It all started with this train of pompous, overbearing thought-
"My dislike for people posting food in facebook to show off their culinary affluence is capable of enlarging into misanthropy toward the whole mankind."
You see, I made a blog about this. I was ranting. Everybody seemed to either hate me or love me for it. I received numerous comments. Some were bad, others kind, some were apathetic.
Except for one person.
This person actually took the time to read my blog and in all compassion had this to say-
“Hi, Von. I read this last night and did not know it would have a great impact on me. I guess you write really well that your angst amazingly struck me in a myriad of profound ways. Food is my passion and your writing affirmed my respect and appreciation of food, how much work goes through with it from the farm, sea, wherever 'til it gets to the table, if indeed it reaches a table. You have now strengthened my resolve as well to share this love for food to as much people as I can, to those who see food simply as a means of survival, and even to those whom you say normally spend 2000 pesos for lunch at Spiral Restaurant. . . A piece of fruit may have caused the first sin but bread and wine paved the way for redemption. Oh gosh! I am really obsessed with food.”
Finally, somebody I didn’t turn off with my vehement and sometimes over critical nature. Somebody who understood me ranting like the average person- minus the overextended verbiage. She said my angst had evoked her frustrations and inspired her not to give in to despair. She also told me that finding someone with a strong passion or emotion for food sparked her interest. I thought to myself- “I did all that?” Truth be told, I was really gunning for condescension and displaying my self-deprecating humor. I guess I hit a super sensitive bone.
In that other part of the world, we’ll find Gee Dela Cueva carrying heavy pots and pans on one hand and a crate of milk on the other while simultaneously dragging a sack of fruit with her right foot and scrubbing the sauce-spilled vinyl kitchen floor with her left one. She’s been working ten hours straight. She’s running out of the kitchen, slicing, deboning, shucking those poor oysters, probably dropping trays, serving Carpaccio, going back to the kitchen, totally confused why she’s back there in the first place. (Kind of like how dogs live their lives. Dog goes inside a room and probably thinks- “Okay I’m not sure why I entered this room, but I just did I’m not sure why but I think I’ll go out now.”) Drops of sweat have formed on all sides of her temple and armpits, each drop going through a cycle of formation and evaporation from all the heavy workload she has endured throughout the day. A desiccated look on her face could be seen as she wipes these forms of moisture at different portions of her unforgiving day. No time for play and with no time for love, she admits she does not know where a family could fit in with her unforgiving schedule. And caught at a time where she feels her age is catching up when most chef wannabes start out their careers at an early part of their lives, this now 32 year old chef for a 1-hat restaurant in Sydney called Pendolino, only has this to say-
“One of my frustrations is finding people who are in culinary school without genuine interest for the profession. A bunch are just some spoiled brats with parents having lots of money while another group are those studying here just to try their luck at becoming permanent residents. Other people I want to strangle-- those who waste food! I hate them.”
Ouch. I once threw a 4 pound watermelon from The Regency suites’ rooftop in my attempts to simulate a suicide. Sorry.
It was a tough time for her coming to Australia to pursue her passion but she has no regrets. In fact I’m sure while writing this, we’ll find her scrubbing floors and bench tops, singing to the tune of Annie’s “It’s a hard knock life” while cleaning. She claims that food and cooking makes her heart beat and that it’s something that she’s willing to catch a grenade for. Okaaay. She’ll make a good kamikaze pilot or a recruit for Al Qaeda just in case things don’t go as planned.
