As manager of John F. Kerry’s cookie store, Sarah Leah Chase ’79 remembers slicing her hand while chopping a rock-hard, frozen slab of butter back in the days before either she or Kerry, now a Mass. senator and Democratic presidential candidate, were popular icons.

Chase—author of a bestselling cookbook—recalls seeking solace from the Vietnam vet and store owner, but Kerry merely shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, that’s nothing compared to what I saw in Vietnam.”

He even paraded her around the Faneuil Hall kitchen, accepting wagers on the number of stitches she would need, Chase says. Soon after the incident, Chase says she decided to leave Kerry’s store and go into business for herself.

Since then, Chase has forged an impeccable reputation for herself in the cooking industry, hobnobbing with household names such as Julia Childs, Jacques Pepin and Martha Stewart. She also opened and ran for 10 years a successful Nantucket food business and serves as culinary spokesperson for Butterball Turkey and Hellmann’s Mayonnaise.

Chase’s reputation in food circles derives from her first cookbook, The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook, which she co-authored in 1984 and immediately hit The New York Times bestseller list. She has continued to write, penning an additional five cookbooks to date along with her first, which together have sold 1.5 million copies nationwide.

In these cookbooks and in her weekly food columns for The Nantucket Spectator, Chase prides herself on blending episodes from her life, such as her brief stint in Kerry’s bakery, with her passion for fine food, making her cookbooks a window into her world.

“I love writing about the outside stories behind the recipes. I write anecdotal recipes; I tell my life’s story through them,” Chase says. “It’s autobiographical.”

NEVER A BLAND GIRL

At each stage of her life, Chase acquired skills that she would later use to become a leader of the cooking profession. Her love of experimenting with recipes came first, followed by the development of her literary skills—necessary for success in her industry—at Harvard.

“I see myself as part of a generation that was able to marry intellect with food, to take it from just being a vocation to something that is highly respected,” Chase says.

Chase’s first brush with gourmet cooking came at age 13, when she served as cook at the Nantucket home of her aunt and uncle. For several months, she furnished the family with three meals a day. She also catered their weekly dinner parties using ingredients that had been grown locally.

“I got used to buying swordfish meat from the local fish market, and fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers came from the back of a truck that was parked on the cobblestone street. I would take the meat and vegetables home, then help my uncle grill them on an outdoor grill,” she says. “My duties quickly spilled over into the kitchen.”

Like in these early years, Nantucket has guided much of her culinary career. While Chase says she has never attended cooking school, she learned to cook by relying on local fruits, vegetables and meats that are staples on Nantucket. Chase’s Nantucket Open House Cookbook, published in 1987, introduces hundreds of recipes of her creation, including curried lentil soup with chutney butter, parmesan lasagna and braised lamb shanks with bourbon-barbeque sauce.

Chase, self-acknowledged as one of the “new breed of chefs during the mega-trend ’80s,” admits in the introduction to one chapter of the cookbook, “I find the recipes...magnificent.”

MIXING IT UP