Uncommon culinary feat

As a child, Angela Beale Guiffrida would visit her grandparents, frequently tagging along to work with her grandmother, a cafeteria manager at Appomattox County High School during the mid- and late- 1970s.

Guiffrida would play in the corner with her toys as her grandmother directed the daily operations of one of that county's busiest lunchrooms.

Fast-forward three decades, and Guiffrida is calling the shots as executive chef at two upscale Asheville, N.C., restaurants: Deerpark and Lioncrest on the Biltmore Estate, a 250-room château built in 1895 known as America's largest privately owned home.

And for that, Blue Mountain Living magazine featured the 37-year-old Culpeper native on the front cover of its November/December 2007 issue.

"It's always nice to be paid attention to," Guiffrida said about the magazine article. "It's totally cool."The article praised Guiffrida for the rare feat of landing the top position at two of North Carolina's exclusive restaurants.

If you ask Perry Hendrix, executive chef at The Marketplace on Wall Street and former chef at Richmond Hill Inn, such an accomplishment is uncommon for a woman.

He says he knows of only two women executive chefs in the Asheville area and thinks it's a "shame," according to the article.

"I like hiring women cooks," he told Blue Mountain Living magazine. "As long as someone can cook, can lead people and has good management skills, that's all that matters."

"The women who do make it to executive chef are excellent examples of chefs across the board," Hendrix added. "And there's no reason in the world why there shouldn't be more of them."

Guiffrida already knows that firsthand.

"All of the women chefs that I know have great attention to detail," she said Saturday morning. "And when it comes to managing individual restaurants, taking a crew of people and getting them to work together for a common goal, I think women are really good at that."

At Deerpark, Guiffrida serves southern-inspired regional fare in a buffet setting, while at Lioncrest she provides a banquet-style cuisine, primarily for wedding parties.

But is it difficult to manage two busy restaurants at the same time-

Nope, not for Guiffrida.

"Luckily, they're right across the street from each other and I have a great staff," she said confidently during Saturday's telephone interview.

As a child, Guiffrida said she enjoyed watching her mother prepare meals.

"My mom always cooked from scratch," she said. "She would cook and let me hang out with her. I don't ever remember seeing a box in our kitchen."

New countries, unique foods
Growing up in Culpeper, Guiffrida said her parents, Barry and Catherine Beale, embraced different traditions. Guiffrida's mother even travels to the Czech Republic several times a year to help students learn conversational English.

"They were always really supportive and they have given me lots of opportunities to travel and go to camps," she said.

As a youngster, Guiffrida was even able to travel to 26 countries with the "Up with People" organization, a six-month educational program that offers participants a firsthand experience of social issues around the world.

"The main thing that I learned from traveling was to appreciate each area or culture for what it is and not compare it to where you've come from," she said.

As a chef, Guiffrida says, traveling and learning about other cultures is priceless.

"I love the history of why people prepare foods the way that they do," she said.

Here's how she got there
When Guiffrida's husband, Joseph, got a job with Asheville Radiology in May 2001, she applied for the top position at Deerpark and landed it in November of that year.

By June 2005, Lioncrest opened and Guiffrida took on executive chef duties there as well.

As a child, Guiffrida had always dabbled in culinary arts.

Guiffrida also spent several summers working at Graves Mountain Lodge serving meals and helping out in the kitchen.

After she graduated from Culpeper County High School in 1988, she completed an externship at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, where she became an assistant banquet chef and after a year became sous chef.

Before she left there, Guiffrida became executive chef of the Fairwood on Seven Dining Room and worked during the 1997 U.S. Open.

"(It) was very valuable as far as experience," she told Blue Mountain Living.

After that, she attended St. Andrews Presbyterian College, taking Asian Studies for three years, but decided that wasn't the course she wanted to take in life.

By 1997, Guiffrida had it all figured out.

She earned her associate's degree in culinary arts from Johnson & Wales University in North Carolina.

Even though, she's cooking fancy meals in North Carolina, Guiffrida says Pete's Pizza in Culpeper is her favorite hometown eatery.

"They have the best subs there," she said. "The cheeseburger sub is awesome."

Rhonda Simmons can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 125 or .

About the Biltmore Estate
The 250-room family home and country retreat of George and Edith Vanderbilt is located in Asheville, N.C. The estate is filled with original art from masters such as Renoir,        magnificent 16th-century tapestries, Napoleon's chess set, a library with 10,000 volumes, a Banquet Hall with a 70-foot ceiling, 65 fireplaces, an indoor pool, bowling alley, and priceless antiques. It was opened to friends on Christmas Eve 1895 and this French Renaissance château remains America's largest privately owned home.

About the chef
Culpeper County High School graduate Angela Beale Guiffrida is an executive chef at two exclusive North Carolina        restaurants, Deerpark and Lioncrest, which is what landed her story on the cover of Blue Mountain Living magazine. Check out the full article online at bluemountainliving.com.