A conversation with Horst leaves anyone who is really listening with the happy revelation that one, she loves her dogs; and two, she loves her work.

Horst, 37, grew up in Los Gatos, graduated from Los Gatos High School in 1983 and, after some European travels, decided to attend the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Her first job under a French chef at San Francisco's La Folie restaurant resulted in the chef recommending her for a cherished apprenticeship in Lyon, France.

"They put the American girl in a corner with the potatoes for six months," Horst says, laughing. While she says this form of "prison" made her a mean potato peeler, it also gave her perspective. "I didn't get much cooking in, but I learned that, to the French, cooking is a craft and the art of making people happy." She couldn't help comparing that with the influences of her growing years: "As an American, you grow up almost chasing the dollar."

She came home intellectually stimulated and with a confirmed philosophy. "Like any art form, cooking requires that you feel it and are passionate about it in order to be successful," she says.

"Especially when you spend up to 17 hours a day at it," she adds, "you really need to love the business."

For the next 10 years, she worked with Libby Brost as the executive chef at her Matter of Taste restaurant on Main Street in Los Gatos. The position was supposed to be temporary until Horst could start her own restaurant. "It's a great, stable business," she says of her decade with Brost, comparing the staff—from dishwasher to chef—to a football team. She says maintaining a spirit is important to the result.

Horst made a "friendly departure" three months ago, feeling the pressures of her age and of her ambition to be in her own business. "The phone just started ringing," she explains, "and it evolved into Esfio."

Working out of the homes of her customers or from the Three in One Co-Op Kitchen in downtown Los Gatos, Horst can handle banquets for hundreds of guests, but she also does weekly family dinners. Costs vary according to menu selections but start with a rate of $135 per hour.

Horst starts every weekday in the co-op kitchen, preparing lunch that she then delivers to an electric company in Redwood City. "Today they had grilled Provençal lamb chops," she says. The rest of her day is partly devoted to preparing for banquets or parties, using time in the kitchen that has been scheduled around other chefs, or putting together meals in the homes of her customers. Besides the food preparation, she also will do party decoration, creating an atmosphere to enhance the meal. "I picked up a lot from Libby," she says of her former employer, who also runs a home accessories shop next to her restaurant.

Horst recently prepared a Christmas Eve dinner for 20 in Los Gatos that featured some creations of her own. There were hors d'oeuvres of potato parsnip latkes (little pancakes) and duck confit in filo pastry cups topped with cranberry black pepper chutney. Next was a classic Caesar salad, followed by roulade of beef filet rolled and stuffed with caramelized onions and sauteed baby spinach—accompanied by canbazola potatoes au gratin (blue vein cheese mixed with cream and rosemary, salt and pepper) and garlic-roasted broccoli. It was a seven-hour masterpiece, leaving her time to fly to San Diego to be with her family for Christmas.

For more information about Esfio, call 408.859.4628.