RED BANK – Ever since her first job at 15 at a Sea Bright restaurant, Lauren Van Liew knew food would be her life’s work.
In fact, the 32-year old catering chef and mother of two, who works out of a customized catering warehouse at 9 River Street, says she’s never held any other kind of job, and never wants to do anything else. Preparing great food is her passion.
“I’m super creative and this is my creative outlet,” she said.
On Tuesday, May 10 at 10 p.m. her friends, family and TV viewers she’ll never meet will get to witness what she does best when she shows off her quick wit and skills on an episode on the Food Network called “Chopped.” [Editor’s note: On Thursday, after press time, The Food Network moved the air date to May 10 from the originally scheduled May 17.]
Pitted against three others, the chef will be challenged to work magic with four odd ingredients presented in a “mystery basket.”
“There is so much you can do with food,” said Van Liew, with confidence, speaking by phone on Tuesday from her home in Shrewsbury, which she shares with husband William, a Newark police officer, and her sons Logan, 5, and Gavin, 2.
Though she is unable to divulge how the episode filmed in December ends, she encourages you to see it unfold.
Van Liew, whose maiden name is Covas, is a graduate of Middletown High School North. She attended New England Culinary School in Vermont and worked in top restaurants in New York, Las Vegas and Florida. She previously worked at Rutgers in catering, and ran a gourmet eatery on George Street in New Brunswick, and a café in Newark.
In addition to catering special events, wedding, parties and private dinners with a staff of nine via her business Chef Covas Catering, she is growing her local business through social media and serving a need that could be big one day: creating quality dine-at-home fare.
That idea was borne when word got around that this busy mom was making lasagna on Sunday for later in the week, and other busy moms begged to pay her to make them a tray of lasagna too. So she built a website for custom orders. “Now we deliver to 60 to 70 regular customers who order dinner and deliver right to the door,” she said.
“My biggest problem is I never say no,” she laughed.
