Spice,Spice, BABY!

Frederick-based personal chef Chris Spear has tips on how to turn up the heat and add spice to your summer menus

by Chris Slattery

Summer called, and she wants her recipes back.

The blah burgers, boring beans, seasonless salads — why can’t summer food have more zing?

Frederick-based personal chef Chris Spear has been peppering palates since he started his business, Perfect Little Bites, in 2010. Classically trained at Providence, Rhode Island’s Johnson & Wales University, Spear turned his lifelong obsession with food and its preparation into a career without ever having owned — or even worked in — a restaurant.

More on that later.

And he’s eager to change the way we cook and eat, one perfect little bite at a time.

“I think people should take risks and be more adventurous,” he says. “I see people all the time who have never had, say, Korean food, or authentic Mexican food. They’re not open to trying new things, but what’s the worst that’s going to happen?”

He speaks from experience. Born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Spear’s stay-at-home mom put a family dinner on the table every night.

“I grew up with that,” he remembers.

When he was 12, his mother’s disc surgery left her bed-bound for a while, and Spear found himself planning menus with his mom, going grocery shopping with his dad, and heading into the kitchen, solo, to execute. He loved cooking and eating, and his parents loved entertaining, but Chez Spear was far from the culinary cutting edge.

“We ate pretty well, but we definitely had a lot of casseroles; kind of ‘hamburger helper’ stuff, but all made from scratch,” he says, describing a family favorite that involved ground beef and a can of creamed corn.

Chefs! They’re just like us!

The New England rooted family didn’t have what Spear calls “fancy food”— their signature dish was a top-secret baked bean recipe that goes back five generations and may or may not have arrived on the Mayflower.

“I remember, in the ’80s, the first time we had tacos,” says Spear. “That was so weird.”

While the idea of Mexican cuisine is no longer weird to Spear, he understands that not all palates are equally adventurous. And while he loves whipping up kimchi puttanesca and avocado tartar for clients, he recommends that summertime chefs embrace the art of keeping it simple.

“Any time there’s an opportunity to customize I think it’s good,” he says. “Sauce is one of those areas: you can grill a steak, or a piece of chicken or fish, with nothing on it and serve one or two really interesting things — chimichurri sauce — on the side.”

The chef points out that when entertaining guests in a “mixed company scenario” it’s hard to know everyone’s preferences.

“Maybe your entrée is crazy-experimental, but you’ve got a soup, a salad, or side dishes that are not.” A baked potato, he adds, is the perfect accompaniment to a spicy new dish. And plain fare can get a boost from exotic oils and unusual vinegars.

“I’m not a ‘truffle-and-caviar kind of guy,” says Spear. “I’ll get a nice soy sauce, and I’m a fan of good dairy — grass-fed butter, or I’ll spend a couple extra dollars on a nice cheese.

“And I’d rather spend more money on produce. Or buy that $12 loaf of bread from the farmers market, and save money on some other thing, because every slice is amazing, and I’d much rather support a local business and have something that’s top notch.”

A visit to the farmers market, in fact, is top of the list when Spear is asked for his summer cooking tips.

“I think seasonality is huge,” he says. “We’re just coming into farmers’ market season, and I don’t think there’s anything better than what you’re going to find there. I let that be my guide as much as I can, just go and pick out some produce — even if you have to do some googling, ‘what do I do with kohlrabi?’ — and start there.

“If you’re cooking what’s fresh, local and seasonal, that’s a good baseline.”

Spear doesn’t think a great chef has to be someone who’s been to culinary school, especially in a post-pandemic world where many home cooks dove in deep during quarantine.

“The home chefs out there — there are people who are better at things than I am!”

Better than a professional chef?

“Well, I have to be a generalist,” he explains. “But there are people who really latched onto baking bread or making cookies or doing fermented stuff, and they know way more than me.

“I have a friend who works in accounting, and he makes better pizza than I could ever imagine making. He’s just gotten very deep into that niche topic.”

Spear has been a generalist for some time now. He took cooking classes in middle school and high school, then applied only to Johnson & Wales for college.

Apple, Fennel & Celery Salad

Time 20 minutes

Servings 8

2 granny smith apples (large, quartered and thinly sliced)

1 fennel bulb (thinly sliced; reserve fronds for garnish)

3 stalks celery (thinly sliced; reserve leaves for garnish)

4 oz ricotta salata or parmesan cheese

Chili flakes (for garnish, if desired)

1 cup Apple Cider Vinaigrette (recipe below)

Mix together apples, fennel and celery. Toss with vinaigrette.

Put the vegetables on plates. Shave ricotta salata/parmesan on a microplane over the salad and garnish with reserved fennel fronds, celery leaves and chili flakes (if using).

Apple Cider Vinaigrette makes about 1 cup

1 tablespoon dijon or whole-grain mustard

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1-2 tablespoons raw honey or brown sugar, to taste

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil salt and pepper, to taste

1/4 tsp kosher salt

Directions:

Blend all of ingredients in a blender or whisk thoroughly.

“I thought I’d become a chef and own a restaurant,” he says.

Instead, his career took him to kitchens in everything but a restaurant: hotels, retirement homes, even the prototype kitchen for IKEA.

Perfect Little Bites started when he decided to create a catering company and cook for dinner parties, birthday celebrations, even bachelorettes at AirBnBs.

“I’m now a personal chef and I actually have a podcast (Chefs Without Restaurants) where I talk to other chefs who don’t have restaurants. The landscape has evolved so much in the 25 years since I graduated!”

Spear says that as a personal chef he tries to make Perfect Little Bites a business that gives people “food that you can’t get anywhere else.”

But he sees nothing wrong with spicing up summer dinner parties with food you can get at farmers’ markets. And Frederick, he points out, has an abundance of markets, open just about every day of the week.

“At the Sunday market I got a loaf of sourdough bread, and a bottle of olive oil; I got veggies and picked up some meat,” he explains. “My wife got flowers, and we got some cookies. I think that’s a pretty good deal!”

Also in Frederick: Olive & Basket, one of Spear’s go-to spice shops.

“They have a wide variety of olive oils and spices,” he says. “I usually go see Sharon there — she has a Meyer lemon olive oil that I love as a finishing oil. It goes great on dips; I put it on a hummus-type dish. They’ve got oil, vinegar, and spices there, great for both home use and as gifts.”

And whether you gift it, serve it, or hoard it in your fridge, Spear believes that a big bowl of fresh pickled vegetables is summer’s ultimate spicy treat.

“When in doubt, pickle,” he advises. “Whatever you have, I’m a big fan of pickling. I’ve got some pickled jalapeños I’m in the process of making right now. I always have a good garden at home, and if I have a lot of something growing, more than I can use, I’m turning it into pickles.

“It’s super easy. I’m not doing natural fermentation, I’m not doing canning, just six jalapeños, one onion — I will just recreationally use them in our house in a week or two — vinegar, salt, sugar, add fresh herbs if you want.”

Healthy, refreshing, with plenty of zing.

It sounds like the perfect little bite.