Shy sandwich-maker Mahoma Lopez unites his undocumented immigrant coworkers…
A Fine Line
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Featuring intimate interviews with world-renowned chefs like Dominique Crenn, Lidia Bastianich, Cat Cora, Elena Arzak, Elizabeth Falkner, Maria Loi, Sylvia Weinstock, Michael Anthony and others, A FINE LINE explores pressing issues faced by women in the culinary arts and across all industries, including sexual and workplace harassment, access to capital, unequal pay, and lack of paid family leave and affordable childcare.
An uplifting American success story about perseverance, family, and food, A FINE LINE follows the personal story of Valerie James, a small town restaurateur with a larger than life personality who raised Joanna as a single mother, on a mission to do what she loves while raising two kids and the odds stacked against her.
'This is a relatable, heart-warming film about a woman's struggle to succeed in a male-dominated restaurant world. With notable appearances from top female chefs, viewers will learn about the ways that inequality is embedded in the food world, but also how some remarkable women (including the filmmaker's own mother) managed to succeed and inspire others.' Josee Johnston, Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto
'A Fine Line masterfully explores the challenges of women becoming successful head chefs. Using personal stories, the film exposes the unequal treatment of women, while creatively offering correctives from the experiences of women who have found success against the odds. A great resource for anyone looking to understand the need for gender equality and to break barriers in the food industry.' Naomi R Williams, Assistant Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, Rutgers University
'Joanna James' heartfelt film reveals the structural inequalities that make life in restaurants more challenging for women. Stories like that of James' mother demonstrate women's strengths and ability to rise above. This film is an inspiration that will help open eyes to the gender inequality that exists in the back of the house at most restaurants. A Fine Line showcases women's entrepreneurial strengths, creativity, and mastery in the kitchen.' Rachel Black, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Connecticut College, Author, On the Line: Women, Cuisine and Work in France (forthcoming)
'A Fine Line is a testament to women in the food industry...Throughout the entire film I couldn't help but feel the empowerment of all these different women fighting their way to the top. All these women and many more out there have fought to earn their recognition.' Karen Garcia, New Times San Luis Obispo
'Illuminate[s] how challenges of mentorship, access to capital, child care, and maternal leave have shaped opportunities for women in the restaurant industry.' Michael Floreak, Boston Globe
'The film seamlessly weaves between the chefs' perspectives and experiences rising up the ranks and Valerie's up-close and personal story empowering women and men alike to follow their dreams.' The National Herald
'A Fine Line highlights the respect that women deserve as an inspiration for a host of both female and male chefs...The film is an excellent resource for a classroom setting, showing students that while women's work tends to be devalued in society, those female chefs who focus on the collaborative aspects of the food and restaurant industry, often relying on the strengths and mutual respect of the entire staff, become successful in their own right. This lesson is applicable to many business sectors, but is especially relevant in an industry that has been plagued by sexism and is reckoning with a myriad of Me Too-related scandals.' Dr. Monique Mironesco, Professor of Political Science, University of Hawai'i, West O'ahu
Citation
Main credits
James, Joanna (film producer)
James, Joanna (film director)
James, Joanna (editor of moving image work)
Jordan, Katy (film producer)
James, Valerie (on-screen participant)
Other credits
Edited by Russell Greene, Joanna James; director of photography: Robert Featherstone; composer, Petros Klampanis.
Distributor subjects
Anthropology; Business Practices; Food And Nutrition; Human Rights; Labor and Work Issues; Local Economies; Sociology; Women's StudiesKeywords
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- My plate is an empty canvas.
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And I can draw from it.
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I fell in love with the symphony of it,
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the way and the dance of it.
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I just wanted to do something with food,
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but I was not too sure where which way I was going to go.
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And now this is where I am.
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- What the immigrants are looking
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for today, a better life for the family, for the children,
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that was back then in 1956 for us.
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We went into a refugee camp, a political refugee camp.
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And I realized that we would not go back to see Grandma.
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And so I think at that moment my passion for food
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was born almost then.
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I wanted to retain those memories, those flavors.
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And throughout my life, I would bring them with me by cooking.
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- When I came into the building, it was really humbling.
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Grey is located in a Greyhound station that
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was built in 1938 during the Jim Crowe era
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so it is a segregated building.
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I know the people who were in this space going
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to ride the bus, sitting in that little tiny back waiting room,
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did not think that someone like me would be a co-owner
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or be in this space at all running it.
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- I started cooking when I was 17.
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And then I came to Four Seasons Chicago.
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And I was 10 years with them as executive chef
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in three properties.
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But my father always said the higher up you go,
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the further removed you get from what made you great.
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And at the end of the day, this is what we do.
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We cook.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- So Mom, what do you think?
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This is to see you as the matriarch.
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Hear your story.
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- I never thought that I would do what I
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did how I did it when I did it.
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If I had to do it over again, bet your ass
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I'd do it over again just for you and Christos.
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- Yeah.
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I got it.
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- I didn't care about money, because I
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knew it was going to make it, because I believed in myself.
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Why shouldn't I do what I love?
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- Are you listening?
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That's got to go.
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Don't you dare take food that doesn't belong!
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You got tonight's special up there yet?
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- Yeah, it's all set.
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- He said tomato wine.
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Wrong answer.
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Tomato basil.
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All you need is just a touch.
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- OK.
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- And go from side to side instead of over the salmon.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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Megan, what do you need?
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- Spinach pie!
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- Got your spices everything, liquor, white wine?
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(SIGH)
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Tonight is a burger night, you understand?
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Don't screw up tonight, because guess what?
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You're going to McDonald's.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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Coming to work every day, loving the restaurant,
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loving people, and loving to see my kids happy,
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that's all I care.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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I didn't have a life.
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And to keep it afloat, I went in from 8:00 in the morning
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and I'd go home at 10:00, 11:00 at night,
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not seeing my kids because I couldn't afford to stop.
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- There's no doubt that there is still a glass ceiling for women
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in all kinds of industry, and especially
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in the culinary world.
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You know, over half of the graduates of culinary schools
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are women, yet less than 7% of women
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own restaurant businesses in this country.
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- I was doing stages and apprentices in France
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when I got eight rejection letters
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from eight chefs that said, "We don't take women
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in our kitchens."
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That was only 20 years ago.
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So I was ready--
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when I became an executive chef, I was ready.
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And I could hold my own with all these guys.
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Kind of like being on the streets and street fighting
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in a kitchen.
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- I can tell you the story of going to Paris once,
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for a client that wanted a wedding cake,
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and walked into an all-male kitchen where they looked
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askance and said, "Oh, my god, what is this?
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Who are you, a woman?"
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And when we were finished they were in thralls.
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They tied a bottle of champagne and toasted us.
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And I think that's what women have to do.
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They have to prove it all the time, unfortunately.
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- I grew up in Southie, last of seven kids, no money.
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I remember reading Gourmet magazine.
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And that kind of was the armchair travel for me,
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because you were reading about Provence or Italy,
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and you were just dreaming about it.
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So I went to Italy.
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I think I was 22.
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And I learned how to cook from this woman, Mita, in Tuscany.
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Didn't speak a word of English, and I
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didn't speak a word of Italian.
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She taught me how to make bolognese sauce,
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gnocci, you know, went to pick the basil, everything.
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She was so self-sufficient.
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I mean, I've never seen that.
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What I loved about it was you didn't have to have a title.
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And everyone respected them--
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the nonna, the mama.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- Women excel in cooking.
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This is what we do naturally.
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And behind every great French chef
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was a grandmother or mother.
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You look at individuals like Bocuse and Girardet,
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and they always learned to cook from their mothers.
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They learned to cook from their grandmothers
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in their own family restaurants, and bistros, and inns.
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- In a little town outside Pula, the town that I was born in,
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was a courtyard.
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And in that courtyard was my grandmother, my grandfather's
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sister, I have brothers.
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It was a real family courtyard.
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And all the sustenance, all the food that we ate, most of it,
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was either grown or harvested.
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We had the grain, the olive oil.
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I was a little helper, and I'd run around.
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"Go get me this, go get me that."
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I consider myself almost a conduit for a culture.
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I carried the Italian tradition from my native country
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to America.
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- "Ciliegine," so they say, right?
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- "La ciliegine."
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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- Then you hear a bunch people say,
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"I just want to cook like my grandmother or my nonna."