Anyway, I suddenly felt this need to connect with this person, not just because of how she openly sings about her love for food, but because she threw everything away just to pursue what she loves most- food and cooking. I just had to reaffirm her already burning passion so I replied to her almost instantly:
“Giselle, a few months back I found myself in the throes of bankruptcy. In my state of economic collapse I recently reached out to a new co-worker about how I wanted to get rich so bad and surprisingly got the best advice I've had in years. He told me that we should not chase our goals but our passions. Thank you Mr.Ben Alegre. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that it doesn't matter if we pursue our passions at the age of 22 or 65 as long as we experience the feeling of accomplishing our higher goals and values. I'm so proud of you for wholeheartedly committing to your passion and even describing it as something you're willing to catch a grenade for. But wouldn't it be better if someone, like a supportive boyfriend, a companion or a husband perhaps would catch you? At the end of the day I guess our passions won't matter as much if we have no one to share it with. Nothing in this life is too late. You of all people know this. I see you becoming a great chef, returning back here in the Philippines married to your handsome souse chef, repaying your country by creating culinary schools with scholarships, becoming a celebrity chef with your own TV show entitled GEE! THE COOKING MUSICAL. Hah!
Hey I'm planning to write an article in your behalf if you don't mind. Just in case you become more successful with your endeavors, I wanted to be the first one to interview the great chef that you will become if not already are.
Can I do this? Please? It's another one of my passions. It will surely help advance my non-existent blogging career.”
Hey I'm planning to write an article in your behalf if you don't mind. Just in case you become more successful with your endeavors, I wanted to be the first one to interview the great chef that you will become if not already are.
Can I do this? Please? It's another one of my passions. It will surely help advance my non-existent blogging career.”
Conspired by our intermingling passions, she said yes and we decided to call this “Project Chef”.
A not so recent chat with Gee revealed the warrior/passionate side of her personality. Not really all that alien to her, we basically studied in the same school during our elementary and high school years at Colegio San Agustin Makati. I guess one can say that we’re practically- “magkababata”, as they say. But not a lot of interaction has transpired between us in all those years. I was rowdy and I found her “too nice” during that time. My idea of a good time would be shooting paste up someone else’s ass while she actually found solace in reading actual books recommended by the department of education. At least, that’s how I saw her. But I distinctly still remember a time where we probably sat next to each other in one of Mrs. Escobar’s classes back in grade six or seven and I’m sure she said “Hi Von!” to me a couple of times while I was busy plotting my next “pilyo” move. I can’t even say that we’ve remained closed friends after high school. All I know is this new found respect and admiration I have for reconnecting with her and knowing that there are people out there in your past that could inspire you without you even knowing it. As simple as it seems, all you really have to do is set aside first impressions and get to know a person.
Take for example the fact that back in 1999, this chef was once a vice-chairman for a scholarship committee at the UP Economics society, giving tutorials to grade 7 students of Balara Elementary School and on the side, did Day Care for Pook Ricarte on Saturdays. A self confessed kid lover, she once took up writing for children hoping to write a children’s book someday. She once formed a cookbook club while working as a trader for the Treasury department of Union Bank back in 2001. How weird is that?
In 2004, while working for Standard Chartered bank as a portfolio manager, to satisfy her self-serving need to stay close as she can to food, she did sales functions for food and beverage companies. But soon enough, after a much needed career counseling, she decided to pull herself away from the lucrative banking industry and go into the food business. It was also during this time that she formed her own business called Piacerre, an Italian word meaning “to please” or “pleasure.” This led her to a series of workshops in breadmaking and bakery management at one of Technology for Livelihood Resources’ (TLRC) programs but ultimately felt more at home with Italian cuisine at the Heny Sison Culinary school under the watchful eyes of chef Giorgio Bucciarelli. Not knowing that one of the saddest parts of her cooking career would happen here, during one of our wondrous chats she recounts:
Determined to succeed, she continued her business with a conscientious thought of becoming a celebrity chef one day. A friend even joked that she can be Nigella Lason, without the “W” in Lawson pertaining to the restaurant critic and host of food network’s Nigella Bites. She even took up public speaking at Trumpets Philippines, engaged herself in a couple of cooking demos primarily for pasta and had even auditioned for the now defunct TV Shows “Wasup Wasup” and “Makuha Ka Sa Tikim”. Talk about determination! Ever the insatiable, Gee who’s bent on becoming an Italian cuisine expert in the Philippines learned about all kinds of food in all of Italy’s different regions in her spare time. At one point she even dreamt of going to the country all together. She recalls:
“Told my parents that I wanted to go to Italy to study. The idea was shot to the ground. I was told that if I was too far from home and if something happened to me there, how will they find or get me? After that I kept on joking, “ Di na lang ako magsasabi pag-aalis ako.”
