Featured Chefs
Priscila Satkoff
Susan Goss
Carrie Nahabedian
Gale Gand
Ina Pinkney
Sara Stegner
What did you want to be when you grew up? An art historian. I was born and raised in Mexico City and I have my undergraduate degree in art history. I was halfway through my master's degree when I met my husband, Vincent. We got married and I moved to Chicago 14 years ago. It was a new country, a new city, a new culture and a new language, so I never finished my master's degree or went into the field.
Your first job in the restaurant business? My husband had been in the restaurant business for a long, long time. So I decided to look for a job with the same hours as his. I had never worked in a restaurant at all. My English was poor. So I applied to Rick Bayless at Frontera Grill in 1987. The only position available was as a food runner. I remember the first day as if it were yesterday. I wasn't used to it. It's a very difficult hard job, lifting, running and you have to be very quick. When I came home and my husband saw me -- how tired I was -- he rubbed my feet and said, "Welcome to the business." And I knew it was going to be like this for the rest of my life.
Was the choice easy? Well I had never cooked professionally. Never. But I started cooking when I was very, very young, the youngest of four daughters. I remember peeling garlic at the age of seven in my mother's kitchen. She was a very, very good cook and we would have feasts at home, because my father worked for the railroads and he would out of the house for three or four days. When he came back, her meals were amazing -- with menus like a restaurant: hors d'oeuvres, three or four appetizers, then a choice of veal, chicken, fish. As soon as my father left, we would have all the leftovers. But when I was about 12 years old I really got involved in cooking. We used to have large family reunions, and I enjoyed cooking and having big pots of food in front of me. When they asked, "who wants to do the cooking?" it was always me raising my hand. I was very familiar with the ingredients because my mom always took me to market every day; "This is the chicken you need to buy; don't buy this fish," and so on. I learned from her and from my grandmother. So when I worked at Frontera I started cooking for Vince and me at home all the things I remember from Mexico. I would make tamales. But when you make tamales, you don't make one or two, you make dozens. So I gave the extras to my friends. Soon they started asking me to cook for their parties. So I was cooking and practicing. And I was so happy. I loved to cook.
Was the path straight, the road clear?
Well, I came straight from Frontera to Salpicon, that part was straight, but I was thinking and planning for two years in advance. And I told Rick that I wanted to do something that was going to fill me. When the time came, he came here and saw the place and he wished me well. It had been a deli, and it really needed work. But we decided we were going to lease it. And we did in August 1994. The next week I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the doctor said that if it grew it would press my optical nerve and I would be blind. So I had the surgery in September and we couldn't open because the doctor told me don't bend, don't lift. So what did I do? I sat in front of the computer developing my recipes, finishing the business plan, creating the menu, calling my distributors. Meanwhile my husband was painting, taking care of the design. Before surgery I had gone to Mexico city to buy fabric and everything because I knew exactly in my mind what I wanted it to look like. We finally opened the last week in January 1995. Terrible and sad, but we didn't have any choice, the lease was running. The first month we did 20 people. I was tired, and no one would deliver. Can I have three bunches of cilantro? No. Can I have two lobsters? No. So my husband used to go the market every single day. I had one person in the kitchen making tamales and tortillas, one dishwasher and myself. He was waiting tables. I was exhausted, but never depressed. I always believed it would work out. Then after three and one-half months Pat Bruno gave us three stars. Vincent was happy, excited. All I could think of was that it meant more work for me. But little by little I could hire more people, and I could let go of doing everything myself and start developing more recipes.
Is it really possible to do what you do, have a personal life, family life and children?
I am very, very lucky that Vincent and I work together. We spend 16 to 18 hours a day here and we are open seven days a week. Do we have a personal life? We go to bed together. We go to the dentist together. I don't know how women chefs have children and do it. This business is all-consuming. Every day of my life when I wake up the first thing I say is, "Thank God," and the second thing I say is, "Did I order fish?" But I am happy. We work together and we see the results of our work.
Is it better to date or marry someone in the business? I can't speak for anyone, but for myself it is.
Any problems with men not taking you seriously, or making life hard for you in the kitchen?
I personally have never experienced that, but that doesn't mean that I don't believe that it doesn't exist. Unfortunately there are more male than female chefs and they feel they have the field of cooking, that they know everything. Where I was born women cooked.
Conversely, are there qualities about being a woman that suit you well for this profession?
