Chef LuAnn Trombly is “the side dish queen.”
Her former classmates at culinary school gave her the affectionate nickname after she gained a reputation for crafting sides and salads.
“They said I could pull side dishes out of my head,” Trombly laughed. “My favorite thing to do is just go to the farmers’ market or go out to the garden and pick things, then come in and create something out of it.”
The culinary creator is now chef and manager of Hillsdale’s newly re-opened Rockwell Lake Lodge in Luther, Michigan. She was the original innkeeper of the lodge back in 2007 before leaving for several years due to external factors.
Now, with experience in exotic cuisine and professional training in French cooking, Trombly has returned to Michigan, the place where her passion for the culinary arts and knack for side dishes first began. Her journey to culinary artist and side dish queen started simply: by learning to garden and cook at the side of her grandmother as a child growing up in Hillsdale County.
“She grew her own vegetables and fruits,” Trombly said. “I just remember going out in the garden with her and picking things and then going inside and cooking with her.”
Circumstances during Trombly’s teenage years allowed her to continue to develop her love for creating dishes. Because her mother worked often and late, Trombly did much of the cooking at home.
“My mother says that even when I was 15 or 16 years old, I was always digging in her spice cupboard, always trying to make things better,” Trombly laughed. “I did it from a young age.”
Trombly attended Le Cordon Bleu from 2010-2011, where she gained the education in culinary arts that she always dreamed of. While there, Trombly also worked at the Winn and Encore, a Las Vegas resort where she prepared banquets for up to 5,000 people. She said that though she gained a wealth of foundational techniques at Le Cordon Bleu, she simultaneously benefited from real-life experience at the Winn and Encore, where she had the opportunity to learn from professionals. Once she even worked with a chef from Iron Chef.
“Just like somebody can sit down and draw a picture, I can take a basket of ingredients and make something really good out of it,” Trombly said.
Hillsdale Chief Staff Officer Mike Harner, who re-hired Trombly, said Trombly’s unique combination of experience makes her a perfect fit for the lodge.
“She has great experience on both the food side and the hospitality side,” he said. “We expect it to be wildly successful. With LuAnn back in place there, we’ll be able to more aggressively market the lodge and do a lot more program-wise up there to bring people to the property.”
Director of the Dow Leadership Center Teresa Heckenlively worked with LuAnn when the lodge first opened, and expressed her excitement to have her back as chef and manager of the lodge.
“The experiences and training she has had since she left sound amazing,” she said.
Trombly may be a French-trained chef now, but she said farm-to-table, close-to-home cuisine is still her specialty. She plans to adjust the lodge menu to reflect the rich flavors and regional culinary traditions of Michigan and Midwest America.
“I have several salmon dishes, and of course walleye, on the menu,” she said. “It’s about where you’re at. We’re in the Northwoods, but yet it’s going to have beautiful plating and a little more of a contemporary twist.”
Trombly plans to continue combining her love of regional flavors with her passion for picking fresh, organic foods and using them to create masterpieces. She has already been in touch with local farmers and farmers’ markets in the lodge area to ensure she will be able to have fresh supplies for her art.
Trombly’s culinary journey may have taken her to Las Vegas, but what makes her truly unique is the passion she began cultivating back home in Michigan, where at the side of her grandmother she first began developing the talent for picking and crafting fresh produce that would earn her the title of “side dish queen.” She may know how to prepare French cuisine, but the side dish queen is still a Michigan girl — and according to her, you’ll know it when you taste it.