And that she did. By 2007 to 2009, after a series of stints in China bank and ING Investment services just to save money while probably looking at online cooking school brochures, plotting her escape plan to finally be with her kitchen Gods and Goddesses, and just when her parents thought that she had totally forgotten about cooking, this bold-faced, go-getter, chef wannabe decided to just up and leave and left for Sydney to become what she truly wanted to be ever since- a chef. The rest, as they say, is history. She recalls while still working for ING:
“Every time I had lunch at the Broker's Lounge at the Tower One of the Ayala Triangle, I day-dreamt of giving a full-blown presentation to the Ayalas. I wanted to convince them to put up a world-class culinary school like CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in the middle of the Ayala Triangle park. Of course, the school should provide for scholarships as well to people who are truly passionate about the craft but have no means to fund their studies. This is also a "what will I do if I won the lotto" dream of mine. Still bent on finding money for cooking school. I auditioned for Amazing Race Asia 2 with a friend. Financial Crisis struck. Everybody was losing money; people in the US were committing suicide. I thought to myself, if I became bankrupt, what will be left of me? What will keep me alive? If I lost all of my money, I knew there was one thing I can't afford to lose. It's my passion for cooking. All investments seemed unsafe, people were afraid to lose more money. There was one thing I knew I was willing to invest on -- myself.
Considered by many to be the world’s premiere culinary arts institute and with over 100 years of teaching experience, Gee couldn’t have picked a better school to feed her passion. She’s actually bulletized her reasons for considering Sydney apart from all others:
Of course it doesn’t stop there for our lady chef. Gee is also an accomplished runner, way before she says running became a fashion. If asked what she would want to pursue in the future she would have this to say:
“Secret but not so secret dream/fantasy – if I become famous, I want Nike to design a chef’s jacket for me, better yet, a whole chef’s apparel including hats, undies, shoes. Working in the kitchen is really hot and rigorous. We need sweat-wicking fabrics, at the same time; our clothing should protect us from hot oil, spills, flame, chemicals etc. Our shoes should be comfortable to wear for 12-14 hours straight, flexible and stable because we do forward and lateral movements. They should be non-slip and resistant to spills and falling knives. I used to wear Nike running shirts under my chef’s jacket, until one of our chef instructors noticed and reminded the whole class not to wear any other fabrics under our jackets. It’s a safety issue because if something accidentally spills on us while cooking, the chef’s jacket is designed to be easily to stripped off. It actually scared me a bit because I do not know how the 100% polyester shirts I wore would react to extreme heat or spills. I imagined, what if the fabric sticks to my skin if hot stock or oil spills on me? Or what if it catches flame easily? After that, I just wore my Nikes on the way to work or school. Even if I don’t become famous, I really want to write Nike or go to Oregon to plead them to make chef’s apparel. I believe that cooking is a sport. We have culinary Olympics, there are Iron Chefs, we sweat it out, we do heavy lifting, we work in teams, we deal with time limits and extreme heat and pressure, we have open kitchens where diners watch us cook (thus a need for fashionable work wear) and we pour our hearts out into what we are doing, just like any other sport.