Men tend to think from A to B, but women can hold many things at once. I find myself so many times doing five, seven things at the same time. I'm supervising, I'm checking, I'm picking up the telephone, I'm paying bills, I'm dealing with the distributor and I have an appointment. Then I have to be prepared mentally for tomorrow.And I am very happy and very pleased and I hope that I will be doing this for a long, long time -- cooking traditional and contemporary Mexican food.
So, what's ahead? Well, now we own the building and the second floor is vacant. This coming week I was asked to do a party for 60 people and we couldn't accommodate them because of the size of the restaurant. So we plan to expand upstairs. And I am definitely planning a cookbook -- hopefully this year. I have tons of recipes. And I would definitely love to have another, more formal, restaurant.
What did you want to be when you grew up? An archaeologist. In college I majored in physical anthropology with a minor in geology, but after graduation I realized that jobs in my field were few and far between.
Your first job in the restaurant business? At TGI Fridays -- I breaded onion rings. After college I took a year off and went to work.
Was the choice easy? I love to eat -- that's a big thing. My parents were really adventuresome when it came to food and cooking. My mother was a great cook. And when I worked at TGI Fridays I realized that this was a fun business. So I went to the New York Restaurant School where I met Drew, and after graduation we realized we wanted to open our own restaurant.
The path straight, the road clear? Well we did, in 1983, open Carryout Cuisine down in Indiana. I spent a lot of time being terrified and with good reason. We made every mistake in the book. We had no business being there. I should have worked for someone else in the restaurant business first. But Drew's parents had their own business. My parents had their own business, and it never occurred to me that we should not have our own business. But now that I am mentoring chefs -- men and women -- I think I missed something not working for someone I could look up to, someone who could be a role model. I really never got any passion except my own. At any rate, our first deli succeeded and five years later we opened Something Different, a fine-dining restaurant in Indianapolis. It had been a pizza parlor, and so we did all the demolition and rehab ourselves. And a couple years after that we opened Snax, a global tapas bar. We sold both of those restaurants when we moved to Chicago in 1993 and opened Zinfandel. When I look back, I can't imagine doing anything else -- in a job or a profession -- that would have made me feel so fulfilled, that has made me grow so completely in so many different ways as this.
Is it really possible to do what you do, have a personal life, family life and children? Yes. It's definitely possible. But like any relationship, you have to work at it and you have to work at it all the time. Drew and I have been married for 20 years and we have been in the business together almost that entire time. We have specific rules about behavior: We don't talk about the business at home unless it is something really dire. If an employee makes us argue, they gotta' go. It doesn't matter how good they are, they gotta' go. Those two things make it easier for us. The relationship is the most important thing to us and if the restaurant got in the way of that, we would lose the restaurant. I could live the rest of my life without b being a chef or a restaurateur, but I can't live the rest of my life without Drew. But you have to work at it, you have to be very honest.
Is it better to date or marry someone in the same business? I think it's even harder if your spouse or significant other is not in the business. The hours are so erratic, and there's a lot of room for jealousy, for feeling left out. They don't understand that yes, you have to work for 14 hours. You have to stay there. They may have to work only eight hours. But you have to work more. There's a lot of stress in the business and you really need someone who understands that kind of stress. There's a lot of stress in the world. I don't mean to imply that the restaurant business is worse. But it is different. It's physically very hard. I regard it as an exercise program.
Any problems with men not taking you seriously or making life hard for you in the kitchen? Oh sure. I've experienced both sides: male support and male chauvinism. But I don't think it's exclusive to the restaurant industry -- I think it's in all industries. But the restaurant industry is so high tension that I don't think there's room for w hole lot of it. Maybe within certain kitchens there is. I've run into a couple of ego-maniacs, both women and men. But by and large the Chicago restaurant community is so supportive of its members. The most negative experiences I've had with men have been with a couple of purveyors and salesmen who have refused to treat me like the boss. I think women miss out on some of the camaraderie that male chefs do, but that's something I don't have time for anyway.
Conversely, are their qualities about being a woman that suit you well for this profession? I think so. Speaking in broad generalities, I think women have a tendency to be more nurturing, more caring and less ego-centric, less of a hot head. Women can be a lot more emotional but they have a tendency to keep it inside. Whereas -- again in broad generalities -- a male chef may fly off the handle, a female chef is going to wait, internalize it all, maybe go to the bathroom and cry, and then come back, but the atmosphere in the kitchen is going to stay more stable because she is not yelling. Having a nurturing attitude makes you take care of your staff. I really care about the people who are here. Most of them have been here for five years. I don't think of them as children but as friends. I'm not competing with any of them, and that puts me aside from some of the male chefs (and maybe some of the female chefs) that I know. I think women handle stress a little bit better. Maybe we get ulcers faster. But I think our kitchens are more even keel and smooth. I think women can multi-task easily and naturally -- moreso than men.