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It seems to me that the goal should
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be for every chef, male or female,
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to be cooking like a female chef.
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- People will say, "Well, you know, if you want to cook,
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if you're a woman just do-- you know,
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cook pasta or just do something very rustic."
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They don't look that woman could be a Jean-Georges
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or Thomas Keller or-- they don't look at that like this.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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I'm looking at Anne-Sophie Pic.
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I'm looking at Elena Arzak-- these great chefs
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that are female in Europe that have three Michelin stars.
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Et voila.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- Last year, we celebrate 25 years of the Michelin stars.
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And for us, it's an honor.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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You will see that there are more men than women that are famous.
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But for me, this is a social question.
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This will change with the time.
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Sometimes I was the only woman in the kitchen
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or there was one or two more.
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But the focus and the purpose was the same--
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doing as good as possible.
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- As a woman, of course it was harder for me,
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because men thought women in the field was a joke.
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But when you find a woman that could establish her own self
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and don't care about what people think, you just go at it.
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Customers that come in to you every day
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are not coming only for your food, they're coming for you.
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- She's quite the lady, a mother and a businesswoman.
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- Val, you can sense her love of family.
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And it reflects right into the way she
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takes care of us as customers.
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And I think she's just wonderful.
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- Come on, guys, use your head!
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There's 75 people coming for a party.
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If you let them take two spaces up, we're screwed!
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Just make sure they're for the function.
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But do not let them park the way they want!
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Oh, does anyone want to do dishes?
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- It's like coming home because she's always
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welcoming and hugging.
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And she's just always there.
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- Penne up, guys?
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- Yeah, right now.
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- Well, I sent you a text.
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Did you not read my goddamn text?
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I know you're busy.
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I know it's a--
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I know, baby.
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I know.
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But you know what?
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I've got people up my ass, in my ass, and everywhere.
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-When you meet her, it's like you've known your whole life.
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You know what I mean?
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She's just-- she's a caring, loving person.
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- Everybody saw Val going to work every day,
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seeing the smile, "How you doin'?",
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but they never knew what a mess I really was.
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I used to drive Reservoir from my house to come to work.
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I'd stop at the reservoir, and I would look up and I'd say,
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"Please, God, just give me strength."
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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The minute my right foot went into this door,
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I forgot about everything-- debt collectors,
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I didn't give a shit who was coming to knock on my door.
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I said, "Go screw.
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You'll get your money when I have it."
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I just blocked them out.
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I didn't care.
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All I thought was, I have to make it work.
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I have to make it work.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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With a divorce, with kids, bills, loans, I became a bull
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and I kept on going.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
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- I have to tell you, I didn't think I was making a career.
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At the age of 50, I had breast cancer.
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And I was in chemotherapy here in New York
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several times a week.
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And so I felt I had nothing to lose.
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And we always wanted to come back to Manhattan.
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We knew the city.
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And we loved the city.
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And we found this wonderful space.
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And so we now, as we say, live above the store.
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New York City is a unique space,
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because you have a mixture of ages, sexuality,
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a lot of artists, a lot of young people.
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And I always say, get younger friends.
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It keeps you younger.
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I also had a friend in New York who had a bakery.
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And he said, "Nobody's doing beautiful
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and delicious wedding cakes.
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But if you can come up with an idea,
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you could probably take over the city."
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And so my first cake--
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the ladies that lunch saw the cake.
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And one ordered it for The Carlyle.
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And as soon as The Carlyle had it, The Pierre found out,
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The Plaza found out, and all the hotels said, "Hey, there's
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a new kid in town."
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And of course, they discovered it was a 50-year-old woman,
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which made it even more interesting for me
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and challenging for them.
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- I got offered this job to come and be chef and co-owner
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of the Spotted Pig.
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I got brought over on a whirlwind weekend
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with Mario Batali and Ken Friedman.
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And Ken was like, "Oh, if you're the right person for the job,
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Mario will give me the thumbs up or thumbs down
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in about 30 seconds."
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And I think he could probably see there I
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was very focused in my career.
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And he also noticed the burns on my arm,
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and apparently he thought I was fearless.
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About three months later, four months later,
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I moved to New York.
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- Now to those new allegations of sexual misconduct
[00:14:20.490]
rocking the food industry.
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- Sexual harassment accusations against the owner of
[00:14:24.480]
New York City hot spot, the Spotted Pig--
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- More women and more allegations
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against Mario Batali.
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And now the accusations are escalating.
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Eataly, the Italian marketplace chain
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where Batali is part owner has removed all of his cookbooks
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and all of his products, including
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his signature sauces which have his face on the label.
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- The #MeToo movement, it is growing.
[00:14:42.860]
- This has been a very powerful movement.
[00:14:44.850]
A new ABC News Washington Post poll
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revealing an estimated 33 million
[00:14:49.320]
American women have been sexually harassed.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:14:54.080]
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- With all the things that have happened with #MeToo,
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I think lots of us in the industry
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are having conversations where I started really
[00:15:06.560]
looking at my career and thinking back to things
[00:15:09.380]
that had occurred 30 years ago.
[00:15:11.438]
There was a hotel that was brand new, that was pursuing
[00:15:13.730]
a Michelin star, and I'd come from France
[00:15:15.800]
and had a great resume.
[00:15:17.720]
And one of the sous chefs on the other team
[00:15:21.410]
was very direct about his interest in me
[00:15:24.350]
that went beyond being a working colleague.
[00:15:27.620]
And on a daily basis, they started turning the lights off
[00:15:32.180]
when I would be in the walk-in.
[00:15:33.950]
And the sous chef from the other restaurant
[00:15:36.170]
would come into the walk-in.
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And I would try to make myself as small as possible
[00:15:41.930]
within that space and try to get out of the space
[00:15:44.930]
as quickly as possible.
[00:15:46.520]
And everyone thought it was absolutely hilarious.
[00:15:49.550]
And after work, I would have one of the other cooks leave
[00:15:53.630]
with me because this fellow would be waiting outside.
[00:15:56.360]
I decided that what I would do is
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I would go to work three hours before my shift started,
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and I wouldn't punch in.
[00:16:04.970]
And I would go, and I would do all of my mise en place
[00:16:07.970]
on my own time so that my station was completely set up.
[00:16:11.900]
And then I would ask one of the other cooks,
[00:16:13.850]
if I happened to need anything, to go into the walk-in.
[00:16:17.180]
And then this situation came to the attention
[00:16:22.620]
of the executive chef of the hotel,
[00:16:24.380]
who is a very big name chef, who's now in Vegas.
[00:16:27.460]
And he called me into his office and wrote me up
[00:16:32.130]
and said I was antisocial and all I wanted to do was cook.
[00:16:36.630]
And I remember sitting there and being very clear
[00:16:39.780]
about saying, like, "This person is coming in the walk-in,
[00:16:42.480]
and they're touching me, and people are turning
[00:16:45.210]
the lights off, and this person's waiting outside when
[00:16:47.970]
I'm leaving work at night, and I'm not comfortable,"
[00:16:51.190]
and being told that it was my problem.
[00:16:53.580]
And I think of that now, and it's insane.
[00:16:56.730]
It was humiliating.
[00:16:58.140]
I lasted about two more weeks,
[00:16:59.970]
and I knew I couldn't stay there because something worse
[00:17:03.119]
was going to happen.
[00:17:04.680]
I would hope, at this point, if that were happening
[00:17:07.500]
to a young woman, that there would be zero tolerance
[00:17:10.780]
and that the person that was asked to leave
[00:17:13.079]
would be the person who was causing the discomfort,
[00:17:16.770]
not the person who was the victim of the actions.
[00:17:20.339]
Like, I can't even imagine-- like, me,
[00:17:22.260]
I can't imagine my voice ever saying to somebody,
[00:17:25.450]
"You need to be more friendly,
[00:17:27.780]
you need to let somebody fondle you more."
[00:17:30.390]
Like, that's fucking ridiculous.
[00:17:33.480]
[00:17:36.860]
- I switched over and I worked for a female,
[00:17:40.250]
and it was like a completely different experience.
[00:17:43.620]
It was like, "What do you want to cook?
[00:17:47.030]
What kind of cook are you?
[00:17:48.710]
What kind of person are you?"
[00:17:52.184]
- Mash, mash, rice, go!
[00:17:54.370]
- OK, I got it.
[00:17:55.068]
- Eggplant parm, girlfriend.
