9 on the Line: Chef Chic’s Wendy Gauthier

In 2001, after working as a chef at Canyon Ranch and Flying V Bar & Grill, Chef Chic’s Wendy Gauthier decided to venture out on her own. She felt being a personal chef would give her the opportunity to experience people’s reaction to her food on a more personal level.

Chef Chic offers a wide variety of foods from breakfast favorites and sandwiches to balsamic vinegar chicken and bacon-wrapped scallops.

1) What was the first dish you had that changed your perspective on food?

When I was in high school, my parents took me to a French restaurant called Chez Francois in Virginia where I grew up. It was the most amazing meal I had ever had. I never knew food could taste and look like that. It is still my favorite restaurant to this day and I visit it when I go back there.

2) What are you eating these days?

Does coffee count as a food? Well, since it is the holidays, as a caterer, I am eating a lot of things on the fly. But I love an amazing bowl of ramen with fresh noodles and veggies.

3) What was the first dish you remember cooking?

My mother is going to roll her eyes for telling this story. It is called goup. Cook ground beef, add a can of tomato soup, Velveeta cheese, and egg noodles. I was, like, four or five.

4) What concept, ingredient or food trend does everyone seem to love, but you just can’t stomach?

I don’t know if it is still a trend, but beets. I just can’t eat them, no matter what I try.

5) What chef, with us or passed on, would you most like to cook or eat dinner with?

Martin Yan of Yan Can Cook!

6) What city, other than Tucson, is your favorite place to eat?

New Orleans.

7) Speaking in junk food terms, what is your favorite guilty pleasure?

Velveeta Rotel cheese dip. I can’t believe I am admitting this as a chef.

8) Top three Tucson restaurants?

This is so hard — so many choices and it depends on what I am in the mood for. But if I have to pick three, I will say Baja Cafe, Lucky’s for Thai, and Commoner & Co.

9) With a figurative electric chair in your immediate future, what is your last meal?

This is such a hard question, wow! So many choices, hmm. Could it be a buffet that I could take a bite of lots of things from? I guess I would say an ooey-gooey mac and cheese with fried chicken and biscuits.