So what's ahead? Aside from Taste of the Nation, Taste of the NFL, being an Operation Frontline chef, I'm writing a cookbook. It's called "Girl food," and it's a celebration of women, food and community. I'm putting together recipes and stories from women chefs across the country who not only run restaurants or work in kitchens but who also work in their community by teaching nutrition or working with food groups -- just something to give back. I have about 30 chefs who are participating -- everyone from Alice Waters and Joyce Goldstein to Claudia Fleming and it will be out in about a year and a half. Primarily it is a user-friendly cookbook, an inside look at what it is to be a woman in the kitchen along with anecdotes from women who have been helped by these community programs. Drew and I alternate days by saying: "Oh this is great, it's wonderful, it's all we want to do," along with, "Oh you know that little storefront space in our neighborhood -- wouldn't that make a great little wine bar?" If we had an opportunity to do a very small place, a wine bar -- that's always in the back of my mind. And I have this secret concept in the back of my mind that I would do if I had 300-square feet of space on a street corner. And if this cookbook goes well, I will write one about ethnic American cookery.
What did you want to be when you grew up? I was either going to go into design or cooking. I was really into jewelry which would have lead to fashion, not clothing but interior design. I love the feel of velvet, the coldness of concrete, and textures! But my mother is a great cook, and my grandmother was a great cook and very influential in our lives. My grandmother had 10 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren and there was something about the way she cared for you and loved you and cooked for you -- like being between the down quilts on her bed -- just this envelope of love. As kids we used to beg to go to her house. She cooked naturally, no recipes, all in her head, just for the sheer pleasure of it. I could walk into my grandmother's house and know what she was cooking. It is still part of me. I can see it, hold onto it.
Your first job in the restaurant business? In high school I failed algebra for no other reason than, to this day, I don't enjoy anything that brings nothing to the table. It was a progressive high school with a work study program and in my junior year this work program related to food occupations became available. You got a credit in the classroom and you got a credit for working. "This is a great deal," I said to myself. All my classmates were working at McDonald's and other fast food places. "This just won't do," I thought. I was already deeply immersed in classical French cuisine because of the books I had been reading about French cooking from the 13th to 18th century. "I need to experience this.! My father at the time, like most Armenian men, was in carpets and he was doing the Ritz Carlton of Chicago and he got my foot in the door by getting me a job at the Ritz. I worked 48 hours, six nights a week, at the age of 17 and went to high school full time. I was making $300 a week -- and when you are in high school to be doing banquets and being the saucier or the fish cook at the Ritz, doing 240 covers a night -- it was a wild, wild run. But I became very good with my time because I was always crunched for time. I sped through my homework, I came to school, boom, boom, boom I was downtown at work. And that was the beginning of the network of chefs I met who are the pillars, the foundation of cuisine here in Chicago: Jean Banchet, Jean Joho, Pierre Pollin, Bernard Cretier, Gabino Sotelino, and the others. It doesn't matter how many chefs come in and make their name, they're not one of those pillars and neither am I. But it's a measure of pride for me to know that they knew me when I was 18.
Was the choice easy? There was no other choice. No choice. And when I took business math (to make up for that algebra credit) I got straight As because this was real. Now suddenly all these facts were applicable to what I was doing.
The path straight, the road clear? Well, that once all-important application to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) became just another piece of paper that went into a desk drawer at home. Everyone in our family went to college and my father asked, "Are you sure you don't want to go to college?" But I was working for some incredible European chefs and I was in very good hands. After the Ritz-Carlton I worked in Atlantic City at a resort hotel (not the job for me), at Le Perroquet in Chicago, traveled all over -- Europe to Egypt -- spending every dime on eating, worked at le Francais under Jean Banchet, at Sinclair's -- Gordon Sinclair's restaurant in Lake Forest -- under Norman Van Aken (we hired Suzy Crofton and Charlie Trotter). Then I was opening sous-chef at La Tour in Chicago, then sous chef at Four Seasons, Chicago. From there I moved, as chef, to the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara, and finally executive chef at the Four Seasons, Los Angeles. That may seem like a lot of jobs, but I never stayed less than two years anywhere. I started with I was 17 and I now have 25 years' experience.
