North Louisiana has produced some of the best and brightest talent the world has to offer, and nothing is more exciting than when one of our own comes back home to build a life and share their gifts.

Chef Holly Moore Schreiber, culinary director and owner of Sainte Terre in Benton, is one of those stars.

After graduating from TCU and the French Culinary Institute in New York City, Schreiber spent years working in culinary media and production. She worked on-set for Bravo TV Network and helped develop cookbooks and recipes for “The Katie Brown Workshop,” “Country Living Magazine,” Master Chef Alain Ducasse and Emmy-winning Executive Producer Lauren Deen.

Schreiber has since returned home and opened her own event place, Sainte Terre.

The Sainte Terre property is comprised of several spaces, including a farmhouse, a chapel and a terrace, and sumptuous grounds for outdoor events. Special events open to the public by reservation have included a Friends and Lovers Valentine Dinner and a Drink the Harvest Cocktail Completion.

“At Sainte Terre, we believe that there are some things that never go out of fashion,” Schreiber said. “Friends sharing warm conversation around a good meal, families celebrating the union of hearts. We believe that creating and orchestrating life’s special moments is an art.”

Schreiber grew up in Benton and had no idea she’d find a career in the culinary arts. “I loved cooking, but I never realized that I could actually make money doing that,” she said. “My first three years of college, I studied interior design. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t ‘that thing.’” “I was actually paying my way through school cooking for people,” Schreiber said. “Catering stuff on campus. My junior year in college the light bulb went off, and I said, ‘What am I doing? I’m already making money doing this. I love doing this. It doesn’t even feel like I’m working.’ So I switched gears and wound up doing nutrition and dietetics just so I could graduate.”

After college, Schreiber enrolled in the French Culinary Institute, where she worked with some of the greatest culinary minds in the industry, such as Chef Alain Sailhac.

“Sailhac was one of the greatest French chefs ever to grace the U.S. shores,” Schreiber said. He was at Le Cirque and the 21 Club. He was kind of my first mentor. The restaurants on his resume’ were so high-end, but he’s just so approachable. He had had amazing success, and he had such focus. We’d sit in his office or go to lunch. I think that’s what inspired me going down the road.”

Another influences at that time was Dan Barber, chef and coowner of Blue Hill in Manhattan and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. “Barber spearheaded the whole farm-totable movement,” Schreiber said. “He has a beautiful restaurant surrounded by a farm where he grows his own produce and raises his own animals. He has worked with other farmers and agriculture centers to grow vitamin-packed, nutrient-dense heirloom varieties that had been lost.”

Schreiber graduated from FCI and went on to work on cookbooks. “In fact, Alain Sailhac’s cookbook was one of the first I worked on,” she said. “I was so French heavy at the time because that was my background. He had done a cookbook with a lady named Sophie, who is the French version of Martha Stuart. They had done this book together to make cooking more accessible to the home cook and to make high-end cooking accessible. Not only did we have to translate that from French, we had to translate methods to an American audience.”

Schreiber stayed in New York and continued to work in food media. “I did recipe testing, recipe development and food styling,” she explained. I got to work with so many different chefs. I grew to love cookbooks because they are for chefs what albums are for musicians.”

“The most unusual cookbook I ever worked on was for Coolio the rapper,” Schreiber said. “That was interesting because it was the first cookbook I ever worked on that had explicit language.”

“I also worked on a cookbook once that was the chef version of ‘last meals.’ All these wonderful chefs got to imagine and develop what their last meals would be. I’d personally have to have some oysters in there, and some foie gras. I’d want some very good Neapolitan pizza, and of course, some excellent bread with great butter.”

The most unusual food Schreiber has ever tried to prepare was duck testicles. “They had been a specialty on a menu at a restaurant we went to in New York, and we were working through trying to re-create that recipe for something else,” she said. “They were fried, and they didn’t really taste like anything but the breading.”

Now, Schreiber tries to encourage beginners to jump into cooking. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “The simplest ways of cooking are often the best. In fact, food trends now are focusing on the importance of the ingredients – knowing where they come from or who has raised them, even if it’s not your local farmer. “ Fusion cooking that combines elements from different cultures and culinary traditions is a style that Schreiber currently finds exciting. “It’s a little mix of everything these days,” she said. “The nice thing about where I am now at Sainte Terre is that I get to do something different every week.”

Sainte Terre is becoming one of the most popular wedding venues in North Louisiana. “We also do wine dinners and cocktail dinners there,” Schreiber said. “We do pairings and classes on top of that, but our main thing is weddings. That’s been fun for me because we customize everything. My husband does the bar and the front of the house. My sister does the event design side of it.”

Schreiber customizes a menu for each wedding. “I meet with the bride and groom and try to do something and plan a menu that is reflective of them,” she said. “One week we might be doing a whole bunch of Louisiana southern, but coming up soon we’re going to be doing a whole traditional Vietnamese menu. The whole family is coming over from Vietnam.”

That’s where Schreiber’s work at Sainte Terre is coming full circle. “That goes all the way back to my upbringing,” she said, “that same family feeling of sitting together and eating. It’s the ritual of food and life. It’s meaningful to me too so we try to recreate that with our weddings.”

The other unusual niche Sainte Terre is filling is good wine and food pairings. “My go-to person for wine selection is a sommelier from Alexandria, and she gets it,” Schreiber said. “We meet people who know a lot about wine. On the restaurant side, when you have amazing food but you don’t have the wine to match that, it really takes something away from the experience.”

Tours are available. Sainte Terre is located at 190 Nickel Lane in Benton. For more information, visit the Web site at www. sainteterre.com, or contact Schreiber at [email protected] or 936-9544.

– Susan Reeks