Wow. That is so inspiring. I used to think I could do anything. I even had a bunch of quotes to go with it. Let’s see, there’s “Carpe Diem” from Dead Poets ‘Society and if things don’t go as planned I usually have Ann Landers to guide me with- “This too, shall pass.” But in comparison with Gee’s well laid plans for world domination through her cooking, mine pales in comparison. I’m at a point in my life where I’m ready to be all these things- A career, I-pad, the 60 inch TV, electric pepper mill, jogging with friends, controlled blood pressure, tax exemptions, 6 pack abs, Boracay weekend, million peso savings account, daughter up in shoulders, a really wise investment, big white house, Sunday mass, good health, good food, good wine, good anything, all of them leading up to the day you croak your last and say I’m good to go. But will this make me happy? Do I really need all these things? My good friend Gee doesn’t seem to mind. She pursued her passion and she’s happy. Now that’s character for you. Let this serve as a lesson. A lesson not so much about food or cooking but about loving something close to your heart.
“It’s a risky business. Cuts and burns are a common occurrence but as you hone your skills, the accidents are minimized. Lifting should be done properly, or else we risk breaking our backs. I learned to swear although I’m cutting it down. Hearing the “f” word all the time in the kitchen and singing Cee Lo Green’s song Forget You desensitized me a bit. Swearing may be normal for others but my mouth as been pristinely clean (except for an occasional “s#*t!”) for years until now. I fear of kidney problems in the future. Sometimes, there’s just no time to “go” and you just have to hold it in. I’m a bit old to be starting in the biz. I do not know how much longer my body can handle the stress so I’m just enjoying every minute of it. It’s difficult to plan gimmicks. I’m glad the restaurant I work at is closed on Sundays and holidays. At least I get to go out with friends on those days.”
I saw in Gee a reflection of my own struggles, the frustrations, the fear and that drive to conquer that human emotion called passion, although not that articulated and lacking in approximation, deep down inside, I stare blankly at the sky with these accompanying thoughts- "I wish I could do what she did."
“My only focus at the moment is learning as much as I can and becoming the best chef I could be at this stage and age. I am actually “old” in the kitchen. The average age in the kitchen is 25. Wherever I can become a good chef, that's where I'll be -- Australia, Singapore, Philippines, anywhere. I just do my best everyday and pray for Divine guidance. Love life, maybe it will be meeting a "match" at work or through work because most of my time is spent in the kitchen. Haven't found my man though. I accept referrals. Ha ha ha. I am very happy because my parents have accepted that this is my love, my calling. They support me in every way.”
Except maybe for a career in Italy! As of this writing, our chef heroine is now studying certificate IV in commercial cookery, a course dealing with the management side of her endeavors. There may just be no stopping Gee now. Who knows what she’ll be cooking next?
I am fortunate to know what I love doing and being given the chance to pursue it. It was very painful when I felt that my hands were tied while I wanted to do so much more. If I can help somebody experience this freedom I have now, I'd love to do that. I’d love to write a children’s story/cookbook to inspire children to eat well and help bond parent and child through cooking. I have fond memories of cooking with my Mom and her reading to me as a child. I ate every imaginable vegetable a child would normally hate, growing up. I’d like part of the book proceeds to fund a food programme or help DOH in some way. The Economist side of me wants to help in the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, first of which is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Well, book proceeds may be too small to make a dent and soon enough for the 2015 UN target. If there is a way for me to do something to help end poverty and hunger now, I’ll do it straightaway. Long-term goal. I want to do what Rene Redzepi ( 2010 winner San Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurant)did to Nordic Cuisine with the Noma, that will be a dream of a lifetime.”
In that other part of the world we’ll find her donned in her apron, carrying pots and pans, washing dishes maybe, cooking up a storm. She’ll either walk home or take the underground rails totally tired, totally exhausted. She’s not complaining though. She’ll have 3-5 hours of sleep before waking up to a new day of learning. Just before she shuts off the TV and throws the remote on the couch…I’m sure you’ll find her with the biggest smile on her face, knowing that in some way… she finally… conquered herself.