Is it possible to do what you do, have a personal life, family life and children? There are certainly enough examples of women who have done it and succeeded. I have maintained serious relationships while holding very big jobs and I've lost just as many of them. You lose them solely because of the job. So it's something that I always look at when I venture into a relationship with a man. The perception has always been, "You're the executive chef of a big hotel. You can write your own schedule. What if you're not there tomorrow? Take the weekend off." And sometimes you have to look at whether or not they are going to dig going out with a woman who makes a little, maybe a lot more, maybe twice as much as they do? But that's not the biggest factor. I'm notorious for saying I'll be home at seven and coming in at midnight. Or going in just for an hour in the morning on my day off and the hour turns into 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I must say I've pretty much written my own social destiny. It is difficult if you're going to have a child, but I think it's possible because you are used to juggling so much.
Is it important to date or marry someone in the business? It's inevitable that it will happen, but I myself can't do it. I've always looked outside this realm just because I never wanted to be with someone who was part of my restaurant or someone in the business, because that's all you would talk about. And that's cook for a little bit, but after that it becomes like this big anchor, and you're being dropped to the bottom of the sea to d rown in somebody else's talk about food cost and how many covers he did. I try very hard to stay out of situations that will lead me to talk about the workings of this business.
Any problems with men not taking you seriously, or making life hard for you in the kitchen? Not for me personally. I like the idea that I am a known chef who just happens to be a woman and not that I am a women chef. But every male I came in contact with was extraordinarily supportive. But you have to cook on their level, and, just like any profession, you can't throw your sex out there. But I know that the problems are out there and friends of mine have come up against huge barriers. And it's not only women. Just recently at a party a chef came up to me and he was visibly scarred because of the chef he had worked for at another restaurant, scarred to the point where he was thinking of taking the summer off.
Conversely, are there qualities about being a woman that suit you well for this profession? I couldn't agree more. It's the absolute truth. I never write a list because a to-do list should never be bigger than what's in your head. This is a business and I have to say that I am both not surprised that more women aren't into it and surprised that as many women are into it. Being a woman expresses itself in the way you talk to your staff, the way you instruct. It's like your little nest and you are making your nest in the restaurant. At night the bartenders laugh at me because I go behind the bar and I have to arrange everything. In the kitchen women are very nurturing and have a lot of patience. Cooking is very damaging to the body, but just because you are a laborer -- and that's what I am -- doesn;t mean you have to bear the scars of it. A man would never go to another man and say, "Roll your sleeves down so you don't burn your arms." Their attitude is: I burn my arms, so you should burn your arms. I hurt my back, you should hurt your back. I always tell my cooks to roll down their sleeves, even if they have to tape them. The book "Kitchen Confidential" offends me at the highest level, because we [chefs] are not such cave-like individuals.
So what's ahead? Well, I would certainly admire any individual who could run the gauntlet of leaving a job, moving to a new city, opening a restaurant and going through every emotion that entails: hating it, loving it, having the joy of it, feeling it is ruining your life -- and then think about opening a second restaurant this soon. This was already proposed to us before we were even open. But our focus is Chicago. It's premature to say we are a success. It's still a big love affair and everyone is still looking really good in the morning. But we would never do another restaurant in the city. If we were ever to do something else it would be more of a resort-hotel type venture. Right now I'm giving all my energy to the restaurant. Although I've always loved the idea of cookbooks -- chefs spilling out everything they know. I think it's great. But on my horizon right now is me keeping my head above water and being true to what I do and being thankful for the support of the city, my friends and Michael, my partner and my cousin.
What did you want to be when you grew up? An artist. I was studying silver and goldsmithing, enameling and painting in college.
Your first job in the restaurant business? I got my first job at 19 as a waitress. I was a starving art student in Cleveland, Ohio, and I really couldn't afford to eat at this vegetarian restaurant -- salads were three bucks. I had heard that if you work at a restaurant they feed you. So I got a free lunch every day. But I was interested in the food and I liked serving people, describing the food. Then one day one of the cooks didn't show up, and they said, "Gale, you've got to come into the kitchen and cook." I said, "I'm from the North Shore. I can't cook." "You have to," they said. So I went into the kitchen and realized that I knew the description of all the food, what was in it, but not the quantities. It was like having virtual recipes. I started to cook, and I was terrified for about three seconds, but after second number four it was a feeling of coming home. It was like a calling. I had found my medium.
Was the choice easy? No, I grappled with it for years, working part time in restaurants and catering. My mother was an artist, my dad is a folk singer, and being a cook back in 1970 was blue collar-work. Wolfgang Puck hadn't legitimized my industry yet. It took until I was 27 to ignore what everyone else thought, get rid of my art studio -- I was making a living as an artist, just barely, but how often does that happen? -- and start cooking full time at a restaurant.