[00:17:56.900]
My strengths are my staff.
[00:18:00.080]
They inspired me because, without them,
[00:18:04.270]
I couldn't have Val's.
[00:18:06.270]
We're good.
[00:18:07.155]
You're good, you're good.
[00:18:08.197]
Keep it going.
[00:18:09.740]
How I first got involved in this business
[00:18:14.110]
was when I was very young, my dad and mom
[00:18:17.560]
had 12 seats in a little diner.
[00:18:22.070]
I used to go there and sit at the first stool,
[00:18:25.520]
and I would just watch him interact with customers.
[00:18:29.330]
And he would just give it all out to them.
[00:18:32.300]
- Yeah, once in a while I would see
[00:18:33.860]
her, little (SPEAKING GREEK), a little tiny girl running down
[00:18:39.080]
to see her mother and her father.
[00:18:40.940]
She loved being there trying to work.
[00:18:43.480]
[00:18:46.700]
- The diner was an interesting place
[00:18:48.490]
because all kinds of people came in there--
[00:18:51.440]
wealthy people, blue collar workers,
[00:18:54.020]
college professors, students.
[00:18:56.900]
And they all loved coming there because it wasn't
[00:19:00.800]
just the food, the way they were talked to with respect,
[00:19:04.670]
they were listened to.
[00:19:06.100]
Val connects with people that same way her father did.
[00:19:09.680]
[00:19:12.300]
- He's the one that showed me that when you give
[00:19:15.900]
with your heart, it comes back.
[00:19:19.020]
There was no obstacles between him and work either.
[00:19:22.470]
He came as an immigrant, did not speak,
[00:19:24.765]
didn't know how to say "Hello" in English.
[00:19:27.860]
But because of his hard work, he provided for his family,
[00:19:32.670]
he worked hard, and he did well.
[00:19:35.087]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:19:37.422]
[00:19:40.691]
We called him the ambassador to Val's.
[00:19:43.740]
He would sit at this first stool,
[00:19:46.210]
and he would talk to people and literally say,
[00:19:50.290]
"Hey, do you like this restaurant?"
[00:19:52.840]
The customers would say, "Oh, I love it.
[00:19:54.790]
I love it."
[00:19:55.500]
They didn't know he was my dad.
[00:19:57.240]
And at the end of it, he'd say,
[00:19:58.920]
"I want to buy his dinner.
[00:20:00.330]
I'm Val's father."
[00:20:01.220]
[00:20:03.920]
My father wanted me to learn Greek.
[00:20:07.670]
So from eight years old, I'd go to Greece from June,
[00:20:12.300]
the minute school's finished, until Labor Day weekend,
[00:20:16.100]
we'd be back home.
[00:20:17.080]
[00:20:19.770]
My last trip was 1976.
[00:20:23.460]
I was 16.
[00:20:24.270]
What the hell do you know at 16?
[00:20:27.570]
I picked up the phone in Greece.
[00:20:28.948]
It was funny.
[00:20:29.490]
I said, Dad, "I'm getting married."
[00:20:32.760]
He said, "Good girl."
[00:20:34.620]
He said, "You found a nice Greek boy."
[00:20:36.490]
[00:20:39.698]
We get married.
[00:20:41.500]
We come back to the States.
[00:20:44.050]
And we started to work and help Dad, help Mom.
[00:20:49.460]
Things changed.
[00:20:50.190]
[00:20:53.150]
At that time, George, my brother,
[00:20:56.180]
had never worked a day of his life.
[00:20:59.040]
I think he was 18.
[00:21:01.880]
Val was the worker.
[00:21:03.230]
Val was.
[00:21:04.550]
Val worked a lot, you know, and George, you know--
[00:21:08.230]
well, he'd work, but not that much.
[00:21:11.060]
He kind of had it a lot easier.
[00:21:13.550]
- Well, the Greek families are what's called,
[00:21:16.370]
in the lingo, a closed system.
[00:21:20.030]
The parents tell you what to do, and the kids listen.
[00:21:24.890]
Very strict as far as the roles go.
[00:21:27.950]
The male dominates.
[00:21:30.452]
And then you have the American system,
[00:21:32.990]
which is an open system.
[00:21:34.550]
And there is this desire for more equality.
[00:21:37.720]
It's hard to reconcile those two cultures.
[00:21:40.855]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:21:43.450]
[00:21:46.090]
- At that point of my life, my father was successful.
[00:21:50.870]
He had five pizzerias.
[00:21:53.050]
He had buildings.
[00:21:54.820]
He had plazas.
[00:21:56.800]
And he had a son and a daughter.
[00:21:59.120]
[00:22:02.620]
Well, the son got married, and they manipulated
[00:22:08.870]
my mother and father.
[00:22:11.770]
And my brother was handed the business
[00:22:16.960]
that I worked from a young child.
[00:22:19.720]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:22:22.430]
[00:22:35.620]
From that young age, I had a vision.
[00:22:38.840]
I had a vision just to keep working.
[00:22:42.250]
I have nothing, but I will make something.
[00:22:45.280]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:22:48.100]
[00:22:51.400]
- The Culinary Institute of America
[00:22:53.080]
was launched in 1946 by two women.
[00:22:56.230]
But ironically, they didn't even accept female students
[00:22:59.230]
until 1970.
[00:23:01.670]
- How do you do?
[00:23:02.660]
This is Eleanor Roosevelt speaking.
[00:23:05.440]
Now there is one word that we're going to use
[00:23:09.800]
over and over today, Mrs. Roth.
[00:23:12.320]
I think we ought to get it straightened out
[00:23:14.660]
right away exactly how the word should be pronounced.
[00:23:19.310]
How do you say C-U-L-I-N-A-R-Y?
[00:23:21.110]
[00:23:23.690]
Europeans usually say "cue-linairy."
[00:23:26.930]
And we in America are more apt to call it the "cul-inairy"
[00:23:31.160]
or the "cul-inairian" arts.
[00:23:32.780]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:23:35.210]
[00:23:36.668]
- Went to the Culinary Institute of America
[00:23:38.840]
where there was still a lot of older instructors
[00:23:41.930]
who were used to, kind of, the male students only.
[00:23:45.940]
I actually had one instructor who told me,
[00:23:47.690]
you know, "You should still be in Mississippi
[00:23:49.220]
barefoot and pregnant right now.
[00:23:50.300]
You shouldn't be here at the Culinary Institute of America."
[00:23:52.800]
- Culinary, right now, is where the finance world was
[00:23:55.580]
in the '80s.
[00:23:57.920]
The rules were all created by men.
[00:24:00.440]
The industry was dominated by men.
[00:24:02.870]
Women were really treated like outsiders.
[00:24:06.920]
- A lot of the traditional culinary world
[00:24:09.440]
was based on a European model.
[00:24:11.190]
So I think that's one reason, perhaps,
[00:24:13.820]
that the industry has been male-dominated, male-oriented.
[00:24:18.590]
In the time of Escoffier, he really
[00:24:20.840]
established the brigade system which
[00:24:23.000]
was kind of based upon the idea of a military structure
[00:24:26.720]
so that you had sort of a leader and then branches of leadership
[00:24:30.050]
coming down from the top.
[00:24:31.550]
But there was one chef who was in charge.
[00:24:34.200]
- I am the president of Central New England or Joseph Donan
[00:24:37.880]
Chapter of Les Amis d'Escoffier.
[00:24:40.190]
It's the Friends of Escoffier, the man who basically
[00:24:44.240]
organized classical cuisine.
[00:24:46.850]
My dad, Stanley James Nicas, he was the president
[00:24:50.060]
for a number of years.
[00:24:52.970]
My dad had a great respect for people
[00:24:55.850]
who didn't let things happen to them, took charge of things,
[00:25:01.760]
and made sure that things would get done.
[00:25:03.800]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:25:06.608]
[00:25:09.420]
- I didn't have a clue what the Escoffier Society was.
[00:25:12.560]
Your dad just called at 12 o'clock on a Friday lunch.
[00:25:15.670]
"Val, Val, I just want you to know I'm going to induct you.
[00:25:20.030]
And I was like, "Induct me, Stanley?
[00:25:22.020]
In what?"
[00:25:22.940]
- He didn't wait for those people
[00:25:24.530]
to say, "You know, I'd like to be a member of the society.
[00:25:27.200]
What do I have to do?"