“What I love about cooking? My heart beats. I feel so in love. I can feel every cell in my body working. I feel alive. I feel strong. Cooking requires some athleticism, moving fast, carrying heavy pots and pans, going up and down the stairs. A busy lunch rush sometimes feels like a non-stop, 3-hour tennis match. I loves it when I am able to make people happy with my cooking. Special requests from customers are exciting, as long as the requests are not too difficult to squeeze in in the middle of a busy service. I am continuously amazed at how eating can be such a pleasurable experience even with the use of the simplest ingredients. Creating enjoyable staff meals with the limited ingredients I can work with is also very fulfilling for me. Kitchen and front of house staff work really hard and they deserve to be fed properly. I love being able to share a part of me through my dishes. I love to think that my passion, enthusiasm, respect for food, gratitude, joy are somehow passed on to the people who eat my food.”
“Chef Giorgio Bucciarelli of Heny Sison Culinary School said that if we had further questions,we can see him at Amici di Don Bosco. I was starting my business so I had to ask for tips,some suppliers etc. He was so gracious and welcoming. He showed me the wood-fired pizza oven,fresh pasta laboratory, gelato machines. Having limited funds for culinary school and wanting to learn as much as I could, I asked if I can be his assistant in the cooking school, much like an apprentice. I wanted a mentor and I was willing to work for free, in exchange for the learning.
I think he saw my sincerity and true passion and so he agreed. Sadly, it had to end after a month.
I think apprenticeships are unheard of in the Philippines and it seemed like I was freeloading.
I was not underprivileged like a street child and I also guess, maybe Don Bosco had no policies regarding having apprentices or volunteers like me and would not have a process in place in case somebody else wanted to do what I was doing. So, I had to leave. I was so heartbroken. I came in one day, very enthusiastic, washed my hands and donned my apron.
Then Chef called me outside and asked if I didn't read his e-mail. He said that I couldn’t help him anymore and I had to leave right then and there. I walked away pretending I was okay.
I didn't know where to go; I walked aimlessly and ended up in the Don Bosco church. That's where my tears that were welling up flowed. I wiped my tears away, went to the grade school campus to look for the pizza cooking school assistant who sort of became my friend already. I numbed the pain by eating freshly made wood-fired oven pizzas and drinking glasses of coke which were sold in the grade school campus.”
Determined to succeed, she continued her business with a conscientious thought of becoming a celebrity chef one day. A friend even joked that she can be Nigella Lason, without the “W” in Lawson pertaining to the restaurant critic and host of food network’s Nigella Bites. She even took up public speaking at Trumpets Philippines, engaged herself in a couple of cooking demos primarily for pasta and had even auditioned for the now defunct TV Shows “Wasup Wasup” and “Makuha Ka Sa Tikim”. Talk about determination! Ever the insatiable, Gee who’s bent on becoming an Italian cuisine expert in the Philippines learned about all kinds of food in all of Italy’s different regions in her spare time. At one point she even dreamt of going to the country all together. She recalls:
“Told my parents that I wanted to go to Italy to study. The idea was shot to the ground. I was told that if I was too far from home and if something happened to me there, how will they find or get me? After that I kept on joking, “ Di na lang ako magsasabi pag-aalis ako.”
And that she did. By 2007 to 2009, after a series of stints in China bank and ING Investment services just to save money while probably looking at online cooking school brochures, plotting her escape plan to finally be with her kitchen Gods and Goddesses, and just when her parents thought that she had totally forgotten about cooking, this bold-faced, go-getter, chef wannabe decided to just up and leave and left for Sydney to become what she truly wanted to be ever since- a chef. The rest, as they say, is history. She recalls while still working for ING:
“Every time I had lunch at the Broker's Lounge at the Tower One of the Ayala Triangle, I day-dreamt of giving a full-blown presentation to the Ayalas. I wanted to convince them to put up a world-class culinary school like CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in the middle of the Ayala Triangle park. Of course, the school should provide for scholarships as well to people who are truly passionate about the craft but have no means to fund their studies. This is also a "what will I do if I won the lotto" dream of mine. Still bent on finding money for cooking school. I auditioned for Amazing Race Asia 2 with a friend. Financial Crisis struck. Everybody was losing money; people in the US were committing suicide. I thought to myself, if I became bankrupt, what will be left of me? What will keep me alive? If I lost all of my money, I knew there was one thing I can't afford to lose. It's my passion for cooking. All investments seemed unsafe, people were afraid to lose more money. There was one thing I knew I was willing to invest on -- myself.