Was the path straight and the road clear? I had been working summers for chef Greg Broman at the Strathallen hotel in Rochester, New York, where they had a fancy French restaurant. He always said to me, "You know you want to do this. Why don't you come and do it full time?" On my 27th birthday I went to him and said, "O.K. I'm ready, what have you got for me?" He said he had a pastry position. I said, "Pastry!? Girls always get stuck in pastry. I'll never get out." He promised me that if took the position and I wanted out he would reassign me. So I stayed at that restaurant for three years -- and I never wanted out. I hit chef's block in year two and I took a month off and went to pastry school at La Varenne in France. And I went back two more summers and worked in pastry shops there.
So how many openings did you do for other people? Twelve. So we finally opened some for ourselves: Trio in Evanston (which we sold our interest in), Brasserie T and Vanilla Bean Bakery in Northfield (now closed), and Tru. Along the way we did have that baby, now almost five, and although we are now divorced, we still love to cook together at Tru, and we understand each other's food.
Is it really possible to do what you do and have a personal life, family life and children? The first question for me was: Is it possible to be a woman and a great chef in America? So I went to France to find out how good is great, and can I do it? because if I can't I don't even want to try. I came back and decided that it was something that an American woman can do.
Is it better to date or marry someone in the business? Two years ago I would have said yes because they have a deeper understanding of your schedule. Now that I am not married and have a boyfriend who is not in the business I actually think it is much better, because we don't work when we are at home. I see there is a whole world out there of people who go home when they go home. They eat a nice meal. And they pet the cat.
Any problems with men not taking your seriously or making life hard on you in the kitchen? Oh sure. The classics. Even in the last five years. I went with Rick to do a women's chef event and brought him as my helper. They were my recipes, my dishes, and the European hotel chef running the kitchen refused to acknowledge me or my dishes for two days, and kept addressing questions to Rick. I've felt it, I've seen it, and it makes me cranky. Throughout my 25-year career there are certain tricks I've had to learn to make it in this field. They have served me well, even in lease negotiations. I have developed some rough language for some occasions, and body language for others such as firm handshakes.
Conversely, are there qualities about being a woman that suit you well for this profession? It's part of why I can have five things cooking on the stove and not worry, take a phone call and tie my shoe. I think women are hard-wired to be able to balance many things at one time and make decisions quickly. And even if women are Type A, as I am, I think they are kinder, gentler Type As. We confer, we bring the group in, we make sure everyone is o.k., we are not simply concerned about ourselves. And while women may lack men's physical strength, perhaps women have more stamina for the long haul.
So what's ahead? A new cookbook, "Just a Bite," -- tiny little miniature desserts -- so you get a bite of three or four different tastes instead of forkful after forkful of the same dessert. And a new television 70-series television show on the Food Network. I'm applying for a scholarship to go to Tuscany and work on an organic farm in September, but I don't know if I will get it. I've never set goals, goals limit you. Everything works out just as it should. I just need to show up.
What did you want to be when you grew up? A doctor. An orthopedic surgeon. Which was really a natural outgrowth of my childhood experience with polio. I never wanted to be a nurse, however, I wanted to be a doctor because I liked the tools.
Your first job in the restaurant business? I didn't bake my first cake until I was 37 years old. I had never baked. I was a little bit of a cook, but I had an idea for a surprise birthday-cake delivery service. I thought: people send you strippers, singing telegrams, but nobody sends you a cake. And I had mentioned this to a bunch of friends. I was living in Chicago at the time. And I said: "What do you think about a service where a tuxedoed butler delivers a cake and instead of writing on it we do a beautiful little scroll in calligraphy and it has a sparkler on it? And everybody thought: Oh my god, what a great idea! I was an inveterate reader and clipper of recipes and I found a recipe by Craig Claiborne in the New York Times for a chocolate mousse cake, and as I read it I just dreamed about how that cake would taste -- of course, never having made it. It involved whipping egg whites and who ever heard of such a thing in 1980? We didn't do that at home with ease. And as I was reading it, a young woman called and she said, "Hi, I live in the building and I got your name from the doorman and I would like to order your service for Friday." And I thought, "Well, all right. I've never been one to say no." And there it was. I worked all day on that cake, and my husband put on his tuxedo and went and did the delivery. I had just started a new job on that Monday, so when I came home, I asked him how did it go? "He said, "It was pretty good." And then the woman called. I told her, "Look Diane, you know you were the first, so tell me everything good and everything bad." She said, "It was wonderful it was elegant it was a surprise, the cake was delicious, but there was just one thing wrong -- you don't charge enough." This was 1980 and the charge was $25, so I raised it to $35. The word spread like wildfire. It was in newspaper columns, I was on radio. And I would work all day -- I was an office manager for a company here -- and bake all night. And I hired a bunch of actors who would turn up in their tuxedos and deliver the cakes.
