Jerry Traunfeld is an American

chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a kitche ...

and author who served as the executive chef of

The Herbfarm The Herbfarm is an American restaurant serving Pacific Northwest cuisine and an early practitioner of local food. This is a philosophy that promotes the growing, enjoyment, and consumption of foods from a limited region. The Herbfarm is located ...

restaurant in

Woodinville, Washington Woodinville is a city in King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. It is a part of the Seattle metropolitan area. There is also a much larger population with Woodinville mailing addresses in adjacent uni ...

from July 1990 to November 2007. Prior to that he was the executive chef of the Alexis Hotel in Seattle and a pastry chef at

Jeremiah Tower Jeremiah Tower (born 1942) is an American celebrity chef who, along with Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck, has been credited with pioneering the culinary style known as California cuisine. A food lover from childhood, he had no formal culinary edu ...

Stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. Traunfeld was the 2000 winner of the

James Beard James Andrews Beard (May 5, 1903 – January 23, 1985) was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside, ...

Award for "Best American Chef: Northwest and Hawaii." He is the author of ''The Herbfarm Cookbook'',

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

, and ''The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrace and Flavor'', HarperCollins. He has appeared on ''

Martha Stewart Martha Helen Stewart (, ; born August 3, 1941) is an American retail businesswoman, writer, and television personality. As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, she gained success through a variety of business ventures, encompassing pub ...

Living'', ''Better Homes and Gardens'', ''The Splendid Table'', Top Chef Masters (season 2), and other American television and radio programs. Traunfeld is a native of

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 censu ...

and a graduate of the

California Culinary Academy The California Culinary Academy (CCA) was a for-profit school, and an affiliate of Le Cordon Bleu located in San Francisco, California. Danielle Carlisle established the school in 1977 to train chefs using the European education model. The origina ...

New restaurant

Traunfeld announced in December 2007 the name of his new restaurant opening in Seattle in the second half of 2008—Poppy Restaurant, named after his mother, Poppy. "Food will still be inspired by herbs, and will delve deep into spices. Rather than the rarefied Herbfarm style, it'll be food we can eat on an everyday basis -- and with Traunfeld's track record of deliciousness, we just might." - Seattle P.I 31 December 2007. Poppy opened its doors late in 2008 at 622 Broadway East (at Roy). The restaurant serves Traunfeld's local and seasonal-emphasized cuisine in a small dish tasting format, inspired by Indian

Thali Thali (meaning "plate"), Bhojanam (meaning "full meal") or Chakluk is a round platter used to serve food in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. Thali is also used to refer to an Indian-style meal made up of a selection of various di ...

. Traunfeld retired and closed the restaurant in 2019.

Personal life

Traunfeld is married to Stephen Hudson and advocates for the

International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission OutRight Action International (OutRight) is a LGBTIQ human rights non-governmental organization that addresses human rights violations and abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. OutRight Action International docum ...

. He also has a dog named Monty.

References

External links

Poppy Restaurant official website
American chefs American male chefs Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Chefs from Seattle California Culinary Academy alumni James Beard Foundation Award winners {{Food-bio-stub