Sarah Stegner is an American chef, who co-owns and runs the Prairie Grass Cafe. She has won two

James Beard Foundation Award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media award ...

s, for Rising Star Chef in 1994 and Best Chef Midwest in 1998.

Career

Born and raised in

Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, Wil ...

, Sarah Stegner's grandmother worked as a

caterer Catering is the business of providing food service at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio. History of catering The earliest account of major services be ...

. Stegner studied classical guitar at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, before deciding to become a chef. She went to the Dumas Pere Cooking School, and after graduating, she landed a position at the Ritz-Calton Hotel,

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. She worked her way up, eventually becoming

sous chef A sous-chef is a chef who is second in command in a kitchen; the person ranking next after the head chef, usually the more hands on manager with regards to training staff and organising the kitchen. Duties and functions The sous-chef has many re ...

to George Bumbaris. While there, she won two

s, first for Rising Star Chef in 1994 and then four years later for Best Chef Midwest. Stegner appeared twice on the television series ''

Great Chefs Great Chefs is a franchise of 656 televised cooking shows ( +13 cookbooks), that began with thirteen half-hour programs produced for PBS nationally, entitled "Great Chefs of New Orleans" by John Beyer and John Shoup in New Orleans. Later PBS se ...

'', first in 1994, and then again in 1998 for a

barbecue Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada, barbie in Australia and braai in South Africa) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke t ...

special in collaboration with

Weber-Stephen Products Weber Inc. is a publicly traded American manufacturer of charcoal, gas, and electric outdoor grills with related accessories. In 2004, Weber-Stephen acquired some assets of competitor Ducane at a bankruptcy sale. It also owns restaurants and publ ...

. In 2004, Stegner and Bumbaris opened their own restaurant together, named the Prairie Grass Cafe in

Northbrook, Illinois Northbrook is a suburb of Chicago, located at the northern edge of Cook County, Illinois, United States, on the border of Lake County, Illinois, Lake County. Per the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 35,222. When incorpo ...

. Stegner launched a second restaurant, Prairie Fire, in 2010. This saw a return to downtown Chicago, for Stegner, who ran it as a casual dining establishment. Outside of the professional kitchen, she also shows students at Northbrook Junior High School how to prepare healthy food, and praised

Michelle Obama Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...

's work when she launched a similar nationwide campaign in 2011.

Personal life

Stegner is married to Rohit Nambiar, and they have a daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stegner, Sarah Living people People from Evanston, Illinois American women chefs American television chefs Year of birth missing (living people) James Beard Foundation Award winners 21st-century American women