[00:25:28.337]
He would go to them and say, "You know what?
[00:25:30.170]
This is where you should be."
[00:25:31.880]
- And Stanley, to me, was a father
[00:25:35.750]
that took me under his wing.
[00:25:38.630]
I just loved the guy.
[00:25:41.504]
- Les Amis d'Escoffier did start as a man's club.
[00:25:47.580]
There are a few chapters in the US that are not allowing women.
[00:25:51.760]
I would suspect that those would change.
[00:25:54.770]
This is the brigade at The Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue
[00:25:58.970]
and 61st Street in New York City.
[00:26:01.220]
This was a photo from 1930.
[00:26:04.260]
This is the brigade that would run the kitchen.
[00:26:07.910]
Here and across are all females, which is actually fairly rare.
[00:26:13.085]
[00:26:15.090]
- It was very classic.
[00:26:16.610]
It was commis.
[00:26:17.720]
It was chef de parties.
[00:26:18.980]
It was poissonniers, entremetiers, sauciers.
[00:26:22.610]
You know, Cook One, Two, Three, Four, Five.
[00:26:25.530]
It was a brigade.
[00:26:26.660]
It was a French brigade.
[00:26:28.310]
- Being a chef in France was equivalent
[00:26:29.960]
to being a rocket scientist.
[00:26:31.550]
They had little commis, little boys that were probably
[00:26:34.390]
12 to 14, that were just dropped off by their parents that said,
[00:26:37.130]
"Discipline 'em.
[00:26:38.250]
Make 'em chefs."
[00:26:40.820]
- Most of them were young men who
[00:26:43.160]
had a big ego and whose mothers had felt,
[00:26:46.593]
"Well, if he's not going to be a doctor, he'll be a chef."
[00:26:49.010]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:26:51.360]
[00:26:52.300]
- So that very traditional model created a lot of male chefs
[00:26:56.320]
who, of course, were inspired and nurtured by their mothers,
[00:26:59.200]
grandmothers, aunts, other family members
[00:27:01.480]
who did the traditional cooking at home.
[00:27:03.150]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:27:06.072]
[00:27:12.420]
- I think the Greek culture, we always like to feed people.
[00:27:16.110]
My mom making spinach pie, my father roasting a leg of lamb.
[00:27:20.760]
So being that way at home,
[00:27:24.330]
I brought it into the restaurant here.
[00:27:28.490]
- Definitely having all these recipes me from the older
[00:27:32.300]
generations-- from my grandparents, my grandmother,
[00:27:35.220]
my mother, that's how young chefs grow.
[00:27:39.370]
They gain knowledge from their grandparents in the kitchen.
[00:27:42.520]
They're from northern Greek villages,
[00:27:44.170]
so basically they didn't have much up there.
[00:27:46.450]
They had to produce everything they had
[00:27:48.560]
out of what they had on the land.
[00:27:51.100]
And I try to use the most wholesome and simple
[00:27:53.800]
ingredients that I can to a dish because that's
[00:27:56.420]
how I was brought up.
[00:27:58.180]
- When you can find these fresh ingredients
[00:28:01.510]
right outside your home,
[00:28:04.780]
you can make honest and clean food.
[00:28:07.750]
That's how I call it.
[00:28:09.400]
We have to take all the processed
[00:28:11.140]
foods out of our life.
[00:28:12.830]
In ancient Greek, they used to eat
[00:28:15.370]
a lot of beans, a lot of grapes, a lot of fish, wine.
[00:28:21.410]
Based in my research from the ancient Greeks,
[00:28:26.620]
starting from there, going to my grandmothers,
[00:28:31.370]
that's the nature in my cuisine.
[00:28:33.570]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:28:36.020]
[00:28:38.470]
- Alice Waters said it best--
[00:28:40.420]
"If we celebrated food for what it should be celebrated for,
[00:28:43.900]
women would naturally rise to the top."
[00:28:45.850]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:28:48.778]
[00:28:54.160]
- I arrived at Chez Panisse in July, 2003.
[00:28:57.400]
And it was basically like a pilgrimage.
[00:29:00.690]
It opened new doors for me.
[00:29:02.590]
You know, when you have those connections with food
[00:29:05.050]
it's very personal.
[00:29:06.520]
And you just kind of stop and you have this moment.
[00:29:09.155]
And it's very--
[00:29:09.780]
[00:29:12.710]
it's a very loving connection.
[00:29:14.710]
To use local farms, I think it's really important
[00:29:17.350]
to support local agriculture.
[00:29:19.630]
It's going to taste better, and it's good for the environment.
[00:29:22.650]
You know, it's less carbon footprint
[00:29:24.220]
than buying lamb from New Zealand.
[00:29:26.980]
And even go one step further to having a restaurant on the farm
[00:29:31.940]
and to have it all be self-sustainable and symbiotic.
[00:29:35.760]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:29:38.568]
[00:29:39.510]
- My mom, everything that she cooked at home was very fresh.
[00:29:43.230]
Some of the item were coming from a garden in Brittany.
[00:29:46.380]
Some others were just the farmer market every day.
[00:29:49.980]
So understanding the purity of the ingredient,
[00:29:53.130]
you understand where the food come from.
[00:29:54.960]
The food is the core of the ecosystem,
[00:29:57.630]
so we have that responsibility as chef and as human
[00:30:00.900]
to do that.
[00:30:02.890]
- The food industry is really going through a revolution,
[00:30:05.980]
and it's being led by the female chefs.
[00:30:08.320]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:30:11.242]
[00:30:17.580]
The Time magazine article in November of 2013 ran,
[00:30:21.330]
the title of which was "The Gods of Food."
[00:30:23.760]
And they looked at the most influential people
[00:30:25.890]
in the food world
[00:30:26.820]
of all time and neglected to mention any female chefs.
[00:30:31.068]
- I mean, I thought, this surely is a sensational piece
[00:30:33.360]
to sell magazines.
[00:30:36.090]
Because how embarrassing to just put out a story that says,
[00:30:41.103]
"Well, there weren't any females."
[00:30:42.520]
I mean, to have that editor come back
[00:30:45.250]
and to even be interviewed by Eater
[00:30:46.960]
and just completely double screw himself was like--
[00:30:50.223]
I think that's what made people be like,
[00:30:51.890]
"Are you kidding me?"
[00:30:52.765]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:30:55.684]
[00:31:24.078]
- I mean, there's a lot of brilliant people
[00:31:25.870]
that should have been in there.
[00:31:27.162]
I'm glad I wasn't in that article
[00:31:28.840]
because there are women chefs, and there
[00:31:30.760]
are women who've been in the kitchen a lot longer
[00:31:34.720]
than I have who deserved more press than David Chang.
[00:31:39.460]
- I was like, "Oh, that's Dave Chang" and, you know, René.
[00:31:42.280]
And you know, I love them very much.
[00:31:44.990]
And I'm good friends with Dave, so I didn't really
[00:31:47.530]
kind of think of it like that until people had started
[00:31:50.470]
kind of saying, "This is really wrong.
[00:31:53.430]
Why are there no women on there?"
[00:31:55.120]
And so, you know, it did kind of make me think.
[00:31:58.110]
- Just cooking and working.
[00:32:01.090]
And who knows if you're ever going to be successful,
[00:32:03.830]
because there's a lot of us trying really, really hard.
[00:32:06.790]
- Exactly.
[00:32:07.705]
- And only a few, like, you know, are making it.
[00:32:11.740]
I think there's more conflict, I think
[00:32:15.040]
for a woman to make that decision to really dive
[00:32:18.260]
in to this profession.
[00:32:21.520]
- I think that the women that do, like,
[00:32:23.200]
dive into it full force are very successful.
[00:32:25.800]
[00:32:30.900]
- In the '80s, we started to have a family.
[00:32:35.660]
Joanna was born, my daughter.
[00:32:39.940]
My husband and myself, we opened pizzerias.
[00:32:42.610]
We opened five pizzerias.
[00:32:45.178]
[00:32:47.810]
Then Christos came along.
[00:32:49.460]
[00:32:52.880]
My husband-- great man, loved him to death.
[00:32:56.810]
He didn't want anything that I wanted.
[00:33:01.880]
I just couldn't take being ripped apart
[00:33:04.910]
between kids, family, husband.
[00:33:10.370]
I needed to find me.
[00:33:12.020]
[00:33:14.720]
So I was 29, two little kids, and in the Greek culture
[00:33:21.268]
you don't say you're just getting divorced.
