: D D TE E N H IZ IO IG R T R HO BU PY T I O U TR C T A IS O D N R FO
charlotte druckman
by
: D D TE E N H IZ IO IG R T R HO BU PY T I O U TR C T A IS O D N R FO
what to expect, a table of contents Introducing Skirt Steak XX What Is A Chef? XX
In spite of all the talk and study about our next years, and all the silent ponderings about what lies within them for our sons [Why only sons? Since I wrote this I have acquired two daughters, and they too shape the pattern’s pieces, and the texture of my belief!] it seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones that can be, must be changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces. - m . f. k. f isher , “ho w t o be s a ge w it hout hem l ock ,” 1942
inter lu d e th e f i r s t: What it Takes
An Education XX In The Man Cave XX An Embarrassment of Bitches XX Gingerbread Girls XX inter lu d e th e s e con d : Chefs, Know Your Limits
Owning It XX The Motherload XX
Shoulder to shoulder sweatin’ 110 degrees But I will never faint, I will never faint They laugh and they expect me to faint but I will never faint I refuse to lose, I refuse to fall down
-pa t t i s mit h, “piss f actor y ,” ©2004
Media Rare XX Proving Your Medal XX Searching for Anne Rosenzweig XX inter lu d e th e th i r d : Where No Woman Dares To Go
The Rebirth of Cool XX inter lu d e th e f ou r th : Magic Eight Balls Out, Ladies!
Back to the Future
XX
No opinion has been expressed, you may say, upon the comparative merits of the sexes even as writers. That was done purposely, because, even if the time had come for such a valuation—and it is far more important at the moment to know how much money women had and how many rooms they had to theorise about their capacities—even if the time had come I do not believe that gifts, whether of the mind or character, can be weighed like sugar and butter … All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are “sides” and it is necessary for one side to beat another side…
- vir g inia wool f
That’s original, introducing a book about women with a quote from Virginia Woolf. Just like you, Virginia knew a cliché when she saw one. If you read her thoughts above, then you know she was decrying a tired practice—comparing men to women—all those years ago, in 1928 when she drafted the two papers that would later be consolidated into A Room of One’s Own. People have been reading that treatise for decades; people have also continued to, when discussing the matter of women’s rights or gals’ roles in society, dwell on what differentiates the sexes and how those disparities might handicap one or the other (usually, the Other— as in, the ladies). That tendency has only served to single women out and delineates them as deserving of extra help. Being marked as “special needs” is no way to gain equal footing. For me, as for Woolf, all this—defining women in opposition to men or as exceptional (meaning, an exception to the rule)—has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. We can opine on women’s being prone to emotional outbursts, their nurturing qualities, and their ability to multi-task until the cows come home. Or, we could discuss men’s competitive nature, physical stamina and egotism ‘til we’re blue in the
: D D TE E N H IZ IO IG R T R HO BU PY T I O U TR C T A IS O D N R FO
introducing skirt steak
face. Better yet, since this is a book about the culinary world, we might get into that whole debate about male versus female cooking, and wonder if Hatshepsut’s dishes look and taste girlier than Gilligan’s. As my mom would say, let’s not and say we did. A conversation that might be worth entertaining (at least, I know my editor thinks it is—she told me it was a good idea to introduce myself early on so you’d warm to me) is the one wherein I explain why, with a world full of women fighting for equality, suffering countless injustices under oppressive regimes, struggling for opportunities, or merely deflecting the occasional chauvinist zinger, I narrowed my field of vision to chefs. The simple, flippant answer would be, because I’m selfish. The complicated answer, which you—and this book—deserve, starts with my citing another renowned British author Martin Amis. A few months ago, I stumbled on something he’d uttered in a 1998 interview. It unnerved me. “But it has to be said,” he began, “perhaps with some regret, that the first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone, most fully alive when alone. A tolerance for solitude isn’t anywhere near the full description of what really goes on. The most interesting things happen to you when you’re alone.” His is a rather dismal outlook; writers are isolated shut-ins whose only companions are our imaginations and drafting materials. Unwilling to accept this as my lot, I began looking at the writer’s life and solitary confinement from different perspectives. Amis dwells on the alone-ness of his trade. What he renders melancholy and dramatic is only the by-product of an extraordinary experience. I see it like this: What distinguishes a writer is that she is most alive when writing. Certain topics, themes or tangents have a stronger pull than others. I am most alive when writing about what moves me, and that would include one of the following: intelligent, thoughtful, creative souls who are passionate about what they do and express themselves through that medium; food, for example, the Fortunato No. 4 choco-
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It’s not hard to understand how, based on that list, the “plight” of women chefs would appeal. Gender aside, I love talking to chefs about what they do. I’ve found them less laconic than their reputations would lead us to expect. When you stumble on something that excites them—it could be an ingredient, something tasted in another country, or neighborhood, an idea for a new restaurant concept, an innovative technique, a breakthrough cookbook or a controversial review—you see the wheels turning, the gleam in the eye. What always translates is the zeal. If a writer lights up when stringing sentences together on a page, a chef comes to life when doing her job—or thinking about it. I find that contagious. It makes me want to write. And then we have the medium—the grub. Obviously, it’s a draw for anyone who gets off on the perfect bite, but there’s something bigger than that. Food has become a dominant presence in pop-culture. There are television shows devoted to cooking, to eating—there’s even an hour-long daily talk show on NBC called “The Chew,” hosted by chefs. Sure, this national “pastime” has its insipid manifestations (Gordon Ramsey’s “Hell’s Kitchen” comes to mind when I think of model abysses); it also allows for debates on health, economics, and politics. Food is the metaphorical spoonful of
sugar that helps the proverbial “medicine” go down.
