Sara La Fountain – Finnish chef

May 24, 2009

By cool-chicks.com

Sara La Fountain (born in Santa Barbara, California in 1981) is a Finnish chef, TV personality, cookbook author and designer. She was awarded the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in the category of the Best First Cookbook for her debut book A la Sara in 2006.. In 2008, La Fountain starred in Perfect Day TV series, which is an international lifestyle program sold to around 60 countries worldwide. She is also going to be the first westerner chef to appear on a Chinese food channel, China Food TV.

Background

La Fountain was born to a French American father and Finnish mother, after they had met during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Her parents separated later on, and La Fountain moved to Finland with her mother, who was then remarried. Her father has continued a family business in New York and runs a restaurant and hotel with his brother. La Fountain was raised in the Eira neighborhood in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and in a family estate in Kirkkonummi. She attended a Rudolf Steiner school. In 2005, La Fountain got engaged with renowned music video director Antti Jokinen in Paris, France. They share homes in Helsinki and the United States. Jokinen has one child from a previous relationship.

Career

Training

La Fountain was trained at The Culinary Institute of America, the world-renowned culinary school in New York. Before and during the studies, La Fountain earned money working in a restaurant and as a fashion model.

Entrepreneur

After returning to Finland, La Fountain started her own business and was soon noticed by the Finnish media.

La Fountain wrotes food columns in various Finnish magazines and newspapers, including Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat and Seura, in which she had a weekly column. La Fountain also arranges cookery courses, does food styling and has her own catering service. She has also done product development for different brands, including Fazer and Finlandia Vodka.

Television

In 2005, La Fountain starred in her own lifestyle TV show called Avec Sara on MTV3. Each of the 10 episodes had its own theme from brunches to birthday parties, karaoke nights, and Japanese and Indian social evenings. In 2008, La Fountain starred in Perfect Day TV series, which is an international lifestyle program sold to around 60 countries worldwide. It includes four well-known Nordic chefs (Tina Nordström, Andreas Viestad, Claus Meyer and La Fountain herself) introducing traditional foods, customs and culture of their own countries, including Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. In addition to the TV show, La Fountain also starred in a 36-episode online series called A Perfect Day in Sara’s Kitchen. In 2008, La Fountain also appeared on UKTV Food’s popular Market Kitchen TV series as a guest chef.

Books

La Fountain was awarded at the prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2006 for her cookery book À la Sara in the category of the Best First Cookbook. The book version of Perfect Day TV series was published in 2008. It includes recipes from all of the chefs and information on the various locations they visited in the course of the series.

Design

La Fountain has designed various series of tableware, glassware and textiles for Finnish clothing brand Luhta Home, including Lotus, Baroque, Marocco and Agadir. She has also designed patterns for shoes of kitchen professionals by Finnish Jalas footware company.