Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
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AFTER HOURS Wild Appetite IT'S ALWAYS FEEDING TIME FOR LINCOLN PARK ZOO VET AND ACCOMPLISHED CHEF KATHRYN GAMBLE. BY MEG MATHIS K athryn Gamble is reflecting on her day at the Lincoln Park Zoo, which featured quality time with a rhino, an antelope, a gorilla, and a box turtle weighing in at just six grams (a teaspoon). "It's like being a country doctor," she says of her role as the 35-acre zoo's Dr. Lester E. Fisher Director of Veterinary Medicine, a position she's held since 2002. "You know who's moving in and who's moving out, who doesn't get along with whom, who's pregnant.... It's fun to be a part of those animals' lives from beginning to end." But the workday is over now, and Gamble has one thing on her mind: the kitchen. Nights find the renowned zoologist (Gamble is both the first American and first female to achieve elite certification from the European College of Zoological Medicine) creating world-class cuisine in the comfort of her Lincoln Park residence. Tonight, chicken paprikash—one of her simpler dishes—is on the menu. The Texas native loves spending hours in the kitchen, whether it's plating a meal for two—as when she and her husband toasted their wedding anniversary with lobster, basil, and mango carpaccio and iced orange soufflé—or creating an eight-course dinner for two dozen guests. "Just like Latin is the language for medicine and science, French techniques ground you in being able to expand into things like molecu—KATHRYN lar gastronomy," she says. That's what GAMBLE drove Gamble to study at Le Cordon Bleu, from which she graduated with le certificat de cuisine supérieur earlier this year. As Gamble says, "If this is what I say I want to do, I do it all the way." That mantra applies to both zoology and culinary arts, both of which piqued Gamble's interest at an early age. "When I was 9, I announced I was going to be a zoo veterinarian," she says, "and somewhere around 10, my mother declared that each of the children in our family would be responsible for a meal a week. The first meal I selected [to cook] was shrimp with poached fish en papillote." As they were out of the requisite curry, Gamble's mother suggested they substitute with cumin. "I'm like, 'Mother, curry and cumin are not the same thing. When I grow up, I want to have a spice cabinet that goes on forever and has every spice so I can cook anything I want every single day!'" she recalls. "And now I do." MA 62 Lincoln Park Zoo veterinarian Kathryn Gamble spends her evenings refining her culinary skills. PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATRINA WITTKAMP "Being a vet at the zoo is like being a country doctor." MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 062_MA_SP_AfterHours_Nov13.indd 62 10/21/13 10:46 AM