: D D TE E N H IZ IO IG R T R HO BU PY T I O U TR C T A IS O D N R FO
late truffle I tasted yesterday (it’s made by Christopher Curtin of Eclat Chocolates in West Chester, Pennsylvania and features some strain of rare Peruvian cacao bean previously thought extinct; it is the supplest, most luscious, gentle yet intense burst of pure velvety ganache I have ever had) or a dish that New York City chef Anita Lo just told me she is serving at her restaurant Annisa for New Year’s Eve, “a salad of roasted kabocha, lascinato kale, a slow cooked egg and the Mangalitsa prosciutto” (Have you tried that cured pork product? You should); talented people who aren’t getting the recognition they deserve—or, in a word, underdogs; or, finally, anything that reeks of unfairness (as adolescent as that might sound).
As for the overlooked talent and, not so very different, the “unfairness” factor—what some might deem the “medicine” here—once zeroing in on chefs, I could have easily looked at race or sexuality instead of gender. Self-centeredness kicks in. I’m a girl. That’s how I’m going to relate; can’t help it. I assess the realm about which I write and I try to put myself in it, and when I do, I spot things that don’t add up.
Why, when we’re obsessed, as a culture, with chefs and their output, has that fixation landed on something decidedly male? It’s as though we have a blind spot. What I’ve discovered is that it’s not all that unusual for a woman to work in a galley kitchen, or—hold on to your hats—be in charge of one. This has not always been the case, and the gender ratio is still heavily weighted toward the penile, but if you think that being a professional cook is a gig reserved for guys, you’re living in the past, 1928, maybe. When Woolf championed each woman’s having a room of her own, the one room she wasn’t referring to was the kitchen. That was the only chamber of which ladies were already in command. But it was a puppet regime. Today’s chefs may joke about being chained to the stove. They merely co-opted the expression from the housewives who were expected to stay on the premises and fret over tasks like putting dinner on the table. That’s just what Woolf protested. She was concerned with her sex’s lack of access to money, and—related—opportunity to engage in intellectual pursuits. She might be a little flummoxed then, to find I’ve borrowed her words for a book on women who cook. I’d like to think though, that if she realized this too is a dialogue about having a room of one’s own, she’d be cool with it. The physical context has changed—we’ve left the residen-
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We needn’t waste our time bemoaning our (bosomed) troubles, fielding the question “Why are there no women chefs?” or defending our culinary chops. Instead, let’s begin with a simple premise: Female chefs are a norm. Being a woman shouldn’t be a novelty; it should just be what it is. Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez Sometimes I get angry at women’s organizations like Women Chefs and Restaurateurs and Women’s This, and Women’s That—not angry, but I don’t relate. I don’t look at myself as being special ... There’s been too many conversations about that. It’s done. It’s like, we’re over that now, let’s move on.” -Ana Sortun Yes Ana, let’s. First order of business, figure out which are the questions typically posited to the gals of the galley, skip them, and then raise the ones that aren’t asked. For starters, if, in the past, investigations have sought to discover why women leave the industry. I’d suggest we find out how to stay and thrive in it. Next, instead of presenting individual characters, my strategy was to weave their experiences together and examine the stages of and influences on a chef’s career. To that end, I’ve tried, on these pages, to create a community of people who have two things in common—their profession and their gender. Which of those makes them more alike? That, reader, is yours to decide.
: D D TE E N H IZ IO IG R T R HO BU PY T I O U TR C T A IS O D N R FO
tial domain for the grittier workplace, and traded the family’s Sunday roast for the evening rush of restaurant dinner service; the message has not.