Amazingly, I had enough money in the bank to go to cooking school. I planned everything without telling my parents, scared to be discouraged. I just told them when I had everything planned and have paid for my tuition already. They thought I had forgotten about cooking. I decided to go to Culinary School. Le Cordon Bleu Sydney Culinary Arts Institute.”
Considered by many to be the world’s premiere culinary arts institute and with over 100 years of teaching experience, Gee couldn’t have picked a better school to feed her passion. She’s actually bulletized her reasons for considering Sydney apart from all others:
- Australian Dollars were around P32 when I decided/canvassing for schools. USD was around P47.
- Australia was where my limited Pesos would go a long way.
- Allowed to work up to 20 hours per week, unlimited hours during school holidays. - I'll get the work experience I want, legally, safely.
- International Students are protected from exploitation and have rights.
- Felt safe going to a place where I had no relatives or friends.
- 8 hours away from the Philippines. Very close to home, unlike Europe or US.
- I Have all the food and fresh produce I can learn about, much like Europe;Meats, game, wines, cheeses, fruits, vegetables...
Of course it doesn’t stop there for our lady chef. Gee is also an accomplished runner, way before she says running became a fashion. If asked what she would want to pursue in the future she would have this to say:
“Secret but not so secret dream/fantasy – if I become famous, I want Nike to design a chef’s jacket for me, better yet, a whole chef’s apparel including hats, undies, shoes. Working in the kitchen is really hot and rigorous. We need sweat-wicking fabrics, at the same time; our clothing should protect us from hot oil, spills, flame, chemicals etc. Our shoes should be comfortable to wear for 12-14 hours straight, flexible and stable because we do forward and lateral movements. They should be non-slip and resistant to spills and falling knives. I used to wear Nike running shirts under my chef’s jacket, until one of our chef instructors noticed and reminded the whole class not to wear any other fabrics under our jackets. It’s a safety issue because if something accidentally spills on us while cooking, the chef’s jacket is designed to be easily to stripped off. It actually scared me a bit because I do not know how the 100% polyester shirts I wore would react to extreme heat or spills. I imagined, what if the fabric sticks to my skin if hot stock or oil spills on me? Or what if it catches flame easily? After that, I just wore my Nikes on the way to work or school. Even if I don’t become famous, I really want to write Nike or go to Oregon to plead them to make chef’s apparel. I believe that cooking is a sport. We have culinary Olympics, there are Iron Chefs, we sweat it out, we do heavy lifting, we work in teams, we deal with time limits and extreme heat and pressure, we have open kitchens where diners watch us cook (thus a need for fashionable work wear) and we pour our hearts out into what we are doing, just like any other sport.
Wow. That is so inspiring. I used to think I could do anything. I even had a bunch of quotes to go with it. Let’s see, there’s “Carpe Diem” from Dead Poets ‘Society and if things don’t go as planned I usually have Ann Landers to guide me with- “This too, shall pass.” But in comparison with Gee’s well laid plans for world domination through her cooking, mine pales in comparison. I’m at a point in my life where I’m ready to be all these things- A career, I-pad, the 60 inch TV, electric pepper mill, jogging with friends, controlled blood pressure, tax exemptions, 6 pack abs, Boracay weekend, million peso savings account, daughter up in shoulders, a really wise investment, big white house, Sunday mass, good health, good food, good wine, good anything, all of them leading up to the day you croak your last and say I’m good to go. But will this make me happy? Do I really need all these things? My good friend Gee doesn’t seem to mind. She pursued her passion and she’s happy. Now that’s character for you. Let this serve as a lesson. A lesson not so much about food or cooking but about loving something close to your heart.
