Career Profile
“Ever since I can remember, I have dreamed of being a cook.” So begins the introduction to Master Chef Annemarie Huste’s most recent cookbook, Entertaining at Home. What this simple statement cannot begin to convey is the courage, fearlessness, self-discipline and talent intrinsic to Annemarie Huste that brought her dream to fruition.
Born in Ulm, Germany as World War II was being waged, Annemarie grew up in an era when cooking was considered a woman’s obligation in the home but a man’s responsibility in the professional world. Thus, at her mother’s insistence, Annemarie began, at age 13, a three-year apprenticeship in shoe sales and business administration. This proved invaluable experience for she not only acquired time and money management skills but also learned that a comfortable pair of shoes is worth their weight in truffles, particularly if you’re standing in them all day in the kitchen!
Her zeal for the culinary arts prevailed, though, and at the end of this apprenticeship, Annemarie secured another one as cook and housekeeper in a private home in a nearby town. While the dishes she prepared were traditional German ones, the techniques and skills she observed and absorbed were universal – the fundamentals of good cooking worldwide.
Annemarie Huste Arrives in America
Over the course of the next three years, Annemarie worked as cook and housekeeper in several private households. But it was becoming increasingly clear to her that the culinary opportunities she sought were not available in her native country. So, at the young age of 19, with $3 in her pocket, two words in her English vocabulary and not a single acquaintance at her port of destination, Annemarie left Germany for the United States. How fortunate for our palates that she landed in New York!
By the end of her first year stateside working as an au pair, Annemarie had learned English, had discovered the function of a personnel agency and had determined the time was ripe to launch her cooking career: no point tending children when she’d rather be tenderizing chicken! She secured a position as chef to a well-to-do Greek shipping family and, over the course of the next two years, expanded her food repertoire. But, in Annemarie’s own words, ”After a while, peeling grapes for a family of 12’s favorite dessert – grapes in orange juice – became incredibly tedious.” Perhaps the wine aficionado in her had just had enough of this kind of grape mistreatment!
The Show Goes On At Billy Rose’s 48-Room Townhouse
In her next position, Annemarie was engaged as chef to showman/ entrepreneur/producer Billy Rose. Remembered best for his productions of Jumbo and the lavish Aquacades at the New York and San Francisco World Fairs, Rose was a formidable figure in the entertainment industry during the first half of the Twentieth Century. With a 48-room Manhattan townhouse and a successful career as producer, songwriter and nightclub owner, millionaire Rose’s guests included that era’s stars of stage and screen. When the 21-year-old Annemarie arrived for her interview with the barely 5-foot-tall Rose, his comment was, “Well, you certainly don’t look like a gourmet chef.” While she was tempted to quip, “And you don’t look like a millionaire,” Annemarie demonstrated a poise and maturity beyond her years by responding, “In Europe we have a saying, Mr. Rose, ‘Never judge a book by its cover.’ Give me a chance. If you don’t like my cooking, I’ll leave the next day.” Within six weeks, her responsibilities had expanded to include chef and executive housekeeper to Rose, managing a staff of 12. A mere eight months later, her employer died suddenly of pneumonia.
Private Chef To A Former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy
Billy Rose’s untimely death turned out to be a serendipitous twist of fate for Annemarie, for the former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, and her children had just relocated to New York and were looking for a personal chef. During the interview, Annemarie’s culinary experience and skills impressed Mrs. Kennedy and her youthful ways captivated John, Jr. and Caroline. She got the job and, for the next two years, prepared meals for people such as then-President and Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson, kings, queens, princes and potentates – a veritable cornucopia of world leaders – who visited to pay their respects to Mrs. Kennedy.
Annemarie’s stint as chef to Mrs. Kennedy resulted in a publisher’s bidding war for her first cookbook, Annemarie’s Personal Cookbook, and a tour of the talk-show circuit. Returning to Germany in 1969, she wrote her second cookbook and worked as Food Editor for Ich und meine Familie, the German counterpart of Family Circle. The next decade was a hectic one, in which she opened her own cooking school in Manhattan, authored her next two cookbooks, Annemarie’s Cookingschool and Good Food, worked as food stylist on numerous magazine and television ads, and traveled around the country, offering cooking classes as fundraisers for many arts and nonprofit institutions.
“To The Good Life,” Annemarie’s Entertainment Philosophy
Over the years Annemarie had evolved her own entertainment philosophy: a memorable occasion must entail more than just perfectly prepared food. Yes – the produce should be just-harvested; the herbs, just-gathered; the seafood, just-caught; the meat or poultry, raised on healthful fare in a stress-free environment. And these ingredients must be combined not only to taste good but assembled to look good. However, the resultant delectable flavors and aromas must be complimented by an elegant table setting, fine china and silverware, starched linens, soft candlelight, beautiful flowers, attentive service and appropriate décor to suit the occasion – in other words, a complete sensory experience. Certainly there was no way for Annemarie to generate this type of experience in a restaurant setting. Ever the self-reliant individual, not to mention entrepreneur, she decided to open her own private dining room in 1982.
Hard work and wise money management enabled her to purchase a townhouse at 104 East 30th Street a mere two years later. While serving as Executive Chef at Gourmet Magazine, and as host of two network cooking shows, one a nationally syndicated program produced by Lifetime TV and the other telecast Saturday mornings on Fox Channel 5, Annemarie oversaw the total renovation of her townhouse. Its completion in 1984 was followed by the publication of her sixth cookbook, To The Good Life, and the production of another nationally syndicated cooking show, this one for PBS.
Annemarie now operates Annemarie’s Cookingschool out of her townhouse, and derives much personal satisfaction from having trained dozens of talented chefs who have gone on to open their own culinary schools and to work as chefs in private homes and popular restaurants. She continues to delight guests from both the private and corporate sectors with her distinctive brand of entertaining. Through word of mouth, fortunate, discerning Epicureans are added to her list of clientele. For, in today’s fast-paced world of global business and telecommunications, her old-fashioned approach to entertaining is surprisingly novel. As Annemarie sums it up, “I’m not interested in feeding appetites, I want to nourish souls.”