Hello World I'm Your Wild Girl, I'm your Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch, Cherry Bomb

and the chip on my shoulder

I’ve always worked with a real ‘keep your head down and do the work’ method, it suits me. I’m not really sure if that has worked for me, but I can only betray myself so much. I’m a pretty pragmatic person, not really a dreamer or romantic, and I’m no mad scientist. I’ve gone through bouts of wanting a restaurant of my own, then definitely not wanting one, and then back at it, wanting a restaurant. Sometimes I browse the internet for turnkey deals on places, thinking I have one more in me, I can do it, both emotionally and physically. My friend likes to point out this is the premise of every doomed heist movie. Just one last job…

I taught a lot of classes and cooked special events for Brooklyn Kitchen in the 2010s, a massive kitchen store under the BQE with a lot of local, small batch items, so much kitchen and cooking equipment, produce, a library of out-of-print books and magazines and a large room for classes and parties. I loved doing big dinners and parties, especially if I could choose the menu. I could stretch out and cook what I wanted.

Gilt Taste launched in 2011, a high-end online food website, they landed Ruth Reichl for editorial advisor. Ruth Reichl, the final Gourmet editor, New York Times restaurant critic, writer of witty, insightful, wonderful memoirs, eternal culinary goddess and bon vivant. Gilt Taste booked their holiday party at Brooklyn Kitchen, I was hired to cook it. I took this as my opportunity to make an impression on Reichl and everyone who worked with her.

There were a take on scotch eggs¹—quail eggs wrapped in brandade served with a smoking tomato sauce, a forest of celery, potatoes and radishes standing in a pimento cheese floor, beet-pickled deviled eggs, and an Iowa maki roll—whole pickles wrapped in cream cheese then rolled in a slice of ham, cut into pieces like sushi. I made a chocolate cake with quince icing, something I convinced myself I discovered (does anyone really discover anything?) attempting to make a vinaigrette for a salad one day. Roasted quince is high in pectin, so adding oil to emulsify creates something much thicker than anything suitable for lettuce. Strain the grit out and sweeten it with honey, you’ve got a beautiful rosey icing that pairs well with chocolate.

There were biscuits, because there were always biscuits. Maybe there was a steak tartar, maybe some mushrooms. A grand spread of canapés, nothing dialed in, nothing boring. A friend called it my thesis project. This was MY CHANCE, and I didn’t get a lot of them, my moment of access to someone powerful and influential at a moment when it felt like just being mentioned created opportunities. I was adjacent to so many people whose stars ascended, friends and acquaintances, I was hungry. I don’t know if that’s the word, but there was a bottomless pit in me I couldn’t fill. It could only be filled by something I had no control over, being seen, being written about, being noticed. I knew all I could do was keep my head down and do the work, but this party, this fucking holiday party for this website that would shut down two years later, in 2019, this was my shot. All the menu ideas for unopened places I had written on the back of menus and postcards I put into this party. I was going to blow Ruth Reichl away and the rest would take care of itself.

The only people who showed up were the tech people for the website, there for the free alcohol. They didn’t really eat.

I didn’t even have a computer at this time, I just checked my email at the corner store. The amount of energy and hours I spent on this was a wash. I was accustomed to such effort.

A few weeks ago Cherry Bombe, a “media company celebrating women & cool creatives in the world of food & drink” held their annual conference, the Cherry Bomb Jubilee, in New York. Cherry Bombe began in 2013 as a quarterly print magazine and has since expanded to include a podcast, newsletter and events. In 2013 I was working on a highly-anticipated restaurant opening in the city. While waiting for the restaurant to open I worked for free to clean it and get it organized, because that’s what you did if you really cared. I cared so much I spent the night of Valentine’s Day in the sub-cellar being quizzed by the chef on the menu and its French terminology.² I cared so much I finally got on payroll after exhibiting dedication during a very bad sewage main break one afternoon that required a lot of removal of shitty water.

In my most aggrieved moments, I wonder “why not me?” when it comes it media endeavors like Cherry Bombe. It was something that especially haunted me when I was younger. I was a bit surprised to feel that nag when I saw friends and colleagues at their April conference. I know why not me—there’s something about me that doesn’t inspire mainstream media—maybe it’s my lack of a bubbly personality, or an inability to photograph well. My color palette is best described as Rust Belt Chic and I can be an eye roller and a heavy sigher. These were all perfect personality traits for working in kitchens. What brought me to cooking is what makes me someone who will never be a subject for Cherry Bombe.

I don’t have a headshot, I don’t have an agent, I don’t write pitches, I don’t network, I’m not really a member of anything.³ So yes, I am female and creative, I have opened and worked in restaurants, taught classes, created a program for people to train to get jobs in the hospitality industry, was an essential worker during the COVID shutdown expanding food accessibility though Brooklyn and Queens. I teach, I write, I cook, I work as a stylist and consultant on TV and movies.

I thought maybe I was writing an indictment on certain food media, and how lame it can be, but I can’t say that with complete conviction. I do know I’m the lame one, I don’t do the things I need to do if I truly want to be a part of that world. I don’t know if I will every do that work. I also know part of the bottomless pit I referred to earlier was dug by people around me with what I perceive as somewhat effortless attention and success, sometimes in spite of themselves. People who can fail, and still have a second, third, even fourth act. People who can lose it all, and not be ruined.

It’s tiring to live in that head space, so I try not to. I think it’s dangerous to be a bottomless pit, waiting to be filled by stranger’s opinions, something I know that’s odd to say in a newsletter on the internet, but maybe also something important to say in a newsletter on the internet. Instead I surround myself with the people, writing, music, food, efforts, that inspire me, that embolden me, rather than diminish me. I wish it was enough to just cook, to just write, to keep my head down, so I try live in that world. I can’t do the other thing anymore. I won’t do that anymore.

There it is, my constant companion, the chip on my shoulder.

Last I checked, I’m no one’s darling.

And that’s fine.

1. Two things food media loves: someone’s take on something and a hack.

2. Matignon: a finely diced mirepoix of onions, celery and carrots sweat in butter with herbs.

3. Correction—I am a member of the Friends of the Shakers group.