It's early on a friday morning, and chef suzanne goin is in a mad panic at her home in Los Angeles's Laurel Canyon. She is feeding her twin babies while simultaneously preparing for something extraordinary: a weeklong vacation at a beach house with her kids and her husband, chef David Lentz. "It's the first time in three years I'm going somewhere just to hang out, without the stress of work," says Goin, the owner of Los Angeles restaurants Lucques and AOC. And for the first time in a long while, she will spend a week cooking for only her family of four—instead of for hundreds of people.
It's a sign that Goin, who also owns the Hungry Cat in L.A. and Santa Barbara with her husband, has shifted her priorities. Climbing the ranks at Chez Panisse and opening her own restaurants (the first was Lucques, in 1998) required many 18-hour days and years with no time off. But today, family trumps the restaurant world.
Raised in Los Angeles by parents she calls "prefoodie foodies," Goin developed a culinary curiosity at an early age. "One summer my parents returned from Brittany," she recounts, "and told me they had eaten crepes." Inspired, the 10-year-old Goin set up her own crepe station at home. "I would make them for the kids in the neighborhood," she says. "I remember I thought 'taking orders' was so cool."
From those early short-order days, she evolved into a champion of simple, seasonal cuisine—long before being a "locavore" was hip. Her no-frills style has translated well to feeding babies (the twins are now 15 months old). As a mom, she has learned one new lesson: Prep ahead by always making extra food when cooking. So whenever she has a rare quiet block of time—on mornings before work, or during the babies' naptime—she prepares the building blocks for her family's meals by cooking grains (like nutrition-packed lentils and farro), roasting vegetables, and steaming salmon or braising beef. "Then, for each meal, I just mix and match and warm it up for everyone," she says.
And by "everyone," she means everyone. Although Goin's and Lentz's work schedules can get in the way of family dinners, the babies eat the same foods their parents eat. "When I was a child, if my parents had mustard chicken, I had mustard chicken," she says. "The key is to avoid treating certain foods as scary or not 'kid-friendly.'?"
In recent months, the twins have acquired a taste for some pretty grown-up food—beets, skirt steak—though not without some struggles. "My daughter loves mealtime and happily feeds herself in her high chair," says Goin. "But the first thing my son does is turn the plate upside down and smear food all over. So I'm starting to see how different kids can be when it comes to eating."
