Dinner With Jennifer Aniston
By Celia Barbour
Photo: François Halard
Between the spectacular view, the constant flow of friends, and the luscious, healthy, irresistible food served up by a sister act of brilliant chefs (grilled-tomato gazpacho! chili-rubbed chicken! spicy shrimp tostadas!), you couldn’t ask for a more crowd-pleasing experience than dinner at Jennifer Aniston’s house.
The hottest dining spot in Los Angeles as far as Jennifer Aniston is concerned has no sign out front, no mâitre d’ at the door, and doesn’t take reservations. The lax dress code means she can show up barefoot if she’s in the mood, and from its terrace she can sip a frozen margarita while taking in a breathtaking 180-degree view of the city, laid out like a sparkling magic carpet at her feet. Best of all is the clientele: On a typical day, anywhere from three to 30 people might stop by for cocktails or a meal—and they’re always just exactly who Jen wants to see, from her yoga teacher and publicist to her bevy of close friends.
Slideshow: See photos from Jennifer Aniston’s dinner party
“Jen’s house is a beacon,” says television producer Ellen Rakieten, one of the regulars at her table, who has arrived on this cool Monday evening, along with seven other friends, to share a meal, toast the chefs, and shake off the detritus of the day gone by. “You always know you’re going to have a great time, and you’re going to leave feeling better than when you came.”
As lively as her home is, Jen seldom entertains—at least not in the fussy-hostessy sense of the word. What occurs here feels closer in spirit to those spontaneous gatherings that used to crop up in that dorm room everybody was magnetically drawn to in college—only with a considerable uptick in sophistication and square footage. “Her friends are in and out all the time,” says Jewels Elmore, who, with her sister, Jill, shares a job as Jen’s private chef. “Jen’s a homebody. It’s been so much fun to create a place where everybody feels comfortable, like one big family.”
“Comfortable” is putting it modestly. Because while Jen’s friends might credit her with the house’s appeal—”She makes it a place where people want to come and hang out,” says Jennifer Meyer—Jen herself knows that the real secret to its buzz is the delicious nourishment of all kinds that emerges from the kitchen. “My friends love coming over because they get fed,” says Jen. “It’s the best restaurant in town.”
And indeed the food that’s being served this evening is not merely delicious, it actually seems to satisfy a body’s deepest, cellular-level craving for wholesome, fresh, pure ingredients. Take the tostadas, for instance: tangles of shredded raw kale and cabbage, cilantro, corn, black beans, and tomatoes served on crisp corn tortillas with grilled shrimp on top. Or the salad of mâche, cotija cheese, and avocado tossed with a dressing whose main ingredient is fresh Cara Cara orange juice.
Jen’s dinners weren’t always like this. The actress once saw her kitchen as little more than a place to store PowerBars and prepackaged Zone meals. Then, six years ago, along came Jewels, and the changes she brought with her are as clear as sunshine. Jen now describes her kitchen as “a sanctuary that has become the most important room in the house.” She loves to drop in as dinner is under way, hopping up onto the counter and sampling the various dishes as they come off the stove. “This kitchen is the best place to be,” says Jen, nibbling on a shrimp. These days, she fuels her body with ripe fruits and vegetables, cheese and yogurt, and, for the first time in her life, fish. “I used to hate fish,” she says, “but one day Jewels handed me this thing, and I tasted it.” Now she asks for Jewels’s salmon all the time. She’s also become a convert to Brussels sprouts. And, at 40, she’s never felt—or looked—better.
Ironically, the women who are largely responsible for this transformation never trained to be chefs. Jewels and Jill’s culinary education began in their childhood home in Arcadia, California, a place where food mattered a lot but caring for people they loved mattered even more. They recall piling into the family car in their nightgowns so their mother could drive a home-cooked meal to the studio where their father worked the late shift as a sound engineer. As teenagers the sisters found jobs with catering companies—”the school of hard knocks,” as Jewels puts it. “We worked for a lot of chefs who yelled and screamed and threw things.” She was the first of the pair to be employed as a private chef, and, one day, on location in Florida with her client, overwhelmed and tired and homesick, she reached a breaking point. In tears, she asked her boss if her sister could come out to help, and next thing she knew, Jill was there at the kitchen counter, chef’s knife in hand.
In the decade that followed, Jewels and Jill worked separately for a series of high-profile clients. Then, two years ago, Jill had a baby. Six months later, Jewels did, too. It seemed like a sign that they should work together again. Now they share the job of cooking for Jen and her circle, taking turns with the day-to-day work and doubling up for dinner parties.
In their spare time, they also teamed up to write a cookbook, The Family Chef, which was published earlier this year. “People used to always ask us, ‘What does Jen eat?’” says Jewels. “We’d reply: ‘Healthy, clean food…like we do!’ But they’d look at us blankly; they didn’t know what that meant. So we figured there’s a need for a cookbook like ours.”
