Celebrity personal chef Áine McAteer is no stranger to making waves. The 66-year-old Cavan woman has travelled the world cooking for actors like Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, and musicians such as Ringo Starr and Anthony Kiedis.
She’s had celebrity clients who’ve asked her to cook with cannabis – legal in California; wild meats sourced by Native American hunters; or exclusively vegan and macrobiotic foods.
Her next job “always comes from left of field”, she says, ever since she moved from New York – where she studied macrobiotic cooking and worked at the Japanese-owned restaurant Souen – to Kauai in Hawaii, where it’s common for celebrities to have second homes.
“I was one of the more experienced chefs in Kauai, and also because of my connection with food and healing, I was called on to cook for people,” she tells The Irish Times. “I was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid in the 70s, and I became interested in the idea of food being a tool that’s transformative in terms of health.
“Then I met my dear friend Barbara Orbison, the year after [her husband, the American singer] Roy passed away, and she took me travelling with her. We had many adventures together. We went to Australia together for her 50th birthday for a month... She was a dear friend. I met people through her. I had the Tom and Nicole job for a few years, I did quite a bit of travelling with them, and then I was with John Cusack for four years... It can be a little bit intimidating going into the lives of these people for the first time, but then you realise they’re just people.”
A publishing deal with Penguin followed in 2003, for her book Recipes to Nurture.
McAteer makes “healthy food palatable to people who might not normally seek it out”, she says.
“I’ve been pretty blessed with clients. There are obvious demands of the job... logistically, when you’re cooking for a really busy family and they’re doing night shoots and they want dinner at six in the morning when they come home. It can get a little stressful sometimes, but I’m extremely flexible, I can always manage to blend in.”
It was through her current client, Red Hot Chilli Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, who is an avid surfer, that she met Kassia Meador, a pro-longboarder. Meador and McAteer, together with a team of women, are bringing a surfing retreat called Salty Sensations to Sligo at the end of this month.
“They’ve given me the brief of rolling out food all day long to surfers. I’m going to be sourcing vegetables from Knocknarea farms in Sligo, so the food will be very seasonal, and seaweed is such a big thing out there so I’m really excited to see what I can cook.”
McAteer, who turns 67 this month, wants to ride a wave for her birthday. Growing up near Cavan’s many lakes, she remembers being warned away from water as a child and being told stories of drownings, which led to McAteer developing a fear of water.
“I’ve been so inspired by being around these women and the women that come on these retreats. Some are in their 40s and 50s and their children have left home and they’ve decided to take up surfing. We’ve had a 14-year-old too. Surfing kind of terrifies me, but I’ve always believed that when we face a fear it’s very freeing. We always think that when we get older, it’s too late to try something, but I really don’t want to go through my life like that.”
As a child, McAteer foraged for dillisk and dried it to serve at her uncle’s pub in Donegal, and picked nettles, apples and blackberries with her mother or grandmother – her two biggest influences when it came to food. Nature was abundant with healing remedies, she was taught.
“Granny always had a cure from nature. It wasn’t always tasty – it was sometimes gross – but the remedies were always something that was food related, whether it was barley water for our lungs, or castor oil.
“Now, foraging has become very trendy but I remember Granny out picking nettles and blackberries, I remember having a picnic of primroses. There was a real connection with nature where we used to live,” she continues.
“We grew a lot of our own food. We had a big orchard. Mum used to make apple jam. I remember once when Mum was in bed, I decided I was going to make apple jam for her and I climbed the apple trees, threw the apples in a pot and put it on the old range – of course I burned it to bits – but mum sang my praises and made me feel that she was so proud of me, the fact that I had done that for her.”
McAteer recalls “an ease” around food in her childhood. Now for her private clients, whether it’s someone living with multiple sclerosis or an “actor who wants to look good in movies”, she brings that same energy into her food and cooking.
“Mum had a very easy way with preparing food. There was always a lovely warm meal, and she had a way of making food taste really good, naturally. There was a sense of ease around cooking. It never seemed stressful to her, although I’m sure it was, and I think I inherited that ease through osmosis.
“In my work I really get to know the person. You’re feeding people on a lot of levels. Even your energy is important, because it’s the energy that you bring into their home. If I’m stressed, I’ll pass that on. So I meditate and take care of myself, so the energy I bring into their home is nourishing.”
She adds: “Most people my age have retired, but I don’t think about retirement. I just see myself continuing to evolve. I’ve learned so much from my experiences, and I feel I’ve so much to share with people. The attitude that age is something we have to fight is wrong. Of course I’ve got wrinkles, but they’re hard-earned.”
Now writing a new book of vegan dessert recipes, McAteer says she has a collection of staple recipes that private clients always ask for.
“My chia puddings layered with a cashew cream, and chia that I soak in a fruit juice, my clients literally have to have it every day.
“Another staple dish is what I call my ‘turkey rock n’ roll – a stuffed turkey made with ground turkey and a leek and pesto stuffing. You roll it up like a swiss roll and bake it, and then I serve that with mushroom gravy, and sesame ginger green bean with crispy shallots. I always have it on night one of the surfer retreat.”
Salty Sensations surf retreat for women takes place on August 29th-September 2nd, and costs €1,850 per person including accommodation at the Gyreum Eco Lodge, meals by Áine McAteer, healing sessions and treatments. See rebellesurf.com/salty-sensations-ireland
