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Their own recipes

Cooking up good cuisine doesn't require white smocks and puffy hats. Here's a combo platter of chefs, from Port Tampa to Seminole Heights, who are thinking outside the restaurant kitchen.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published September 15, 2006

[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.]

Andrea Dudley, “the Nomadic Chef,’’ prepares a gourmet meatloaf at the home of Andy Milbin in South Tampa. She cooks five big meals at a time.

	[Times photo: Daniel Wallace]
	Tarren Money is making tails wag with Yappy Tails Barkery, an online business that distributes dog treats and cakes that were cooked in her South Tampa home. She also caters dog birthday parties.
	[Times photo: Ken Helle]
	Alfred Astl fed the silver spoon set for 35 years. Now he serves lunch for Salvation Army crowds — with the same care and diligence.
	[Times photo: Daniel Wallace]
	All-natural homemade barbecue bones are on the menu of Yappy Tails Barkery.

The Nomadic Chef

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - At 10 a.m., Andrea Dudley arrives at your house with 20 servings of fresh ingredients in the trunk of her car.

Five hours later, the 38-year-old personal chef leaves you with four meals in your freezer, one ready to serve and a floral arrangement to garnish your dinner table, with greens picked from your own back yard.

Dudley realized her calling as a personal chef when she found herself raiding her friends' fridges and whipping up meals out of ingredients they had.

"My friends never had anything in the fridge," she said. "I'd always prepare something out of nothing."

Her meals incorporate her kitchen training from an eco-lodge off the coast of Nicaragua, her Louisiana upbringing and a love of nature gleaned from bouncing around the world on ecology studies for a decade.

It's no wonder that for the past five years, she has marketed herself as the Nomadic Chef, whose main course is her personal touch.

Dudley's clients fill out a questionnaire to select their dining preferences. Then she e-mails a sample menu for approval. Some of her creations include Mediterranean fresh fish with cumin-scented rice, balsamic vinegar chicken with wild mushrooms, and marinated beef skewers.

"I really want to help people eat well on a daily basis," Dudley said.

The idea that personal chefs are only for the wealthy is a misconception, she said. Her services start at $280 per week for five meals and $340 for five organic meals, each of which serves four people. Dudley says the convenience and health benefits add up.

"This is totally doable for the working person," she said. "And it's a dynamic fit for families."

For more information, call 380-7377.

The Doggie Chef

PORT TAMPA - Tarren Money has two kids, two stepkids, a full-time job and a master's degree to complete. So transforming her kitchen into a dog bakery five months ago would have seemed overwhelming.

But crafting cookies for canines at her Yappy Tails Barkery turned out to be relaxing for Money, who likes the creativity it allows. And it taught her kids an important lesson: "to know what it's like to make a dollar."

Money, 42, who is finishing a business degree, started baking biscuits this year and peddling them to pooches at the Davis Islands Dog Park. The doggies dug the treats, and Money got a license to open an Internet store in April.

These days, Money ships her bow tie vegetable twists, barkin' bacon biscuits and barbecue bones to customers across the country. She also caters birthday parties in South Tampa, where four-legged guests gobble her beefy birthday cake made with wheat flour and beef jerky.

"There's a huge misconception that people shouldn't feed their dogs human food," Money said.

Though she doesn't have a pet, Money says she has done plenty of research on dog nutrition. Her baked treats and cakes are healthy and all-natural but should be served as rewards and not substituted for regular food. Money can also custom-make the orders to meet dietary needs.

Her dream is to open a dine-in dog cafe south of Gandy Boulevard and serve lasagna, meatloaf and ravioli.

"There's no reason why we can't feed our dogs good food," Money said.

For more information, visit www.yappytailsbarkery.com or call 928-9494.

The Homeless Chef

TAMPA HEIGHTS - Four hundred homeless people line up every day on a ramp outside the Salvation Army. They're hungry, and Alfred Astl feeds them - with garnishes, on china.

It's just Astl's style.

The 56-year-old chef's resume reads like a menu of the country's greatest kitchens. The Four Seasons Hotel in New York. Hotel Jerome in Aspen. The Hershey Country Club in Pennsylvania.

From his childhood in Austria spent baking strudel and black forest tortes at his parents' mountain inn, Astl fed the silver spoon crowd in Europe and America for 35 years. But the long hours began to burn him out. When he saw a position open for a lunch chef in the Salvation Army kitchen, he applied. It has been five years.

Astl and two part-time kitchen staff members cook 2,000 meals a week at the Trinity Cafe in the Salvation Army building on Florida Avenue.

Their nonpaying guests sit at tables set with glassware and silverware and wait for their volunteer servers to bring out Astl's dishes, course by course.

One recent Thursday, Astl cooked chicken rice soup with Chinese vegetables, smoked sausage with tomato-mushroom salsa, oven roasted new potatoes with onions, and sweet kernel corn with bell peppers.

"It could be very easy to say, 'Okay, we're feeding homeless people. Who cares?' " Astl said. "If I ever say that, I'll quit."

Lunch crowd regulars frequently visit the kitchen to deliver compliments to the chef, who always sports a white coat and neck scarf. They tell Astl they notice the slivers of crunchy tortilla shell he adds to their taco soup and appreciate the detail.

"Some of these people have problems out there they can't do anything about," Astl said. "By the time they leave, they're in a whole different frame of mind."

[Last modified September 14, 2006, 16:42:22]