[00:33:23.060]
[00:33:26.890]
I went to Mom and Dad's house, explained to them that I have
[00:33:32.520]
to get out of this marriage,
[00:33:35.460]
and they looked at me and said,
[00:33:40.110]
"You've been in it for so many years, you have to fix it."
[00:33:44.310]
I heard what they wanted, closed the door, and I went on my own.
[00:33:50.580]
[00:33:59.562]
- Unless you have a partner, husband
[00:34:03.370]
or wife, that works with you, then you can share the burdens.
[00:34:08.140]
- We had 30 years great together in business,
[00:34:10.719]
and it grew, and you know--
[00:34:12.489]
but he wanted to retire, and I was just
[00:34:14.620]
in the beginning of the TV and the books,
[00:34:19.030]
and I said I'm not going to retire in Italy.
[00:34:21.820]
I couldn't have.
[00:34:23.020]
It would have meant putting me in a prison
[00:34:25.900]
to be away from all of that and I
[00:34:27.580]
knew that I wouldn't have been happy as an individual.
[00:34:31.909]
- I met my husband at culinary school.
[00:34:35.480]
It was a sum of, at times,
[00:34:37.850]
being all right with sucking at your life.
[00:34:41.040]
I think that's like--
[00:34:42.800]
I think there's some times where you just
[00:34:44.659]
have to be able to know that you're going
[00:34:46.389]
to be that parent that's late.
[00:34:48.380]
It's not awesome.
[00:34:50.270]
It really isn't, and you're going to disappoint people.
[00:34:53.580]
- It's such a 24/7 job.
[00:34:55.460]
You know, I used to be the last person that I took care of.
[00:34:58.340]
And I've learned that I need
[00:35:00.290]
to take care of myself first as well,
[00:35:01.865]
[00:35:02.150]
because I'm not going to be as good for everyone else
[00:35:04.430]
if I'm completely depleted.
[00:35:05.940]
So I think that I've seen--
[00:35:07.830]
I haven't missed a lot, but I think that--
[00:35:12.000]
well, I mean, you know, except the birth of my third child.
[00:35:15.240]
But, you know, my wife went into labor early, and I was--
[00:35:18.120]
I was in Puerto Rico.
[00:35:21.520]
- If I was to have kids, I would need
[00:35:24.040]
someone who was very supportive and very independent, I think.
[00:35:28.270]
There's always going to need to be one parent that
[00:35:31.440]
is going to work a lot.
[00:35:33.280]
And I would obviously be that parent.
[00:35:35.650]
And I would be away weird hours.
[00:35:38.350]
So I would really need someone who was super understanding
[00:35:42.070]
and that was willing to, you know, do that.
[00:35:46.570]
- My support system in my life of Val's Restaurant
[00:35:51.130]
was my mother and father.
[00:35:53.200]
They took care of my kids from the minute
[00:35:55.540]
I left the house in the morning, wake up 6 o'clock.
[00:36:00.850]
I would take Joanna to school, come back home, feed Christos
[00:36:06.480]
and take him to Yaya's house, who was my mom.
[00:36:09.290]
[00:36:13.340]
I didn't hold it against my parents
[00:36:15.890]
because I knew how bad they felt to give everything
[00:36:19.040]
to my brother.
[00:36:20.960]
They realized they were wrong to think
[00:36:24.050]
I couldn't handle the business because I was a woman.
[00:36:26.810]
[00:36:36.020]
...with the jumbo stuffed shrimp and keep it to the menu.
[00:36:39.466]
So how is the chowder?
[00:36:40.575]
I need chowder.
[00:36:42.120]
I always used my voice to expedite the orders.
[00:36:46.350]
So doing that for at least 12 years,
[00:36:52.830]
my vocal cords got tired.
[00:36:55.200]
And so now I have a graspy kind of voice
[00:36:59.070]
from using my voice in the business,
[00:37:02.670]
constantly talking, constantly giving orders.
[00:37:05.635]
[00:37:08.630]
But this is the business.
[00:37:10.100]
You've got to talk.
[00:37:11.060]
You've got to move.
[00:37:11.870]
You've got to do it all.
[00:37:13.940]
But now that we have the POSi I don't have to talk anymore,
[00:37:17.100]
which is nice.
[00:37:18.810]
I got toasted, right, guy?
[00:37:20.670]
Wesley?
[00:37:21.170]
[00:37:25.270]
- I was 7 when we opened up over here.
[00:37:27.960]
And then I was I think 15 when I first started actually working.
[00:37:33.030]
So between the years of 7 and 15,
[00:37:35.670]
I'd be riding my rollerblades around here,
[00:37:38.520]
throwing pieces of dough at, like, the dishwashers
[00:37:41.790]
and, like, the delivery guys.
[00:37:43.500]
She rarely had time to be able to say,
[00:37:45.610]
"All right, Christos, let's go,
[00:37:47.785]
I'm going to take you to your Red Sox--
[00:37:49.410]
to a Red Sox game."
[00:37:50.460]
And you could tell, you know, she wanted to be there.
[00:37:54.390]
She just felt that she couldn't with this business.
[00:37:57.540]
And is that to say, you know, I care less for her?
[00:38:01.370]
No, obviously not.
[00:38:03.000]
I understand the sacrifices.
[00:38:04.830]
[00:38:14.590]
Knowing what I went through, Christos watched me growing up.
[00:38:21.370]
And he didn't care for this field then.
[00:38:25.570]
He would always say, "Why can't you be home with me?"
[00:38:29.230]
But it's nice to see my son be there for me now.
[00:38:36.630]
And here's a picture of when we went
[00:38:38.730]
to the beach every 4th of July.
[00:38:42.210]
And we closed down for almost a week.
[00:38:44.760]
And that was like the best time for us to bond as a family.
[00:38:51.100]
- What do you think in terms of that fine line between giving
[00:38:55.510]
it your all in work and career and then being a mother
[00:39:00.040]
and trying to have a family and--
[00:39:02.680]
- I just, I loved it.
[00:39:04.990]
I missed being the mother that, you know,
[00:39:08.200]
I see other mothers taking their kids here and there.
[00:39:11.200]
I think I did a lot of that with you
[00:39:13.120]
even though I was always at the restaurant.
[00:39:16.510]
But I think now with me getting a little older and you kids
[00:39:21.040]
getting a little older, I think I'm
[00:39:22.600]
going to enjoy my life after, because now it's
[00:39:26.230]
my turn to enjoy you kids.
[00:39:27.925]
[00:39:30.602]
Pepper, Jimmy.
[00:39:31.970]
Pepper, Jimmy.
[00:39:34.860]
Are you done?
[00:39:37.360]
Gigi.
[00:39:38.820]
- I don't remember us sitting out here that much growing up.
[00:39:41.700]
- I worked, I don't think we sat out here much.
[00:39:47.810]
But I think it's now nice that I can enjoy it
[00:39:53.690]
with my grandbaby, my grandbaby.
[00:39:57.630]
But huh?
[00:39:58.830]
Yeah.
[00:39:59.330]
[00:40:02.400]
Yeah, that's yours.
[00:40:03.620]
- Gigi.
[00:40:04.280]
- Gigi?
[00:40:04.780]
Is that for you or Gigi?
[00:40:08.708]
I wouldn't want to seeing you go through what I went through.
[00:40:11.250]
[00:40:16.640]
- Growing up and seeing my mother work so hard and always
[00:40:20.660]
at the restaurant, it became more than just what she loved.
[00:40:23.720]
It was also a bit of a struggle.
[00:40:27.080]
And I don't think I realized the full grasp of it until today--
[00:40:31.940]
as a working mom and trying to run my own business--
[00:40:36.680]
what she went through, all the pressure
[00:40:39.290]
and stress that she was under.
[00:40:41.690]
But yet when I was growing up
[00:40:43.040]
I didn't see it because a lot of the times, she was still happy.
[00:40:47.690]
And we'd go on bike rides at like 10 o'clock at night
[00:40:52.100]
when she got out of work.
[00:40:54.080]
And we would plant together.
[00:40:55.725]
You know, we'd just--
[00:40:56.600]
she always tried to make up for it.
[00:40:58.210]
[00:41:03.250]
- Our society has a mentality where the man is the provider
[00:41:07.060]
and the woman stay at home.
