Meet Lena Goldberg | Private Chef & Volunteer/Board Member San Diego Foster Angels

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lena Goldberg and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lena, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
What was your thought process behind starting your own business? Chef Angels Culinary Program was a program I created under the umbrella of a 501(c)(3) I co-founded, San Diego Foster Angels. It came about organically. I have been working as a private chef in the San Diego area for many years. I have been volunteering in various ways for foster and at-risk youth for even more years. During Covid we had to change many of the services we were providing to foster youth. I started volunteering at a small group home specializing in trauma recovery for trafficked girls. They responded very well to the hands-on cooking classes I was providing. I concluded that to continue I would need to find a source of income independent of SD Foster Angels. I would also need to recruit other chefs to participate. I came across a grant program through one of my suppliers, Chef Works of Poway, CA. I applied for the grant and through a long interview and proposal process, was one of 2 grants they gave out in 2022. I had some very vague ideas on what I wanted to do but going through the process, it helped me really focus on the goals of the project and how I was going to accomplish, track and evaluate it. I ended up partnering with a San Diego non-profit called Varsity Team, and we are currently piloting the program in a small behavioral group home for teen boys. I am looking at the impact the classes have on the boys, perhaps the culinary aspect can be part of their on-going therapy. I may find future young chefs, and then find a need to create a chef mentorship program. I’m also finding a lot of buzz in the chef’s world in amazing individuals who are excited to be part of my program, or others who would like to join. I currently have 7 instructors, and a growing list of future instructors for when I will scale up later this year. They are very grateful to be able to participate, so that’s telling me there’s a good future for this program. The results after just 7 classes are showing me that the instructors are impacted positively as much as the kids. I am blogging about the biweekly class progression, it’s a great tool to find more instructors as well as future sponsors.
There are a lot of aspects of the program I am exploring, and I am very grateful to Chef Works for providing enough funding to run the program for a year, which will give me ample time to create a viable program. I can then scale up to other local facilities, as well as partnering with Chefs in other cities who want to start their very own Chef Angels in their home community.

Do you have a budget? How do you think about your personal finances and how do you make lifestyle and spending decisions?
The budget for the program is very simple, Chef Works has given me $10,000 to run the program for a year. Part of the grant proposal was to show how I would spend the $10,000 in the period of a year, that includes shopping for new kitchen equipment, funds for groceries and chef stipends amongst other things.
On a personal note, I work part time as a chef, which enables me to devote a certain amount of volunteer time to San Diego Foster Angels. I keep my living expenses to a minimum so that I can afford to volunteer my time as much as needed. I won’t lie, there have been times when both sides of my work and volunteer life are on fire, and I must power through it. Prioritizing is extremely useful in these situations.

Risk taking: how do you think about risk, what role has taking risks played in your life/career? I’m a low-risk person! The most amount of risk I took was years ago when I left my career in hotels working as a convention manager, to start an events planning business. The timing for the launch was off, with the recession at the time, and I ended up in the kitchen and never looked back. Self-taught chef! I am very anti-risk, I like the stability of the position I am in, having worked for the same family for close to 15 years. I do spice it up every now and again with some side jobs for other families.

Where are you from and how did your background and upbringing impact who you are today?
I was born in Paris, France, and my family moved to Canada when I was young as that is where my father spent his childhood. When I was 19 my family returned to France and settled in a small medieval village in Provence. At that point I started traveling around Europe and North America for work and school, until I settled in San Diego at the turn of the century. I studied hotel management in Switzerland, then continued my education in the US. I worked for various hotel companies as well as independent businesses in Food & Beverage management, Convention Services and Events Planning before I accidentally found myself cooking as a private chef. Good food has always been a part of my childhood and family life, lots of variety in it as well. My mother cooks amazing French and Eastern European Jewish food, my father taught himself northern Italian cooking, one sister studied Cordon Bleu pastry, the other sister spent time in Japan and picked up some skills there. I am the only one who cooks professionally, but I have certainly leaned on the expertise of all my family including recipes from my now deceased grandmothers. I am so open to learning any and every cuisine out there and finding ways to bring it back into my kitchen. Any part of traveling includes exploring the local cuisine and food production. I also believe my background in events planning has made me a better chef, using my organizational skills to not only create tasty menus but also memorable experiences. I earned and have maintained a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) designation, granted by the Events Industry Council, over 20 years ago.

What is the most important factor behind your success / the success of your brand?
I’d say I am most valuable to my employers because I prepare food exactly how they like it, not necessarily how it would be taught at a culinary school. A lot of the time I cook by instinct which is a hard recipe to follow! I can hand a professional chef my recipe, share cooking tips with them, yet the execution will never be as I prepare it. Trust me, I have trained many a person, and it never comes out the same as when I cook it. But that’s ok, because each chef should be able to bring their own flair to the table.
For Chef Angels, my extensive network in the culinary world and the access I have in the San Diego foster care system through my work with SD Foster Angels has enabled me to collide both worlds and bring all sides together to create this amazing program that has some much potential.

