Sandra Proteau

Sandra Ann Comeaux was born in 1943 and grew up happily as one of five children in Lafayette, Louisiana, the capital of Cajun country. She studied Home Economics at the University of Southwest Louisiana, and met her husband, Paul, on a blind date. (They reluctantly went out together after constant nagging from their two best friends). Sandy and Paul were married ten months later in 1966, and spent their honeymoon driving to Maryland where Paul was a graduate student in Microbiology. Three years later, Paul accepted a teaching position at Mount Vernon College in Washington, D.C. and they moved onto the campus where Sandra worked as a House Mother in one of the residences. A few years later, they relocated to Arlington, Virginia with their three daughters and their only son was born a few years after that, in 1975.

Her children remember home cooked meals and family dinners together. While there were many comfort food favorites, Sandy also looked for different and new flavorful recipes to try. Since everyone was usually busy with sports on the weekends, the family made sure to cook at least one big breakfast together; one person on eggs, another on bacon, one on pancakes, another on set-up and two people on clean-up. Their fondest memory is of the “mystery fruit” pancakes Sandy made on Sundays. Her children wouldn’t watch her cook and then had to guess what kind of fruit was in the batter.

Sandy was initially a stay-at-home mom, but then went on to sell real estate, work for a mortgage company, and eventually took a job as executive assistant to Don Beyer, a car dealer who ran for Governor of Virginia. When he was an awarded ambassadorship in 2009, Sandra and Paul moved to Bern, Switzerland for three years, enabling them to travel and dine in all the major capitals of Europe. Sandy and Paul are now retired and living in Delaware, where they continue to frequent local farmers’ markets and food stores, and test out new recipes while also remaining true to the old.