While the recipes that fill the book’s pages are important to Jewels and Jill, for them cooking is as much about the people they feed as the food they create. “Being a family chef is about nurturing,” says Jill, “and being a part of a household.” And it explains why the talented duo has chosen the relative obscurity of cooking in a home over the power and celebrity that can come with running a restaurant kitchen.
“Cooking is such an intimate thing to do for someone,” says Jewels, who uses her intuition like a Geiger counter to pick up on her clients’ needs. “When you know the people you’re cooking for, you can see when they need a boost. There are days when Jen is so busy, she’ll put herself on the back burner. I can help her take care of herself.”
Over the past few years, the sisters have learned to read Jen’s friends just as accurately. Which explains why Jewels is eyeing the crowd like a Secret Service agent as the clear, amethyst-tinted dusk settles over Jen’s terrace. “You’re hungry!” she says to one guest. “You need to eat!” No arm-twisting required. The velvety guacamole disappears, and soon people are helping themselves to tostadas, chili-rubbed chicken, and mashed yams. Jen’s friends call the chefs to the table. Kristin Hahn, Jen’s partner in Echo Films, raises her glass to Jewels and Jill. “I want to thank you two,” she says, “for infusing your warmth into this food. It doesn’t just taste good; it tastes of love.”
Jill smiles as Jewels wipes a tear from her eye. “We’re so lucky we get to do this,” she says. “To cook for people we adore. It’s like Christmas every day.” She starts to head back toward the kitchen, then turns and delivers one last message to the table. “It’s just Mexican food,” she calls out. “And you love it, so eat it!”
You couldn’t ask for a more crowd-pleasing experience than dinner at Jennifer Aniston’s house, courtesy of chefs (and sisters!) Jewels and Jill Elmore.
Jennifer Aniston’s friends rave about the food made by her chefs, Jill and Jewels Elmore (standing). And the praise flows both ways. “It’s wonderful to cook for them,” says Jewels. “The are so open to fresh, beautiful food, and the care you take preparing it.”
Jen’s friends call the chefs to the table. Kristin Hahn, Jen’s partner in Echo Films, raises her glass to Jewels and Jill. “I want to thank you two,” she says, “for infusing your warmth into this food. It doesn’t just taste good; it tastes of love.”
“Jewels [left] and I have always wanted to work together,” says Jill. “We don’t compete; we inspire each other.”
Along Came…Tostadas
Kristin Hahn (left) and Ellen Rakieten (center) drop by regularly to recharge themselves with girl talk—and dishes like cavolo nero and cabbage tostadas.
Open Invitation
Good food has helped make Jen’s house a place where friends love to gather. “One of my favorite things is to create a happy environment for people,” says Jen, with (from left) Mandy Ingber, Jennifer Meyer, Courteney Cox, and Kristin Hahn.
Kitchen Confidential
The Elmores opened Jen’s eyes to the benefits of eating wholesome, real food—and to the pleasure of hanging out by the stove while it’s being prepared. “Jewels and Jill are like girlfriends,” says Jen. Adds Jewels, “We solve all our life problems in here.”
5 Delicious (Easy!) Ways to Stay Healthy from Jewels and Jill
To eat well, you have to make it easy to choose the right foods throughout the day. Here are a few tricks Jewels and Jill use to help clients, including Jennifer Aniston, stay on course.
1. Shop Smart
Seek out great sources for fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, and whole grains. Then make sure most of your weekly groceries consist of these things. Balanced eating starts with balanced shopping.
2. Master DIY Convenience
Wash vegetables and lettuce the moment you get them home. This makes it easier to prepare a fresh salad quickly or roast a few vegetables for a meal or to puree in a soup. Wash and cut up fruit such as melon or berries. Then store them front and center in the fridge in clear containers so they’re the first thing you reach for when you open the door. As Jewels says, “‘Convenience food’ to me means having tomatoes on the counter, rinsed and ready to eat, peaches sliced and frozen to put into smoothies.”
3. Seek Out Delicious
If you’re convinced you don’t like kale, or fish, or cauliflower, maybe the problem isn’t with the food but with how you’ve been preparing it. Jewels’s recipe for salmon marinated in lemon zest, shallot, and fennel turned Jen from a fish hater into a fan. Find at least one delicious recipe for a new healthful food each month, then perfect it.
4. Be Prepared
Memorize a handful of recipes for those ubiquitous ingredients that show up in even the remotest small-town deli, so you’ll have something good to eat no matter where you find yourself. Jewels says, “Even if you wind up in the middle of nowhere, you can always find something fresh, maybe just celery and parsley.” That’s why celery soup and parsley salad are staples of Jewels and Jill’s repertoire.
5. Forget Magic Bullets
Jen looks great because she’s conscientious and disciplined about caring for her body through yoga and good food. “She’s not skinny,” says Jewels. “She’s perfectly fit. You know all that good stuff you’re supposed to do for your body? She actually does it.”