What value or principle matters most to you? Why?
In the culinary world, the most important thing to me is food sourcing. My philosophy is to take the best products I can find or grow, and with simple manipulations highlight the best qualities in each ingredient. I look for like-minded individuals who grow amazing produce (for things that I cannot find in my own garden), fishmongers who sell me the best cuts of the freshest fish straight out of San Diego waters. I can drive to my favorite cattle ranch in under 2 hours, but thankfully, my closest butcher stocks their beef.

Work life balance: how has your balance changed over time? How do you think about the balance?
Launching the Chef Angels Culinary Program has certainly been a big challenge and does consume a lot of my time and energy. But I do know that once I turn it into a proper program, my workload will improve.
My private chef life is entirely dependent on my employer’s travel schedule; when I’m busy at work everything else gets set aside and there is little balance. I don’t mind, because when my employer is not around, I have a lot more time flexibility to work on fun projects like harvesting our home-grown fruit and turning it into delicious preserves, and working on my volunteer pursuits.
As I’ve become older and wiser, I have learned to say “no” to preserve some semblance of work life balance. No longer do I live by the ethos in my hotel management days that it is always all hands on deck, and 80 hour work weeks are a normal occurrence. I value my free so I can take pilates classes that help re-balance my focus. I don’t hesitate to ask for a month off work to visit my family in Europe, or for a couple weeks off during prime summer season to attend a close friend’s castle wedding in France.

What’s the end goal? Where do you want to be professionally by the end of your career?
I consider myself to be a mentor, I am happy to pass along my skills and knowledge to any person showing a keen interest in what I am doing. I have done so many a time and continue to do so daily. It is both selfless and selfish. I want the person to better themselves, and on the flip side, the better I train them, the easier my job becomes as I can share some of the responsibilities and duties my job entails.
I will be able to end my career when I can turn my kitchen over confidently to the next generation. As for Chef Angels Culinary Program, likewise. I would like to build it to a point that anyone else can run it. That it can be scaled up to other group homes in San Diego when we get additional funding, and can be brought to other cities by other chefs (Costa Mesa, CA will be the next launch!).

Why did you pursue an artistic or creative career?
I honestly did not pursue my career. I’ve always enjoyed cooking at home, and when I started cooking professionally, I saw it as a temporary measure until my events planning business took off. That never happened, and the cheffing job stuck around as I really enjoyed it and my employer was happy with me. I did a lot of learning on the job, and I still do. I love being challenged to master something new.

Tell us about a book you’ve read and why you like it / what impact it had on you.
For fiction, I’ve read and re-read Lord of the Rings trilogy many times since childhood. The worlds, populations, languages and history that Tolkien created are mind boggling.
I read mostly cookbooks these days, I have a big collection. One of my favorites is written by the British chef Yotam Ottolenghi. He has written countless books and has a successful chain of restaurants in London, which I have frequented often. His first book called Ottolenghi The Cookbook, is my favorite and most used of them all. His recipes have always been an inspiration to me in my kitchen; the way he uses amazing produces, spices and aromatics.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
In any culture food is what brings people and community together. As big as our planet is, is as vast the scope of the culinary world. I’ve spent my life learning about regional cooking, traveling the globe, or simply through cookbooks and documentaries. There is no end to what one can learn. I love perfecting tried and true recipes that are favorites of my patrons, but love the challenge of trying new recipes and cuisines to expand the palette.

The true art to the plate must appeal to all the senses, The smell arrives after you hear the sizzle of the pan, followed by the visual plate design, tastebuds awaken with the first bite, texture is appreciated, the mind then processes the combination. To achieve that is what I always strive for. When my patrons enter the house they always say they can hear and smell me in the kitchen long before they see me when they enter the room, that is always the biggest compliment to be welcome in their homes.