“It’s a risky business. Cuts and burns are a common occurrence but as you hone your skills, the accidents are minimized. Lifting should be done properly, or else we risk breaking our backs. I learned to swear although I’m cutting it down. Hearing the “f” word all the time in the kitchen and singing Cee Lo Green’s song Forget You desensitized me a bit. Swearing may be normal for others but my mouth as been pristinely clean (except for an occasional “s#*t!”) for years until now. I fear of kidney problems in the future. Sometimes, there’s just no time to “go” and you just have to hold it in. I’m a bit old to be starting in the biz. I do not know how much longer my body can handle the stress so I’m just enjoying every minute of it. It’s difficult to plan gimmicks. I’m glad the restaurant I work at is closed on Sundays and holidays. At least I get to go out with friends on those days.”
I saw in Gee a reflection of my own struggles, the frustrations, the fear and that drive to conquer that human emotion called passion, although not that articulated and lacking in approximation, deep down inside, I stare blankly at the sky with these accompanying thoughts- "I wish I could do what she did."
“My only focus at the moment is learning as much as I can and becoming the best chef I could be at this stage and age. I am actually “old” in the kitchen. The average age in the kitchen is 25. Wherever I can become a good chef, that's where I'll be -- Australia, Singapore, Philippines, anywhere. I just do my best everyday and pray for Divine guidance. Love life, maybe it will be meeting a "match" at work or through work because most of my time is spent in the kitchen. Haven't found my man though. I accept referrals. Ha ha ha. I am very happy because my parents have accepted that this is my love, my calling. They support me in every way.”
Except maybe for a career in Italy! As of this writing, our chef heroine is now studying certificate IV in commercial cookery, a course dealing with the management side of her endeavors. There may just be no stopping Gee now. Who knows what she’ll be cooking next?
I am fortunate to know what I love doing and being given the chance to pursue it. It was very painful when I felt that my hands were tied while I wanted to do so much more. If I can help somebody experience this freedom I have now, I'd love to do that. I’d love to write a children’s story/cookbook to inspire children to eat well and help bond parent and child through cooking. I have fond memories of cooking with my Mom and her reading to me as a child. I ate every imaginable vegetable a child would normally hate, growing up. I’d like part of the book proceeds to fund a food programme or help DOH in some way. The Economist side of me wants to help in the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, first of which is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Well, book proceeds may be too small to make a dent and soon enough for the 2015 UN target. If there is a way for me to do something to help end poverty and hunger now, I’ll do it straightaway. Long-term goal. I want to do what Rene Redzepi ( 2010 winner San Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurant)did to Nordic Cuisine with the Noma, that will be a dream of a lifetime.”
In that other part of the world we’ll find her donned in her apron, carrying pots and pans, washing dishes maybe, cooking up a storm. She’ll either walk home or take the underground rails totally tired, totally exhausted. She’s not complaining though. She’ll have 3-5 hours of sleep before waking up to a new day of learning. Just before she shuts off the TV and throws the remote on the couch…I’m sure you’ll find her with the biggest smile on her face, knowing that in some way… she finally… conquered herself.
“What I love about cooking? My heart beats. I feel so in love. I can feel every cell in my body working. I feel alive. I feel strong. Cooking requires some athleticism, moving fast, carrying heavy pots and pans, going up and down the stairs. A busy lunch rush sometimes feels like a non-stop, 3-hour tennis match. I loves it when I am able to make people happy with my cooking. Special requests from customers are exciting, as long as the requests are not too difficult to squeeze in in the middle of a busy service. I am continuously amazed at how eating can be such a pleasurable experience even with the use of the simplest ingredients. Creating enjoyable staff meals with the limited ingredients I can work with is also very fulfilling for me. Kitchen and front of house staff work really hard and they deserve to be fed properly. I love being able to share a part of me through my dishes. I love to think that my passion, enthusiasm, respect for food, gratitude, joy are somehow passed on to the people who eat my food.”
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