Was the choice easy? It was quite extraordinary: one day a man called up and asked if he could just get the cake. A light bulb went on in my head and I said, "Of course." And then he said, "What else do you do?" And I said, "What else do you want?" And I had a business. I had been collecting recipes for years and I figured that if I could master whipping egg whites I could conquer the world. I did have a five-quart table top electric mixer that I bought for $75 from a lady in the building who had moved. I used that machine for about 12 years.
The path straight, the road clear? And all of a sudden I was baking, and baking and baking, and I decided I would have to quit my job. The word had spread and I was getting orders. And somehow things always came out just right. And I found out why: I was very precise. If a recipe said put in a tablespoon, that is exactly what I put in. At that time I may have been too precise a cook to be a great chef, but I was a great baker. My home began to look like a bakery, and I realized it was taking over. One of the things that propelled me forward into finding a space was that Vogue magazine put me in their December issue as the Chicago dessert queen. They had called me about a breakfast-in-bed basket that I did. The way I came up with these things is that I always created things I wanted to get. So I went to New York and showed it to them and it turned out not to be the item they wanted because their readers either had to be able to replicate the item or order it. But as a thank-you gift to the editor, I brought her a one-pound chocolate truffle. It looked like a 16-inch softball. She said, "This is the item. You can ship this." And I had over 200 orders. I finally took a space on Wrightwood and turned it into a code bakery. Not only did I have private customers who would spread my name, but then someone would say to their favorite little restaurant, "You know, your desserts are lousy. You ought to call Ina." And then I started to delivering to restaurants, then caterers, then hotels. At one point I was so busy that I would go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. I couldn't afford another employee, so I would do all the deliveries myself. But some mornings when I left for work in the daylight, my husband and I would look at the list of four or five breakfast restaurants on our back door. If we wanted a really good omelet, there was only one place to go. If we wanted eggs, there were only two. So it became, what do you want to eat this morning? And we would choose the restaurant. I kept saying to him, "It can't be that hard to make a really good breakfast because they accept this food as good and it's not." And when you play with butter, flour, sugar and eggs -- the ingredients that make cakes -- those are the same ingredients that make breakfast. And I understand them. Then I met someone who was a real estate broker, my former partner Elaine, and it was the perfect match at that time. I closed the bakery at midnight on September 30 and at 5 a.m. on October 1, I opened up Ina's kitchen. I didn't have a chance to work on the new space and she created the most beautiful space on Webster for Ina's Kitchen, which was in business from October 1991 to February 1996. We did show what really good breakfast food was all about -- breakfast couscous, spicy vegetable hash, pasta frittata, and a cornmeal black bean scrapple. When the New York Times interviewed us, the reporter asked us, "Weren't you afraid to start a business that is fraught with failure in recessionary times?" I replied, honestly, that it had never even dawned on me. It was wildly successful. The landlord refused to renew the lease and we chose to go downtown to Streeterville on Ontario Street. And it might have worked if we had maintained the concept of a moderate-priced meal, but we had to add dinner in order to stay open. I left the restaurant two and one-half years ago and my former business partner closed last January. So this year, in late February, I opened Ina's on Randolph street -- serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Is it possible to do what you do, have a personal life, family life and children? I think it changes. I think it shifts. When one is young one needs to take off the time and put the career on hold if you are to start a family. I don't think you can do both at the beginning. I have found a personal shift in me. At the beginning the business was all there was and I didn't have a life at all. That's part of the entrepreneurial spirit and part of the entrepreneurial neuroses. I am no longer willing to put the business first. I need to create a business around my life so that I can give the best of what I have to the business. It is for that reason that I have gathered to me really extraordinary people to help me run this restaurant.
Any problems with men not taking you seriously, or making life hard on you in the kitchen? I think because I did not come up through the traditional ranks I have not experienced that problem. I can see where others may have. The acceptance I have had must have come from how I feed people: with care, and gratitude. Restaurants are the only retail situation where people come in to give you their money. They don't come in to say, "Do you have that hamburger in blue?" So we are as kind and thoughtful and as acknowledging as we can be. That's a gift every day.