[00:41:08.500]
But that needs to change.
[00:41:10.390]
For people that are pregnant or, you know, getting married
[00:41:13.690]
or all that, I think, often,
[00:41:17.320]
their boss or whoever
[00:41:18.640]
make them feel that they're wrong to do that.
[00:41:21.250]
"If you can't be at work 18 hours a day
[00:41:23.650]
and if you want to be, you know, have babies,
[00:41:26.290]
just go have babies."
[00:41:27.970]
- (SPEAKING SPANISH)
[00:41:30.015]
- I spent some time with Elena Arzak in Spain.
[00:41:33.580]
And, you know, she has beautiful children.
[00:41:36.173]
And it's beautiful the way we're talking
[00:41:37.840]
about balancing life, about, you know, going to work
[00:41:41.770]
and working very hard and traveling
[00:41:43.690]
and having kids and all that, everything is possible.
[00:41:46.900]
- In Spain, when the woman have her baby
[00:41:48.920]
they have maternity leave.
[00:41:50.020]
Then they come back.
[00:41:51.010]
And this has been happening in effect since always.
[00:41:54.910]
And, you know, it's good to keep these women because they cook
[00:41:58.960]
very well, and we prefer they stop for a while
[00:42:01.360]
and they come back, no?
[00:42:04.540]
- I ask Danny all the time,
[00:42:05.890]
"How do you balance your, you know, work life and home life?"
[00:42:09.580]
And he's always said there's no such thing for him as balance.
[00:42:12.640]
It's all about picking and choosing, being
[00:42:15.190]
in the right place at the right time
[00:42:17.230]
and when you are there, being all there.
[00:42:21.040]
Years ago, it used to be understood
[00:42:22.990]
that if you join a restaurant, you are committing yourself
[00:42:26.470]
to a certain lifestyle.
[00:42:28.330]
Ask to go on a vacation with the family and the chef
[00:42:31.150]
says, "No, I'm sorry," I have to work.
[00:42:33.370]
Would you be able to celebrate birthdays or holidays
[00:42:36.760]
on Saturday night because the family's getting together?
[00:42:39.640]
The answer was simply "No."
[00:42:41.320]
And now if you look at the flexibility
[00:42:44.080]
that these policies offer our restaurants,
[00:42:47.080]
people are actually able to start families and thrive.
[00:42:51.350]
- I'm 35 years old now and I've been
[00:42:53.020]
cooking for about 12 years.
[00:42:55.810]
And, yes, one day I want to have a career and a family.
[00:42:59.230]
And I do think it's possible.
[00:43:00.605]
[00:43:03.570]
Working with Mike is great because he allows
[00:43:05.580]
you to make those decisions.
[00:43:08.370]
The company really pays attention to,
[00:43:10.380]
you know, life outside of work.
[00:43:13.950]
- There is a push for comprehensive family leave
[00:43:16.770]
packages so that people don't have
[00:43:19.110]
to choose between having a family and being a chef.
[00:43:23.010]
And on the other end of the spectrum,
[00:43:25.210]
you have these newly minted culinary graduates
[00:43:28.160]
who are coming out of school and not
[00:43:30.120]
necessarily choosing the restaurant
[00:43:31.830]
path because historically
[00:43:33.990]
it's been a very hostile kitchen culture.
[00:43:36.840]
And it really is about the food industry recognizing
[00:43:40.470]
that they have to live in the real world
[00:43:42.510]
and deal with people who have real lives.
[00:43:44.830]
- I was probably in a kitchen for 10 or 12 years
[00:43:46.830]
before I even decided to have a kid.
[00:43:48.390]
And I gave birth a week before I turned 40.
[00:43:51.870]
And it was pretty jarring, because now all of a sudden you
[00:43:54.900]
got to take care of a little baby and work.
[00:43:57.960]
So I took two weeks off, I was breastfeeding and butchering.
[00:44:02.380]
You know, it was pretty demanding.
[00:44:07.160]
But I always felt like if I'm a success,
[00:44:09.710]
my kids will love me for working as hard as I do.
[00:44:14.420]
When you think about it, if you want
[00:44:16.160]
to keep women in the kitchen after age 30, 35, and 40,
[00:44:19.640]
and you want them to have a family,
[00:44:21.260]
put a breastfeeding room in your changing room.
[00:44:23.720]
Offer help.
[00:44:24.830]
Give CSA boxes to them so they don't
[00:44:26.930]
have to go grocery shopping.
[00:44:28.607]
Split the hours, you know?
[00:44:29.690]
Do you have to have one chef de cuisine and a sous chef?
[00:44:32.482]
Jeez, why don't we have three sous chefs?
[00:44:34.190]
Two of them are women and one is a man.
[00:44:36.880]
- People are going to like it.
[00:44:38.130]
Do you like the size?
[00:44:39.090]
You think this is a good size for an appetizer?
[00:44:41.900]
- I think it's good, yeah.
[00:44:43.010]
- When I opened the first restaurant, I had one child.
[00:44:46.880]
I became pregnant, and I worked all of those nine months.
[00:44:50.210]
And from the kitchen, I went into the dining room.
[00:44:52.970]
Then I ended up with my big belly at the bar.
[00:44:56.000]
And ultimately my daughter came into the formula,
[00:44:59.240]
and I stayed home.
[00:45:00.153]
But I needed to go back to the business,
[00:45:01.820]
because this is what I loved.
[00:45:03.050]
This is what I needed.
[00:45:03.967]
We had loans we had to pay.
[00:45:05.910]
And I went to the pediatrician.
[00:45:08.005]
There were no psychiatrists then.
[00:45:09.380]
I didn't know about psychiatrists.
[00:45:10.880]
And I said, listen, I have this torment in me.
[00:45:13.580]
I have this uneasiness.
[00:45:15.320]
I have this beautiful child.
[00:45:17.860]
I'm a mother, I want to stay with her all the time.
[00:45:20.970]
And yet I have this business, and I'm passionate about it.
[00:45:23.910]
And I want to do that, and I need to do that.
[00:45:25.850]
And he looked straight in the eyes--
[00:45:27.230]
looked me straight in the eyes.
[00:45:28.522]
And he said, "Children want happy parents.
[00:45:31.370]
Make it happen."
[00:45:33.700]
- I wasn't ready to do this earlier.
[00:45:35.500]
I was a mother of three little girls, I lived in the suburbs.
[00:45:39.710]
It was very difficult to devote yourself completely
[00:45:42.190]
to a career like this
[00:45:43.750]
because it's a seven day a week, long hours--
[00:45:46.900]
I sleep with a pad and pencil next to me,
[00:45:48.940]
I make notes in the middle of the night,
[00:45:50.890]
something I might forget, something I want to remember.
[00:45:54.190]
It's very difficult to do that and raise a family
[00:45:56.980]
and be a full-time parent.
[00:46:00.190]
- When I did get divorced, 1992, I not only got the business,
[00:46:07.750]
I also had all this debt
[00:46:11.776]
of almost a half a million dollars.
[00:46:16.300]
My ex-husband declared bankruptcy.
[00:46:19.040]
Now it was up to me to either declare bankruptcy or go ahead
[00:46:23.270]
and just fight the fight.
[00:46:24.970]
It was like, no way in hell am I going bankruptcy.
[00:46:27.990]
So everybody came after me.
[00:46:30.620]
Bill collectors calling me, I had lawyers serving me papers.
[00:46:35.630]
My credit was terrible.
[00:46:38.810]
With all the creditors calling me, I had Liz, a manager,
[00:46:42.500]
she would always take my phone calls.
[00:46:44.540]
She would screen them for me.
[00:46:46.300]
And then she'd say, "These are the ones you have to call."
[00:46:49.370]
- There were no roadblocks that were going to stop Val.
[00:46:52.070]
- I'm going out!
[00:46:53.270]
- Her energy was unlike anybody else's I've ever worked for.
[00:46:56.740]
- Watch your backs.
[00:46:58.628]
- She put everything she had into it.
[00:47:00.170]
[00:47:03.320]
- 1990, when I opened Pizza Palace, up to 1996,
[00:47:08.930]
coming from nothing to something, I felt kind of happy
[00:47:13.070]
because I built it all by myself.
[00:47:15.420]
I had good girls working for me at that time.
[00:47:17.780]
[00:47:20.290]
And I needed to open something bigger.
