Maple Ridge caterer takes her tasty treats to the stars

Trish Spencer-Fell is most at home in the kitchen – cooking meals for others to love.

In March, though, the owner of Whisk Catering in Hammond found herself in Los Angeles where she shared the art she loves with the stars.

The 48-year-old mother of two was one of only two Canadian companies invited to participate in a gifting suite for the Hollywood elite, held a day before the Oscars.

About 50 companies took part in the six-hour event on Sunday, March 12, offering everything from handmade clothing, jewellery, facial creams, and artwork.

Only two were food related.

Spencer-Fell attended the event with her younger sister Shannon Fell, whom she admitted, is better than her at socializing with people and sharing the story of the company.

Spencer-Fell started her business in 2014, working out of her home. After the birth of her second son, she decided to leave her work in the film industry after 16 years.

However, friends still in the industry working on some big shows asked her if she could help them out by cooking for the productions.

“And that’s how it started,” she said.

She worked for a couple of years out of her home and when her business grew, she had to make the decision to take it on full-time.

Spencer-Fell decided she was going to make a go of it and found a storefront in Hammond that used to be a pizzeria. She officially opened her brick-and-mortar store in 2016.

At first, she would cater for the film productions to pay the bills, but she wanted to branch out.

“I really wanted to do local. I really wanted to work in my community. I grew up in Maple Ridge. My sister and my family are here. My kids go to school here. So I really wanted to make a shift,” she said.

Now the chef works with SD42, City of Maple Ridge, in addition to catering weddings, barbecues, baby showers, and private parties.

And, she said, she is lucky to have a lot of family support.

“If I’m short a driver, if I need an extra hand, my mom will come, my dad will come, my husband. Once I had a big party and was short staffed and my aunties came into the kitchen to help me make tea sandwiches,” she noted.

Spencer-Fell’s enjoyment comes from taking old-fashioned recipes and updating them.

Fun party appetizers are one of her favourite foods to make. But, she also loves to smoke ribs and do a good pulled pork.

“A lot of the recipes I use are my great aunts and my grandma’s and we’re just bringing them back to life,” she said.

The opportunity to attend the Oscars gifting suite came when a friend who had attended the event before put her in touch with their publicist, who tried Spencer-Fell’s food and decided she would be a perfect fit.

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Spencer-Fell was told she had to bring 110 pieces of her product for celebrities to take with them.

After a couple of days of brainstorming, Spencer-Fell decided to make rosemary shortbread ahead of time, and then two other appetizers fresh for the event. She made a stuffed tomato with microgreens and hummus, and a goat cheese stuffed bake.

She ended up making a total of 420 shortbread cookies and 110 of each appetizer – and was the only one there with fresh product.

“And we were cleaned out, which was amazing,” she said.

They met: actor Kelvin Brown from TV shows Grey’s Anatomy, This Is Us, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine; Patrik Simpson from the show Gown and Out In Beverly Hills; Amber Martinez from WandaVision, Surfside Girls, Euphoria, and the movie Rough Night, Carolyn Hennesy from General Hospital, True Blood, NCIS, and Jessie; Michael Corbett with the TV show Extra, and Sai Suman, a celebrity fashion designer to the stars and influencer with 1.7 million followers.

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Now the local caterer has her eyes set on the Emmys in September – which she has already been invited to. And celebrities she met at the event – which she learned, included a lot of influencers – have already been in contact with her.

Spencer-Fell admits she was most nervous about being around so many people – not so much about deciding what to bring and hand out.

Once she figured out what she was going to make and how it was going to look, all her nerves went away.

“Once I have that, it’s just my love. It’s just food. It’s created already in my head,” she said.