Priscilla Martel


Priscilla Martel is an award-winning American chef, food writer, and consultant notable for desserts, baking, pastries and fireplace-cooked meals. Her recipes appear in magazines such as Food & Wine. She is a contributing writer at Flavor and the Menu Magazine. She teaches and has written textbooks including ebooks used to teach students of the culinary arts. She is recognized as an authority on artisan baking, confectionery, cooking food in sealed plastic bags with water or steam called sous vide, and spa cooking techniques. In 2016, Martel is teaching a course in food writing at GateWay Community College in New Haven.
Martel married prominent Connecticut restaurateur and chef Charlie van Over, and the couple often collaborate on recipes and cooking. Martel and van Over have cooked for 60 Minutes reporter Morley Safer, Chef Jacques Pepin as well as Broadway actor Peter Kapetan at their home in Connecticut. Martel and van Over were co-owners of a restaurant in Chester called Restaurant du Village. Her cooking often reflects a Mediterranean emphasis. She has a particular interest and expertise in almonds and desserts of the northeast. Martel and van Over hold patents regarding baking processes.
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Martel attended Phillips Academy in Andover and graduated in the school's first co-educational class in 1974. Her classmates included jazz Grammy-winner Bill Cunliffe, software financier Peter Currie, actor Dana Delany, painter Julian Hatton, poet Karl Kirchwey, writer Nate Lee, television producer Jonathan Meath, editor Sara Nelson, and sculptor Gar Waterman. She graduated from Brown University in 1978. Her love of writing was influenced in part after taking a course at Wesleyan called Portraits of People taught by Anne Greene, in the 1980s.
Martel and van Over opened a Chester, Connecticut restaurant which they named Restaurant du Village in 1979 and sold it in 1990. In 2010, they own a firm called "All About Food" which holds baking patents and collaborates with food manufacturers and restaurants on such matters as menus, marketing programs, and new products.
and outdoor wood-fired oven.
Martel and van Over were quoted in the New York Times about doing rotisserie cooking using a fireplace; on occasions, Martel and van Over have cooked for fellow Chester resident and 60 Minutes reporter Morley Safer. The couple would cook a multicourse meal in the fireplace while having sing-a-longs which sometimes included dancing, and their dinners often included quail, duck, venison or porterhouse steak. At one point, Martel and van Over lived in a house with six or seven fireplaces. Martel said the fireplace cooking experiences "brings out the best in people." They grow vegetables and other foods in their garden for some of their meals. The dining table often has beautiful flowers such as zinnias and snapdragons and meals are often served with wine. Martel and van Over advise restaurants about such matters as how to create a brasserie. Beef steak and veal stew are cooked using a Tuscan grill. Martel and van Over argued in their book "The Best Bread Ever" that the best way to make the perfect loaf is to use a food processor. Martel's recipes entitled Cod with creamy nut sauce and Chicken Almond Curry with Apricots appeared in Food & Wine magazine. She is co-author of culinary textbooks On Baking: A Textbook of Baking and Pastry Fundamentals and On Cooking: A Textbook of Culinary Fundamentals. She works as a consultant in product development to create international seafood chowders and Italian regional soups for Borden. For Absolut Vodka, she is a spokesperson and developer of recipes. She wrote over 150 columns entitled All About Food in Connecticut newspapers.

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