People often ask me my specialty or favorite dish, I can’t answer that directly, as my true specialty is sourcing my ingredients. Whether it’s at home in San Diego, or traveling elsewhere, I always look for the best and freshest products. Menus are often produced on the fly as you never know what the ocean or the land will provide. This keeps me on my toes, and keeps the creative juices flowing.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, anytime I travel the world my first thought goes to what food is produced in the area and how can I experience it first hand, be it an oyster farm off of Vancouver island in Canada, crawfish processing in the south of France, getting langoustine and lobster out of a cold loch in Scotland, squeezing sugar canes to make fresh raw sugar in Costa Rica, the list goes on… If I had a chef best friend visiting San Diego, we would visit all the amazing places where I love to shop and eat.
We’d bring a cooler filled with ice packs and head over to Driscoll Wharf in Point Loma, one of 2 commercial fishing wharfs in the city. The essential stops would be Chula Seafood, an amazing fish wholesaler that cuts fish to order, and Tunaville Market & Grocery run by The Fishmonger, Tommy Gomes, famous for his namesake TV show on national television. Almost all the fish sold at these spots come off the boats that offload right in front of both markets, #zerofishmiles as Tommy likes to say. At Tunaville, we would sample all the delicious seafood concoctions that Tommy and his crew prepare, from fresh pokes, to smoked fish pâtés, to shark sausages. The dry aging case is filled with all sorts of fish, like blue fin tuna and snapper, ahi dried loin, reminiscent of the Grison dry cured beef of Switzerland. A “seacuterie” board will be whipped up with all these delicacies.
After packing our cooler with fresh seafood, we’d walk along the waterfront and hit up Mitch’s Seafood for a quick bite, Mitch being a partner at Tunaville, provides his guests with that same amazing seafood as can be found in the Market.
We would then head over to Specialty Produce, a wonderful produce wholesaler which is also open to the general public. Not to be missed is the Farmers Market cooler, filled with the best of produce of California procured at the twice weekly Santa Monica farmers market. Local farms deliver direct to their loading dock. Foraged goods from all over the US are flown in daily. There’s always new produce to discover.
The day would end up in the kitchen to cook up all the goods we picked up.
Other farms of interest to visit that week would be the famous Chino Nojo in Rancho Santa Fe, run for generations by the Chino family. In summer time, they are most famous for their sweet corn, but I love wintertime when there is a plethora of chicories at the farmstand. Stehly Organics in Valley Center run by the Stehly brothers, Noel and Jerome, are known for avocados, berries and citrus. I am particularly fond of their dragon fruit, growing on some most impressive looking bushes.
Coastal Roots Farm in Encinitas boasts beautiful ocean views, as well as an 8 acre food forest, their techniques deriving from ancient Jewish farming.
If the stars align, it may be the right time to take a desert hike in Borrego Springs and see the extraordinary superbloom of flowers sprouting out of the sand. On the way we would stop at California Mountain Bakery and pick up a dutch crumb pie made with local Julian apples. After visiting Borrego Springs we would make our way past the Salton Sea and would stop at Westmorland Date Shake owned by the Fejleh family, their market has all sorts of dates from their nearby farm, all sorts of honeys from the region and an impressive variety of middle eastern goods fill up the market. We can’t leave until we’ve had one of their famous date shakes.
Last stop before heading back to San Diego is Ramey’s old fashioned butcher shop in Brawley, run by Dale Ramey and his loyal crew of butchers. All the meat comes from the Imperial Valley, the beef coming from the nearby Brandt Ranch. Not to be missed is their carne asada, it’s marinated and grill ready, pick up a few provisions from a Mexican market and a meal you will have in no time flat.
The raw products available in San Diego makes it very hard to justify going out for a meal. But if one must eat out here’s a few favorites. For fine dining I choose Market in Del Mar, a lot of the produce coming from the nearby Chino Farm. I consider the year-old Kingfisher relaxed fine dining, the fusion of Vietnamese and California, using a lot of the same producers I procure from, along with their excellent service, makes for a phenomenal dining experience.
If we are feeling Italian, we’d head over to Chef Acursio’s Sicilian restaurant in North Park, named Cori Pasta for short, the menu rotates with the seasons. Sometimes I make the long trek to Oceanside where there’s a whole new restaurant scene unfolding. Restauranteurs Jessica and Davin Waite have several spots including the iconic Wrench & Rodent Seabastropub where the sushi is as creative as the name and the year-old Plot restaurant redefining what vegan, sustainable and delicious means. For quick and easy dining I find myself going to a handful of favorites for ethnic cuisine; Noble Chef, cantonese dining, the chef’s specialty being beautifully roasted meats, Mona Lisa in Little Italy, a good spot to get a handcrafted sandwich and lots of fun Italian provisions, Menya Ultra, Michelin mentioned ramen joint with tasty broth and fresh, hand pulled noodles, lastly the newly opened Adobo House, makes the best Filipino food I have had dining out in San Diego..

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Christina Ng, private chef and sustainable food activist. I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with Christina for about 14 years, watching her build her career, reaching all areas of the San Diego culinary world. She meal preps for families, does lots of community events, teaches kids at schools and other venues, collaborates with farmers and other producers, has appeared on national television, runs the Berry Good Foundation… I am so proud of all that she has accomplished. She always has a smile on her face and is so humble about the amazing things she does.
Insta @chinitaspies

Website: https://sdfosterangels.org

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cookingwithlena/ & https://www.instagram.com/chefangelssd/

Image Credits
John Gastaldo Photography