Conversely, are there qualities about being a women that suit you well for this profession? Unequivocally yes. I have always found myself somewhere in the middle. I feel what society calls masculine strength in my decision making and my ability to lead. I also feel the feminine side in my nurturing and the ability to follow. There is an advantage in being female because I can take on both roles, and men have a hard time doing that.
So, what's ahead? I've been in this business for 21 years and I'm still excited by it. I feel like I've fallen in love. I am not finished feeding people yet. That's part of my karma. But I have never believed bigger was better and growth was everything. I want to do the best work I can do where I am, so a second location doesn't interest me. That's not to say if the ABC hotels came to me and said, "We want to put an Ina's in every hotel we have," that I couldn't tell them how to do it. People have asked me for years to do a cookbook. I know how long that takes and how much money one needs to put up. I don't have plans for that, although I could certainly put one together with all the recipes I've done over the years. What I would like to do is teach. And I do have a private dining room upstairs with a service kitchen. And I do have an idea for a TV show that no one has done yet.
What did you want to be when you grew up? I was a classical guitar major at Northwestern University, but I came to realize that I didn't have the passion for practicing guitar eight hours a day. My mom is a wonderful cook, cooks everything from scratch. I grew up with a passion for food, but not with an understanding of what it means to be a chef and to be in the restaurant business.
Your first job in the restaurant business? I left Northwestern and got a waitressing job because I didn't know how to get into the chef's profession. But when I learned about Dumas Pere Culinary School, I enrolled. In 1984 they set me up an internship here at the Ritz -- and I stayed.
Was the choice easy? At Dumas Pere they were tough: We expect you to be right on time, to have your ingredients 100%, to follow directions. That, in fact, was great training for being successful in a professional kitchen. It wasn't necessarily a fun environment, but it was focused and it helped me. And I realized that while I may not have had the passion for practicing the guitar eight hours a day, when it came to cooking for eight hours -- no problem.
The path straight, the road clear? At the Ritz I cleaned fish for about eight months -- through the internship and beyond. When I say clean I mean to scale, butcher, fillet and so on. One of the first days I worked I had to clean nine 12-pound salmons for a banquet. They were in a huge box that I couldn't even lift up onto the counter. And I remember thinking, "How am I going to do this?" And now it would take me half an hour to break down nine salmons. From there I went right to cooking on The Dining Room hot line, the fish station. Fernand Guttierez was the chef at that time and he was my chef and mentor for eight years after that. The thing about Fernand is that it's all about your skill level and how you make yourself valuable -- it was never about anything else. He's wonderful that way. Within the few months Fernand said to me: "I can make you a sous chef in five years." The key to where I am today was that he was willing to teach me everything he knew about food and the concept, and I stayed long enough with him to hone my skills and develop a palate. This is a profession about skill and not necessarily intellect, but is your palate sensitive to seasoning and flavors and do you have control over those flavors, and do you have the knife skills in your hands? And I focused on that. You know some foods work together and some foods don't. And if you think certain combinations work -- well, you can't test it out on the guests. You have to make sure -- cook it and eat it yourself. He sent me to Europe where I worked for four months with Chef Pierre Orsi in Lyon, and he sent me to several other kitchens in Paris and Lyon. Their respect for food and product -- even today -- is a lot higher than ours and is built into their culture. It's not an issue to spend two hours at lunch. Here it is: give me a sandwich and let me go. But here, what we do really well is to encourage chefs to be creative. Holding people back by not teaching them how to do something is not in our professional vocabulary. We make them better, make them stronger and keep them moving. In 1990 when I came back I became The Dining Room Chef. You're working six days a week and it's all about the food. In 1994 I remember getting this little yellow slip of paper in the mail that read: You have been nominated for the James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year and your attendance is expected in New York. And I didn't know what it was, and I threw it away. Fortunately they called the publicist here and she explained it to me. I went to New York -- and I won. It blew me away.
Is it possible to do what you do, have a personal life, family life and children? I think in our profession that is a really challenging issue. I think I can have children, in fact, we're thinking about it. I think it would be difficult because you can't divide your focus. And I don't want to stop or step down. I love what I do. But when I got married I moved across the street from my mom -- literally. And she's going to help. We think that's great. I hope she thinks it's great. But we have a plan.
Is it better to date or marry someone in the business? I can't speak for anyone else -- but I did.