Maybe you’ll frown upon what follows as another “Women’s This” or “Women’s That” production. So be it. I would argue that it’s always better to try and fail than to accept the status quo—methodological or otherwise. I’d like to think that’s what compelled the women who were skeptical about signing up for this project to take the plunge. Anita Lo (she’s the one who ushered in 2012 with kabocha squash), who was one of my initial inspirations, expressed as much. “Some female chefs,” she acknowledged, “feel that participating in stories like this one adds to the problem by underlining the gender difference, by further marginalizing the group—that we can’t be just be another chef if we’re constantly defining ourselves as female chefs. I would agree if I felt we were closer to achieving equality. If you agree that gender is a social construction, then the walls can only be brought down by all of us—by all of us questioning how we add to the problem, by continuing the dialogue.” I’m not sure how much I can do to continue the dialogue beyond these pages. For now, though, I’ve got twelve chapters, seventy-three trusted cohorts enlisted for the cause, and a laptop of my own. 1. What Is a Chef? “Somebody who cooks professionally with a reasonable amount of responsibility, I consider a chef.” -Seen Lippert “It’s a title that comes through time and through evolving. It’s not something that happens overnight, or just because somebody gave somebody a job doesn’t mean they’re actually a chef … it’s through actions … it’s a term that in the beginning was a sign of authority and respect … and it’s a term that has become thrown like a pair of dice in Vegas.” -Mindy Segal
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“To me, it means a manager, and that’s how I think of it … We’re cooks and we manage people. If that makes you a chef, then it makes you a chef. It’s not an award or an experience. It’s so misused, that for me, I just like to break it down to its most basic definition which means person in charge, managing. That’s all it means in French, “chief.” It doesn’t mean you’re on the Food Network or whatever else people think it means … It drives me crazy when everyone in the kitchen calls everyone chef. If we were all chefs, nothing good would get done.” -Claudia Fleming “The true definition of chef, it comes from ‘chief.’ You have cooks; you have a brigade; you have people under you that you supervise and you’re in charge of … it’s a representation of, you’ve paid your dues, and you’ve been beat up, and you’ve done the grunt work, and you’ve done everything, and you’ve gotten to a place through an immense amount of hard work and perseverance for someone to entrust you and you to be the boss and call the shots, and, as well, to have creatively proven yourself in the dishes and the food you put out. The term chef, it’s not at all what it used to be; kitchens aren’t at all what they used to be, which somewhat breaks my heart a little bit. But, I meet all these kids and interns and stuff, and people who come straight out of culinary school and they’re like, ‘I’m a pastry chef’, ‘I’m a chef,’ and it’s like, ‘No, you’re far from a chef.’ The title chef is something very honorable, and it’s something to be earned, and that title I have the utmost respect for.” - Waylynn Lucas
: D D TE E N H IZ IO IG R T R HO BU PY T I O U TR C T A IS O D N R FO
“Now everybody’s a chef and there’s very little that qualifies you ... People make dinner at home and call themselves a chef ... I’d like to call myself a plumber, personally. But, until I get licensed, that’s not really going to be a winner.” -Patti Jackson
“Certainly, I think of a chef as a leader, right? The chef is the person that drives the ship and, it’s not a term that I give out loosely, meaning that, just because you are the head person in the kitchen, doesn’t mean you’re necessarily a chef, so I mean that with utmost praise. And I know for myself that it was so hard for me to accept the role of being a Pastry Chef at Spago that I felt so unready; I felt like an impostor. So, when people would ask ‘What is your title?’ at Spago, I would just always say, ‘I do the pastries there.’ And I never felt comfortable ‘cause I never really felt that I deserved that title … It’s someone that commands respect. It’s someone that the crew needs to look towards for leadership and that’s not true in every kitchen … I wasn’t versed enough … I could make things taste good but, technically, I didn’t have enough of those skills that allowed me to accept that as a title … I hold a high standard for those terms. With Matt, who leads the whole Mozza complex … he’s 30 years old … and yet, to watch him and to watch him with the staff, and to observe him as he understands the whole experience of running a restaurant, from the diner’s perspective to how to work with the front of the house, and also to command the respect and understand how to be able to get so many people to cook your food, that’s a really hard task. I would definitely call him the Chef of Mozza; he is a chef … but I don’t think in every restaurant there is one.” -Nancy Silverton “I agree with the French standard, where the chef is the expert. The chef is in charge. Where the definition has changed over the years is that it’s not necessarily formal training that puts you in the category of chef any longer. So, I consider myself a chef even though I wasn’t formally trained in cooking.” -Johanne Killeen “I have a very narrow definition of that ... I don’t think that anyone who
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