[00:47:24.320]
I just drove through town,
[00:47:26.220]
looking at different opportunities that I could open
[00:47:28.760]
a little family restaurant.
[00:47:31.750]
Mr. Erickson, he used to build homes,
[00:47:34.550]
and he used to come up and buy sandwiches for his crew.
[00:47:38.560]
And he said--
[00:47:39.488]
- You know, I was sitting at the bar there and I said, "Val?"
[00:47:42.030]
And she says, "Yes, honey?"
[00:47:43.810]
I say, "You want a restaurant?"
[00:47:46.240]
And she says, "What?"
[00:47:47.630]
I says, "Do you want a restaurant?"
[00:47:50.130]
She says, "I always wanted one."
[00:47:52.340]
- He said, "I think your lucky day is today.
[00:47:56.180]
Crickets down the street just closed."
[00:47:59.330]
- They want somebody to go in there that they don't
[00:48:02.140]
have to worry about, you know?
[00:48:03.800]
And I thought Val was the person.
[00:48:07.070]
- He said, "All I want to know is it a yes or no?"
[00:48:10.820]
I said, "It's definitely a yes."
[00:48:13.350]
With no money, with bills, with two kids little,
[00:48:19.940]
I said, holy shit, what did I just say?
[00:48:23.600]
I said, "When do we begin?"
[00:48:25.610]
"Try to find money," he said.
[00:48:27.530]
"Once you find money," he said, "you come see me."
[00:48:32.036]
Oh, I needed money and I was reaching out to everybody.
[00:48:35.900]
I walked into this bank.
[00:48:38.540]
I went to give my hand, he didn't reach out.
[00:48:42.380]
"I was sent here by a friend."
[00:48:45.440]
He says, "There is nothing I can do for you.
[00:48:49.650]
There is no money that I can lend to you."
[00:48:52.700]
I got in the car and I left.
[00:48:55.460]
I was in shock.
[00:48:58.450]
- The primary obstacle for a female entrepreneur
[00:49:01.990]
in any industry is access to capital.
[00:49:05.350]
For women to get investor interest and the banks
[00:49:08.680]
to listen to them, the dollars from the investors
[00:49:12.940]
tend to follow the media buzz.
[00:49:16.920]
They're looking for, who is the next rock star?
[00:49:19.890]
And by and large, the food media
[00:49:22.410]
year after year nominates and awards men to those positions.
[00:49:27.870]
- I think this is an important subject to talk about, that
[00:49:30.790]
is often we are not given the chance that perhaps
[00:49:36.940]
male entrepreneur have.
[00:49:39.780]
- You know, women as competent as we are and whatever,
[00:49:43.610]
maybe the institutions yet don't trust the longevity,
[00:49:48.390]
the security of a woman leading a business
[00:49:51.570]
and ultimately returning the loans.
[00:49:54.770]
I was in a sense lucky that the business that I opened
[00:49:58.060]
was with my husband.
[00:49:59.950]
Whenever we needed some fundraising,
[00:50:03.000]
whenever I wanted an extension or whatever--
[00:50:05.490]
and I particularly recall one time my husband was really ill
[00:50:09.760]
and I had to meet with the bankers.
[00:50:11.810]
And I said, "Ill or not, you're coming,
[00:50:13.780]
because otherwise by myself it's not going to happen."
[00:50:16.420]
- I remember dealing with the bank.
[00:50:20.290]
And it was a--
[00:50:22.150]
you know, the check was there.
[00:50:23.900]
The check-- all I had to do was take the check from their hand.
[00:50:28.090]
But it was a bad deal.
[00:50:29.920]
And everything in my body told me
[00:50:33.430]
it wasn't something that we needed.
[00:50:36.250]
We needed the money, yes.
[00:50:37.780]
But we didn't need it under these circumstances.
[00:50:40.480]
I decided no, I wasn't going to take it.
[00:50:42.940]
Said, "We'll just figure something else out."
[00:50:46.690]
- I'm a kid from Southie,
[00:50:48.160]
in a housing project, zero education.
[00:50:50.320]
Who is going to give me money?
[00:50:52.330]
I had an angel investor who happened to be from Hyde Park,
[00:50:56.680]
and he lent me my first $50,000.
[00:50:59.740]
He just loved the idea that I was from South Boston
[00:51:01.990]
and I wasn't a criminal.
[00:51:06.390]
And then it just trickled down from there.
[00:51:08.270]
And Boston is an old network--
[00:51:10.200]
"I have a friend," "I have a friend," "I have a friend."
[00:51:12.750]
The fact that somebody went for it and gave me money
[00:51:15.870]
made me want to pay them back right away
[00:51:18.360]
and prove to them that I can do this.
[00:51:21.000]
- I had a black book.
[00:51:22.310]
And in the black book, I had everybody's name
[00:51:25.110]
that I borrowed money from.
[00:51:27.430]
So it was check, check, check, check, check, check.
[00:51:31.290]
I found a couple of friends that gave me
[00:51:33.870]
money through visa cards and from their savings.
[00:51:38.010]
That was the beginning of me putting everything together
[00:51:42.450]
to make the restaurant happen.
[00:51:44.530]
[00:51:48.090]
So that's when I said, I'm going to go to a bank.
[00:51:51.450]
He eats six days a week in my restaurant.
[00:51:54.870]
He knows how hard I work.
[00:51:56.730]
I'm going to go to him and just see what he can do for me.
[00:52:00.840]
And I went.
[00:52:01.710]
And this guy was my savior.
[00:52:04.850]
- I knew she had deep character.
[00:52:06.655]
She had a love for her business and a commitment
[00:52:09.300]
which doesn't come through in someone's FICO score.
[00:52:12.600]
Her credit was really challenging.
[00:52:15.150]
I think she was paying back some of her former husband's bills.
[00:52:17.880]
She had children.
[00:52:19.110]
And obviously struggling to make ends meet.
[00:52:22.530]
She was going to succeed regardless of the hurdles
[00:52:24.780]
put in front of her.
[00:52:26.190]
And I think she had a vision that sometimes
[00:52:27.990]
you need to have in this business.
[00:52:30.090]
You see yourself down the road as a success,
[00:52:32.220]
and you find a way to get there.
[00:52:34.170]
She knows how to get the most out of employees--
[00:52:36.480]
- Oh, good boy.
[00:52:37.727]
- (ALL SINGING) Happy birthday to you.
[00:52:39.310]
- --knows how to take care of her customers,
[00:52:40.320]
and she has this personality that just won't quit.
[00:52:42.920]
- Make a wish!
[00:52:43.657]
- I can tell you, most friends of mine who are bankers--
[00:52:45.990]
and they're senior people--
[00:52:48.007]
don't like banking very much nowadays because they don't
[00:52:50.340]
have authority to lend money.
[00:52:52.140]
It all goes to some loan committee or some board
[00:52:54.660]
of directors that are autonomous and don't know
[00:52:57.960]
the borrower a lot of times,
[00:52:59.240]
don't know what the person's been through,
[00:53:00.990]
what they're all about.
[00:53:01.948]
It's strictly a black-and-white credit score, income
[00:53:05.150]
and expense ratio.
[00:53:06.750]
- He took me to different financing businesses.
[00:53:11.130]
And I found my first $150,000, which to me was like, whew,
[00:53:16.890]
a million.
[00:53:17.460]
[00:53:20.430]
I had good friends who all came down
[00:53:23.130]
here and worked for nothing.
[00:53:24.900]
One was a police officer.
[00:53:26.850]
One was a plumber.
[00:53:27.990]
One was an electrician.
[00:53:30.510]
All I had to do was feed them and put out a keg of beer.
[00:53:34.530]
They're the ones who helped me put this place together.
[00:53:38.830]
- I love the way that your mother started.
[00:53:43.900]
And she gave not only to her family and the whole society
[00:53:48.160]
around, and she didn't give only money or jobs,
[00:53:53.530]
she was like an idol for them, believe me.
[00:53:57.100]
If you ask people, I believe that this is the first thing
[00:53:59.960]
that they're going to tell you.
[00:54:02.770]
- I remember when I first started,
[00:54:05.210]
you know, we had 40 seats.
[00:54:08.140]
I didn't talk.
[00:54:09.400]
I just served.
[00:54:11.200]
It was fine.
[00:54:12.020]
But as you get into it, and as you get bigger--
[00:54:15.490]
I mean, we employed 10 people back then.
