BE A REBEL

An interview with Chef Pilar Valdes about her experience becoming an entrepreneur

by Gaby Fernandez

How did you know you wanted to be part of the culinary industry?

That’s a really good question… I don’t think I actually ever quite knew. I was always a really good eater, ever since I was small. I love food and it brings me so much joy. But I don’t think I had really, truly considered cooking as a profession until much later in my life. I actually worked for 10 years, in a nonprofit, working with young people doing political education, collective media making… pre cell phones. I started cooking for my friends…as dinners for six people morphed into barbecues for 40. And I was doing it so much that I couldn’t afford to keep doing it. My friend was like, “Yo, you need to stop feeding us for free. Have you considered doing something in culinary?” At that point, I was probably 28 or 29. I felt a little too old to go back to school. I think culinary school offers a lot of really great things. But it’s also really expensive. I didn’t feel comfortable at that point in my life paying that much to go to school. And I was like, I’m not sure which way to go. I love food but, l didn’t feel valid. Cooking for years for friends and studying and trying to learn how to cook on my own, I was always second guessing it. However, a friend of mine reached out to me, and he was like, “hey, you know, a friend is having a baby shower, would you cater it?“ he was like, “Dude, it’s totally fine. It’s only 25 people. You have more people in your house on a regular basis, don’t sweat it, it’s going to be great.” So I gave in and did the catering for the event. People were coming up to me …asking me for my business card. I was like, “I don’t have a business card.” And they were like, “You don’t do culinary?” And I was like, “No, not really. I just do it on the side.” And they’re like, “Maybe you should consider it.” From that day I went home, I called one of my good friends that was also working in nonprofits who I knew wanted to of make the shift out of that field, and then said, “Hey, would you think about trying to start a company together? Would you cook with me? She was very much like me: we were always cooking, researching, eating, testing recipes, and doing all these things. We started very, very much in earnest. I started cooking out of my home; we did a lunch delivery service. We ran it like a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where you partner with farmers and buy a share for their future season to ensure that they have customers, and then you get access to great vegetables. We used that model to do a lunch delivery service and customers would sign up, and they would pre pay us, let’s say for 15 lunches, and we would make farmers market meals, and deliver them twice a week. This was also before Uber Eats and Seamless and all that stuff. She and I would literally be on the subway, carrying bags and criss-crossing like crazy ladies in the city. Our conversations were like “how many clients can we take on and how many boxes can we carry?”. I do not recommend it. But you know, we were just learning and playing with the idea. And then we got into an incubator program at this place called Hot Bread Kitchen. They supported predominantly women and immigrant-owned small food businesses. That was a game changer for us, because all of a sudden, we were cooking in a commercial kitchen. We had access to industrialsized stoves and ovens, and we got our food handlers license. The Department of Health would come for surpise visits. All of a sudden, we went from a very casual thing in our houses to something that was very formal, and started me on my more formal path. I ran that company basically as a catering company… for seven or eight years. Then I made the switch to becoming a private chef. Now, I’m in this interesting mix, because I do a little bit of private cheffing, I do recipe development, and then I’m the senior culinary contributor on The Drew Barrymore Show. But if you asked me 10 years ago, if I ever saw myself doing that stuff… It’s been a sort of very interesting, different ride. [It’s] completely unexpected.

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that experience with me. What was it like publishing The Rebel Homemaker with Drew Barrymore?

It was an incredible experience, because Drew is someone I grew up watching on television. To be looped into that universe and have the opportunity to work iwth this book has been really tremendous. It’s undeniable that [Drew] has a certain star power and certain things that she’s able to harness in the world; it really is phenomenal to watch. But at the same time, she really wanted to keep the book very personal and very intimate. It’s a really sweet book.

Totally. I have recently seen the recipe book and I truly love it. It’s so very comforting and warming, just an incredible book. Are there any other cookbooks that inspired its development?

Drew and I poured over lots of cookbooks together for research: Where Cooking Begins by Carla Lalli Music; Solo by Anita Lo; Senegal by Pierre Thiam and Jennifer Sit; L.A. Son by Tien Nguyen, Natasha Phan, and Roy Choi; My Mexico City Kitchen by Gabriela Cámara and Malena Watrous; The Flavor Bible by Karen A. Page, Andrew Dornenburg, and lots of books by Jamie Oliver and Ina Garten.

