Inside Jacques Pépin's Charming Connecticut Home Where He Cooks — and Paints!

• Jacques Pepin photoghed at home in Madison Ct , on August 26th 2022
• Jacque Pepin rollout
• His Wife’s Ultimatum
• Beyond the Kitchen
• Jacques Pepin photoghed at home in Madison Ct , on August 26th 2022
• His Whimsical Work
• Nostalgic Details
• His Passions in Print

Jacques Pepin photoghed at home in Madison Ct , on August 26th 2022

French chef Jacques Pépin gives PEOPLE a tour of the Madison, Conn. home he shared with his late wife Gloria since 1976
Read the original article on People

Jacque Pepin rollout

Since the start of the pandemic, Jacques Pépin has shot nearly 300 of his low-budget cooking tutorials for 1.6 million Facebook followers from his Connecticut home.

In the kitchen where he primarily films, walls are lined with tiles hand-painted by Pépin, 86. Bookshelves are filled with binders of illustrated menus he’s dictated for a lifetime of dinner parties. Hallways feature framed photographs, like a black-and-white picture of his late wife skydiving.

His Wife’s Ultimatum

The house, which is a former brick factory from the 1920s, has been expanded over the years to accommodate his fame.

“At some time my wife said, ‘If there are more people coming in this house for interviews, I’m out of here,’ so we built that studio over there,” he says, gesturing to a structure on his four-acre property that contains a second kitchen. “It cost $300,000 to redo that in the house that we paid $21,000 for 50 years ago.”

Since Gloria’s death in 2020, Pépin’s poodle Gaston keeps him company in the home.

Beyond the Kitchen

Pepin’s art studio is just upstairs from the kitchen where he films his tutorials.

His originals, starting at $1,000 and selling for upwards of $30,000, partially benefit his Jacques Pépin Foundation, which offers free culinary classes to individuals facing employment barriers like homelessness or criminal records.

Jacques Pepin photoghed at home in Madison Ct , on August 26th 2022

The chef has been painting for more than 50 years, but it was only five years ago that he stopped “giving all the paintings away” and started selling them on jacquespepinart.com to raise money for his foundation. “He was surprised that they’d be so well-received,” says his longtime photographer and friend Tom Hopkins.

His Whimsical Work

“I use basically only acrylics. But I dilute them with a lot of water. Sometimes I use a sponge, so it’s like a watercolor,” Pépin says. “I don’t try to validate what I do. At some point the painting takes hold of myself, and I move in that direction. I put a shape here or a color because it just feels right.”

The chef has painted flowers and abstracts but always comes back to the chicken.

Nostalgic Details

The bird-themed paintings inside his Connecticut home and a large chicken sculpture in his yard are reminders of Pépin’s early childhood.

The chef was born in Bourg-en-Bresse, France, a town also home to Bresse chickens. “Bresse chickens are very well known in France and are considered one of the best quality chickens,” he says. “When I think about being a little kid in the country, I always remember the sound and the name of the chicken.”

His Passions in Print

His newest book, Art of the Chicken, out now, combines his two creative outlets. In addition to stories of his life and basic recipes, like roast chicken with winter vegetables, the book is filled with colorful fowl-themed artwork in his signature style.

“I am aiming at contenting the palate with my recipes and the eyes with my paintings,” writes Pépin.