Hello friend! I’m Chloe Zale, and I’m delighted that you’ve come to visit.

My world revolves around food and cooking. As a culinary entrepreneur, I develop and test recipes for publications and enterprises, teach cooking classes, collaborate on cookbooks, and take pretty pictures of food. Beyond a zeal for eating (which I definitely have), I love so many aspects of food and cooking: the sense of connection in making and sharing meals with others; the delight of discovering new ideas and combinations of ingredients; the continually renewed joy in tasting a dish well cooked; and the satisfaction from helping others cook great meals for themselves.

This passion for food has been lifelong, with many different faces. It started as a child growing up in New York — my father and I would conduct taste tests of different foods around the city, analyzing each slice of pizza or scoop of ice cream against its competitive set to determine a winner (basically a 7 year old’s dream). At age 11, I perfected my own chocolate chip cookie recipe, which went through at least 15 iterations — to the benefit of my 5th grade class who sampled a new batch every couple weeks. The end result involved a mid-bake swirl of each circle of liquid dough for optimal chocolate distribution and visual appeal at the end. No one said being a perfectionist is easy.

Fast forward to my undergrad at Yale, I bolstered my analytical approach to food as a Cognitive Science major, studying food and the brain, and I also took electives in food history and food policy. Simultaneously, I played with food extracurricularly, working as an events intern with the Yale Sustainable Food Program, with responsibilities like making pizza for student volunteers on the Yale Farm and executing special dinners for visiting guests like Rene Redzepi, and I spent summers working for culinary institutions like Murray’s Cheese in New York and the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts in London. During this time, I became increasingly interested in the business side of food, so after college I worked as a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group to learn the ins and outs of business, and then ran my own independent strategy consulting business focusing specifically on food and beverage and health and wellness companies for five years.

In 2019, I came to the realization that I vastly preferred engaging hands-on with food over helping others grow their food businesses, which was when I decided to go to culinary school at the International Culinary Center in New York (formerly the French Culinary Institute). I can confidently say that it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I also got to spend some time cooking at 3 Michelin star restaurant Per Se before joining the test kitchen at HelloFresh as a recipe developer. At HelloFresh, I developed some of the best performing recipes in the company’s history before leaving in Fall 2023 to focus on my freelance practice.

Fun facts about me: I am a 200-hour registered yoga teacher; an opera singer by training; I spent a year living in Bondi Beach, Australia; and…I recently learned that I have an extra tooth? All the better for eating with!