Coaxed by the remarkable opportunity to return to her roots in the Sierra Nevada Foothill Wine Country, Chef Carolyn Kumpe has returned to the kitchen with a new venture, Vendage & Co. With more than 20 years in highly acclaimed Northern California restaurant and winery kitchens, Carolyn has had the pleasure of cooking with revolutionary Bay Area chefs like Kelsie Kerr, Loretta Keller, Rick O’Con
nell, Patrick Martin, Thom Fox, Marsha McBride, Gayle Pirie & John Clark, before taking her root stock to the Sierra Nevada Foothills Wine Country in 2001. Her craft was honed through culinary positions in various kitchens throughout San Francisco, Woodside and Healdsburg, California specifically as, Bizou, Liberty Café, Woodward’s Garden, Rosmarino, Woodside Village Pub, and Bistro Ralph. Yet, it was under the guidance of Chef Judy Rogers at Zuni Café & Grill, where she learned to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of food. Respectively, she was the opening chef of San Francisco’s trend setting Slow Club and the chef-owner of Tisane, a “Salon du Thé”, voted in the top 4 places for afternoon tea by the San Francisco Chronicle. Inspired by the bounties of perfectly fresh and sustainable produce in El Dorado County, Carolyn opened Charlotte's Bake Shoppe of El Dorado in 2001 with much acclaim. The residents of El Dorado County voted "Charlottes' Best Desserts" in 2005. Then in December 2005, Charlotte's Bake Shoppe was rated by Al Pierleoni of the Sacramento Bee as one of the Top Ten Places to eat lunch in the Sacramento area. As a culinary instructor for East Bay Restaurant Supply, Whole Foods, Macy’s, Draeger's Cooking School in Menlo Park and Tony Mathews "Fine Goods for Fine Living" in Placerville, she has shared her enthusiasm for cooking. Recipes from Carolyn have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Sacramento Bee, as well as magazines such as Southern Living, Country Home, Sunset, Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home, Cooking Light, Rachel Ray, Sacramento Magazine. She is a long term member of the Slow Food Society and the International Association of Women Chefs. For Carolyn, sustainability has always been a way of life. A native of Upstate New York, she began her culinary adventures in the wilderness, foraging wild blueberries, crab apples, fraises du bois, chokecherries, fiddlehead ferns, raspberries and huckleberries with her naturalist, Volkswalking mother. Summertime also meant canoeing and fishing for rainbow trout with her sisters under the tutelage of expert fly fisher and Sierra Club Member father. She labors to source the highest quality, freshest local ingredients for you, yielding superiority of taste and wholesomeness evident in each dish.
