Meet Cecelia Heer, TODAY’s latest Home Chef Challenge winner. Cecelia worked on Wall Street for much of her career, but food has always been her real passion. “If I was not researching what to make behind the stove, then I was reading reviews and visiting restaurants and trying new dishes that I would eventually replicate at home,” Cecelia told TODAY.com. “I cooked through Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s cookbook ‘Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four Star Chef,’ almost a decade before anyone started blogging” about cooking through celebrity chefs’ cookbooks.
Get Cecelia’s recipe for her winning dish, home fried potatoes with herbs. Her secret for success? Cooking up the taters in duck fat.
Age: 52
Hometown: Bayonne, N.J.
How does it feel to win the Home Chef Challenge?
I am extremely pleased and flattered to have won this. I love cooking and the fact that I could share one of my favorite recipes is exciting.
How long have you been cooking?
I started dabbling in the kitchen when I was 13 years old. Back then, it was nothing fancy or fusion, like today.
Share your favorite cooking tip:
Always read the recipe and prep all the ingredients before you get started. And, by all means, use the best ingredients you can find.
What would be your ideal last meal?
I would start with a Russian Standard Platinum Martini—no vermouth, one olive. Then, the meal would include tuna tartare, escargots smothered in an herb-garlic sauce and Atlantic salmon cooked very rare, served on a bed of lentils with a port wine sauce. Wine with dinner would be a Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir. And, for dessert, molten chocolate cake.
Are you up for the challenge? Enter your recipe here, and vote for next week's winner.