Any problems with men not taking you seriously or making life hard on you in the kitchen? I understand that exists, but it was not my experience. No matter where you are, it's a pretty even playing field in that if you have the skills that it takes to progress and you are professional you will always end up doing the jobs that you want to do -- for the simple reason that in a kitchen you need people. It's important to have a mentor and if that doesn't happen, you have to seek that out. And it's important to know that you can't do this without a team; it's not just about you.
Conversely, are their qualities about being a women that suit you well for this profession? Perhaps. I try always to listen and reason. For example, if a young chef proposes a menu item or a combination that isn't going to work, I give them my ten-minute speech: If you were working in a Tuscan restaurant you would have to do Tuscan food, you wouldn't do something with soy sauce. We're working in a restaurant that is my concept of food; it's French with American product. So it's not that it's a bad idea, it's an idea that doesn't fit the concept of the restaurant. This isn't about us exercising our creativity; it's about us making what makes sense for the guest. My basic tr aining philosophy is this: When someone new comes into the kitchen, this is the gist of what I say, "First we fill in your technical skills, the basics. After that we are going to work on menu and creativity." And then every time they look up and they don't have something to do, we put something new on the plate. There is never a moment that something new doesn't come their way. They always learn something new, and I am always happy that they are working.
So, what's ahead? I've stayed in this job for almost 11 years now because I love what I do, I love working with this team, and I love working with the food. As long as it's educational, challenging and it keeps me moving forward I feel it's o.k. for me to be here and I'm satisfied with what I am doing. When I say educational I mean, for instance, that I want to learn about sustainable agriculture and then I go and work on the Green City Market. That eventually benefits my restaurant and so I take on new challenges.
PRISCILA SATKOFF, SALPICÓN
When Rick Bayless opened Topolobampo, his second restaurant, I started waiting tables there. Then I started helping him in the office, and also waiting tables in the evening. When you do anything in the restaurant business -- waiting tables, cooking -- you go home, and it goes with you, and you go to bed and you have nightmares about it. But I was very happy at Frontera.
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SUSAN GOSS, ZINFANDEL
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GALE GAND, TRU
One of my girlfriends who was cooking there, knew that my marriage of eight years, wasn't doing well, really wanted to move to New York but she needed a roommate. A friend in New York was having a housewarming party, so I went for the weekend, took my resume, my chef's coat and called seven trendy restaurants. Six weren't hiring. One was. It was Jonathan Waxman's restaurant Jam's. While I was trying out, the grill guy asked me if I need an apartment because a friend of his had to sublet. So within two days I had a new job and a new apartment in a new city. Eventually I had two roommates -- my girlfriend and Rick Tramonto, whom I later married, after my divorce. We all ended up working at the Gotham Bar & Grill under Alfred Portale -- as it was born. Rick and I realized that we wanted to have children and New York wasn't the place. So after helping Greg Broman open a restaurant in Rochester, we moved back to Chicago. I worked at Carlos', for Dave Jarvis at Melange, for Lettuce Entertain You at the Pump Room and as a corporate pastry chef for Rich Melman who is my partner now in Tru. Rick and I helped opened Bella Luna and Bice in Chicago and then we went to London and worked for Bob Payton for three years. When we came back I worked for Charlie Trotter for awhile.
Then it took me another 15 years to figure out how you can blend that with children, a home, house plants that don't die, friends, and dogs. I pick my friends very carefully, friends who are o.k. with my being in their life on the phone every day -- then having me disappear for the holidays or wedding season. When you are a chef and your co-parent is a chef, it actually takes three adults to raise a child. I have a live-in au pair. My son Giorgio has a very unorthodox schedule. He sees his Mommy and Daddy at different times than most kids. A lot of our quality time is in the morning. I may pick him up from school at noon and then we have from noon to two. Then I go to work. I try to work as much as possible when he is sleeping. If I can't get home by eight, for bedtime, then there's no point in going home. I may as well stay at the restaurant and work another eight hours. We don't eat dinner together a lot. But on the weekends we do. So it is possible but it does require help.
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INA PINKNEY, INA'S
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THE DINING ROOM, RITZ-CARLTON CHICAGO
I was one of two women in the kitchen of Gerard Bessin in Paris. Of course they start you in pastries -- which is my weakest skill -- but as soon as they see that you can handle yourself, move quickly and are professional, then they move you to the next job. By the time I finished in his and in all the French kitchens I had done every station. In one kitchen (not Bessin's), the chef had a sense of humor. He handed me a chicken -- complete with feet and feathers, ungutted, intact. I was stunned because here in America we get our chickens already cleaned. He showed me how to do it -- singe the feathers, eviscerate it and so on -- and at the end he said, "Well finally I found something that you don't know how to do!"