So what is the most difficult part of your job as an entrepreneur?

That’s a good one. You never feel like you have enough time. I am essentially like a freelance chef. I work on the show, I am a private chef here and there, I do a little catering, so there’s a lot of hats that I end up having to wear. Everyone always asks me “Do you still cook on your days off?” Absolutely, and it’s really something that gives me joy. That being said, you’re always feeling like you’re being pulled in so many different directions, and I think sometimes you start harping on yourself, you start beating up on yourself. Try and be more gentle on yourself; it is definitely a challenge to be more understanding. To say, “Yes, there are all these priorities, you know, and just because you didn’t tick off every single thing on that list, that doesn’t make you a failure.” You just need to be realistic, because there’s so many things that you have to juggle when you’re an entrepreneur.

How do you cope with the stress?

I take a couple of deep breaths. I like to write things out. I have a little notebook and write down the task. Re-center. Sometimes I just need to stop everything I’m doing and take a walk with my husband, even if it’s five minutes just to reset and re-ground. Definitely. That is all very good advice. Has becoming an entrepreneur changed who you were before your journey or after your journey?

That’s a good question. I wasn’t out there to be an entrepreneur, you know? I hadn’t planned it that way. For me, it was really about considering opportunities as they came up, and then doing a gut check. Before I started down this entrepreneurial path, I was safe, more cautious. [ I wanted] regularity and stability. And being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean I’m reckless in any way, but, it’s more about finding the spaces to say yes. Take a little bit of risk and know that being nervous about something or being scared about something is completely part of the process. Embrace that fully. “Where’s the opportunity? How can I say yes?” It’s also completely okay to fail at something and I think we don’t talk about that enough. I feel like the kitchen is a microcosm for life at large. You come up with an idea. You try and test it out. And a lot of times that recipe failed and then it’s how you respond to that failure. What’s my sense of curiosity? Why did that not work? How can I tweak it? Then have a little bit of tenacity to keep trying and working it. I feel like we, as a society, sometimes don’t really talk about the failure aspect when you see someone succeeding How is your catering business going?

It was going really great. And then the pandemic hit. And I really put that on pause … mostly because there weren’t any events going on in New York for at least the first year and a half… I put my blood, sweat, and tears into starting that company and doing all these crazy events all around New York City, and then the pandemic happens. It was a really nerve wracking time because … that’s my livelihood, right? I need to earn money somehow… I remembered being very nervous, very afraid, very unsure about how to move forward. And then, you know, realizing that working one-on-one with certain clients I was filling in [the gaps], and then I was able to be on the show for Drew Barrymore. That opened a whole different set of opportunities... So the catering right now is on hold. I’m still trying to figure out how to kind of start it up again. So what is your go-to fast food restaurant?

Jollibee, because I’m Filipino. I grew up eating that stuff. It’s it’s so, so good. They have fried chicken that I love. They also have Filipino party-style spaghetti, I think it has hot dogs in it, with a very sweet sauce. Those are the flavors of my childhood.

Yeah, it’s great that you can find a fast food place where you could find comfort. Is there anything else you want to touch on?

Leaning in on your community is so important. I think sometimes when we think of the word “entrepreneur”, it feels so individualized. At least, that hasn’t been my experience. Really, lean on your community and find people that will be in your corner, because ultimately your success is never your own. There’s always people involved somehow and to embrace that…I think it’s so much healthier. It’s so much stronger. And I feel like itis so much more successful that way.

You can follow Chef Pilar at @chefpilarvaldes @kickshawcookery

Pilar Valdes is a private celebrity chef (including for the Drew Barrymore Show) and owner of Kickshaw Cookery, a New York City-based catering company. She is from tropical Manila, Philippines. Valdes graduated with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. Instead of attending culinary school, she pushed through and learned from the culinary industry through restaurants and influencers. Chef Pilar and Drew Barrymore co-wrote a cookbook called Rebel Homemaker, which was published in 2021.