Lorraine Pascale

Lorraine Pascale (born 17 November 1972) is a British former model, cook, and pâtissière. She has authored best selling cookery books, presented two television series and has opened her own retail outlet in London selling baked goods.

Family

Pascale was born on 17 November 1972 to West Indian (Caribbean) parents but she was adopted at 18 months old and brought up in Oxfordshire by a white descendant family. When her adoptive parents divorced when she was three years old, Pascale remained with her mother, who subsequently became ill. At this point, at age 7, she was fostered to more than one family, with differing degrees of "fit". Eventually she returned to her mother. She won a full Scholarship given by the Buttle Trust and so was educated at a boarding school in Devon.^[1]

Pascale has an elder adoptive brother and a half-sister (that is, her adoptive father had a daughter after the divorce). She is aware of her biological parents' identity and their four other children, but she does not wish to re-establish contact.^[1]

She married in her "early twenties" and the couple had a daughter. The couple subsequently divorced.^[1]

Career

Pascale was spotted, at then 16, as a potential model by the same agent who had found Naomi Campbell.^[2] Based in New York, she achieved recognition as the first black British model to appear on the cover of American Elle.^[3] She appeared in the 1998 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.^[4]

Despite her success, Pascale recognised the need to ensure her future after modelling and embarked on a series of career "try-outs", including hypnotherapy and car mechanics. She took a diploma cookery course at the Leiths School of Food and Wine 2005 and finally found that cookery fitted her "like a pair of old jeans". After gaining her diploma, she did a series of 'stages' in some London restaurants but, realising that restaurant hours would not suit her, Pascale established herself as a specialist cakemaker, with an exclusive contract with Selfridges. Her introduction to Selfridges was at the suggestion of noted chef Marco Pierre White and in 2008 and 2010 she supplied the London store with over 1000 Christmas cakes. She has opened her own shop, Ella's Bakehouse, in Covent Garden. She also studied at Thames Valley University in Culinary Arts and is hoping to finish her dissertation later in 2011.^[3][5]

In January 2011 Pascale presented her own television bakery programme, Baking Made Easy, on BBC television^[3] and published a bakery book based upon this series; this has been followed by a general cookery programme Home Cooking Made Easy in September and October 2011, with a second book based on the series. Also a Last Minute Christmas programme on BBC in December 2011.

References

External links

• Supermodel Superchef in Vogue
• Ella's Bakehouse