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Chillin' wit' Joanne Hudson: $11,000 coffee, anyone?

Kitchen-design maven mixes business and pleasure on Sundays.

JOANNE HUDSON, like most successful business owners, is workin' when she should be chillin'.

"You know what? We're busy," Philly's kitchen-design queen says yesterday morning, holding a black Sharpie and wearing her signature round glasses as she hovers over a floor plan for a California couple's Rehoboth Beach kitchen.

Of course, being busy is a good thing, especially after a nasty recession. You don't call Hudson when money's tight. But, she admits a few minutes later, "I'm not totally liking having to do this."

Hudson, who has designed high-end personal kitchens for professional athletes, billionaires and big-name restaurateurs like Georges Perrier, has an extensive showroom inside the Marketplace Design Center, on Market Street near the Schuylkill.

But FaceTime and other modern communication technology enable her to work with clients all over the world. Florida, Bermuda, Canada, Nigeria. "I don't know how one did without it," she says at the design center.

Most people have to do without a Hudson-designed kitchen, but if you have some money to throw around, she has the goods. Like, a $48,000 French stove, $300-per-square-foot mosaic tiles and an $11,000 coffee machine that apparently makes a pretty good cup of joe.

"It functions from your iPhone or iPad, which is really quite crazy. It does anything," Hudson says of the coffeemaker.

After knocking out some Sunday-morning work, Hudson plans to head back to her neighborhood in Radnor to relax with her grandchildren at a block party.

Next weekend, she'll be at her cottage on the shore of Lake Ontario in her native Canada, where she has dual citizenship. Maybe sipping a Pinot Noir from Adelsheim Vineyard with her husband or entertaining friends and family.

Their home has room for 18 people to sleep - without having to resort to sofas. So befriending Hudson wouldn't be the worst decision you ever made.

We also hear she has a very nice kitchen.

- William Bender