She is an artisan at heart and prefers to hand-make all her food and to use organic, fresh, seasonal produce, local when possible. If you are interested in food that entertains, inspires, and just plain tastes divine, then make sure you get the opportunity to sample some of Chef Sherrie’s cuisine.
Whether it’s an intimate dinner for two or a gathering of forty, Chef Sherrie brings the same care and intention to every table.