Sous Chef Series: Carrie Mashaney’s Buttermilk Biscuit & Ham Sandwiches

Carrie Mashaney, chef de cuisine of Spinasse, in Seattle, Washington, wants to give a shout-out to her hometown. “Yeah! Tell everyone I’m from Carpenter, Iowa,” she exclaims with pride. “The 100 people that live there will be psyched.”

Mashaney left the Corn Belt 13 years ago to attend culinary school in Seattle; finding that the city suited her, she never left. But cooking school wasn’t a fit for the chef, who dropped out after a year, then enrolled in the baking and pastry program at a local community college. Following an externship in France, she returned to Seattle where she has lived and worked since.

She has cooking in her blood: Mashaney’s mother owned a restaurant in Iowa. “I grew up in the kitchen,” she says. “I washed dishes at the restaurant and grew up watching Great Chefs of the World.” And though she may have grown up in the industry, Mashaney says, “There’s always so much to learn. Trying something that you’ve never tasted before–it brings me back to being a child, that feeling of experiencing something for the first time.”

Mashaney and her husband, also a chef, make breakfast together at home every morning. She frequently makes biscuits, which inspired her recipe for this week’s Sous Chef Series from Tasting Table and Williams-Sonoma. Topped with griddled ham and paired with a tomato salad, they’re a fine way to start the day.