[00:54:18.250]
Now we employ 90.
[00:54:20.050]
So as you get bigger, it gets harder.
[00:54:23.110]
But your skin becomes thick because you can't
[00:54:27.340]
let people push you around.
[00:54:31.420]
Because of this business, you become stronger.
[00:54:34.410]
[00:54:37.940]
I have to protect not only me, I have to protect my staff,
[00:54:42.810]
because they make a living here.
[00:54:46.890]
- I started working for your mom Val in February of 1994
[00:54:50.000]
at the old Pizza Palace.
[00:54:51.467]
Everybody here is like my brother and sister
[00:54:53.300]
that I never had.
[00:54:54.820]
You know, even growing up, the last 20 years
[00:54:57.570]
I probably spent more time here than I have at my own house.
[00:55:01.020]
[00:55:23.960]
- I grew up as a foster kid, you know, moved town to town,
[00:55:28.080]
city to city.
[00:55:29.613]
And Val took me in when I was younger
[00:55:31.155]
because I needed a job, you know,
[00:55:32.555]
I needed to save money to go to school.
[00:55:34.180]
She really like showed a lot of respect for me.
[00:55:36.540]
- We are family.
[00:55:37.530]
We fight like family.
[00:55:39.420]
We love like family.
[00:55:40.852]
We do everything like family.
[00:55:42.060]
Like, this is family.
[00:55:43.560]
My husband is vacuuming.
[00:55:45.570]
He doesn't even work here, but he's vacuuming.
[00:55:47.730]
- He certainly is.
[00:55:49.493]
- So what made you come here today?
[00:55:51.810]
- Me.
[00:55:52.588]
(ALL LAUGHING)
[00:55:55.576]
[00:55:59.070]
- I did a lot of reading with cooking books.
[00:56:02.280]
I was just so motivated to make it work.
[00:56:05.430]
Even if someone asked me for something
[00:56:08.210]
and I didn't know how to make it, I was going to make it.
[00:56:13.230]
- When we opened I was 24 years old,
[00:56:15.340]
so I certainly wasn't a chef.
[00:56:17.130]
But in 1971, we hired an Italian American chef.
[00:56:20.310]
I became his sous chef for 10 years.
[00:56:23.400]
I realized that I had a lot to learn.
[00:56:25.560]
And then as we were going to Italy every vacation,
[00:56:28.132]
I would go in the kitchens with different chefs
[00:56:30.090]
that I admired in Italy and apprenticed.
[00:56:33.510]
Maybe the Americans would like the polenta that we make,
[00:56:37.320]
maybe they would like the risotto.
[00:56:39.420]
And I began inserting things that I would cook at home.
[00:56:42.850]
And before you know it, you know, you've got a following.
[00:56:45.760]
The journalists began to come up,
[00:56:47.520]
and in 1981 I became the chef.
[00:56:50.310]
And when I started cooking the risottos and the osso bucos
[00:56:54.060]
and the milaneses, I mean, James Beard came, Julia Child came.
[00:56:57.930]
[00:57:00.990]
- Julia Child, I believe, was an inspiration for two generations
[00:57:04.920]
of chefs now.
[00:57:06.240]
And she was on television, and it was just so exotic.
[00:57:10.020]
No matter what she was making, it was exotic.
[00:57:12.370]
- We're roasting this chicken today on "The French Chef."
[00:57:18.140]
- I cooked for her at her big 80th birthday.
[00:57:20.730]
I was the only woman there, and they made such a big deal
[00:57:23.730]
about it.
[00:57:24.270]
And I felt bad that, you know, there were so
[00:57:29.760]
many other great women chefs,
[00:57:32.250]
but maybe they were just busy at the time.
[00:57:34.735]
- Ladies, let's go!
[00:57:35.600]
[00:57:44.310]
- People are pushing for gender parity,
[00:57:46.860]
and they're mobilizing industries
[00:57:49.200]
to really look at the pay gap and any obstacles
[00:57:52.440]
to advancement.
[00:57:53.730]
It's really right now about making sure
[00:57:56.760]
that this conversation continues to happen.
[00:57:59.910]
- My former partner, he tried to take advantage of me.
[00:58:03.930]
He had told me he had to pull out and double the rent.
[00:58:07.350]
I don't take blackmail.
[00:58:09.570]
I have a great business partner now.
[00:58:12.270]
That's what I'm trying to say to Dara and to my other kids here.
[00:58:17.800]
"Don't be afraid.
[00:58:18.870]
Be yourself."
[00:58:21.300]
- When I did open the Spotted Pig,
[00:58:23.190]
my initial offering was 10% partner.
[00:58:27.390]
So it would be chef co-owner.
[00:58:29.280]
But after a couple of years, you know,
[00:58:31.080]
you kind of realize how much value you have.
[00:58:34.590]
So I went back to Ken and I said,
[00:58:36.030]
"Look, you know, this is going really well."
[00:58:39.480]
I asked to be equal partner, and he said yes.
[00:58:42.050]
[00:58:58.260]
- I hope that there will be an opportunity that isn't just
[00:59:01.140]
PR-driven, but an opportunity that's really embraced on,
[00:59:05.580]
you know, how can you create a redemption moment?
[00:59:09.760]
Why not give some proceeds to educational movements
[00:59:13.050]
and women's shelters, and foster change that's real?
[00:59:16.290]
That, to me, would really, I think,
[00:59:18.000]
go a long way for starting to unite people
[00:59:20.790]
instead of dividing people.
[00:59:22.980]
We did a workshop with our team this year
[00:59:25.230]
to talk about what's acceptable, what's not acceptable.
[00:59:28.510]
I look at other young women on my team,
[00:59:30.660]
and I don't want them to have the experiences
[00:59:33.240]
that I had when I was coming up in the industry.
[00:59:35.250]
Because there was nobody there to stand with me,
[00:59:39.210]
my voice had no volume.
[00:59:41.670]
There's so much going on a day-to-day basis
[00:59:44.250]
that it's about much more than cooking.
[00:59:45.985]
[00:59:49.460]
- Being the first female Iron Chef,
[00:59:51.210]
you know, that knocked down a bunch of barriers.
[00:59:53.210]
And I've gone out and done all the things
[00:59:56.930]
that most of the top male chefs have done.
[00:59:59.930]
I've created a brand.
[01:00:00.980]
- Iron Chef Cat Cora.
[01:00:02.660]
- Please welcome Cat Cora.
[01:00:03.910]
- Cat Cora!
[01:00:06.080]
- I started seeing food TV become big
[01:00:08.480]
and I thought, wow, that's a unique idea, you know,
[01:00:11.300]
because it didn't exist.
[01:00:13.393]
I went to culinary school thinking
[01:00:14.810]
I'll open a great restaurant and maybe I'll do a cookbook.
[01:00:17.690]
And that was really kind of your options then.
[01:00:20.990]
Now it's opened up to thousands of things you can do with it.
[01:00:23.743]
- The whole concept of working your way up the ranks
[01:00:25.910]
is like, that is kind of old school, you know?
[01:00:28.460]
That's why those statistics don't
[01:00:30.950]
show the women doing totally different sides
[01:00:33.542]
of this industry.
[01:00:34.250]
Like let's say they get into media--
[01:00:36.050]
that's what's really reshaping everything right now.
[01:00:38.360]
[01:00:54.180]
- Were you ever afraid of me not paying you?
[01:00:57.510]
- No, no.
[01:00:58.590]
- Never afraid?
[01:01:00.020]
- Never, never.
[01:01:00.990]
- You never gave up on me.
[01:01:03.420]
- I knew you wouldn't like the other--
[01:01:06.640]
- --default.
[01:01:08.400]
- I knew you would take care of me.
[01:01:10.140]
I said, you're the one.
[01:01:14.190]
Makes me feel good that I gave somebody a chance to do it.
[01:01:18.710]
- I couldn't have done it without you.
[01:01:20.440]
- And you appreciated it, though.
[01:01:22.800]
That's what I like.
[01:01:24.570]
- No one ever gave me that opportunity.
[01:01:27.220]
- Yeah.
[01:01:27.720]
- You did.
[01:01:28.600]
- Yeah.
[01:01:29.425]
- You believed in me.
[01:01:30.300]
- I believed in you, yeah, that's right.
[01:01:33.660]
[01:01:36.690]
I know it brings the tears for both.
[01:01:38.243]
[01:01:42.373]
Yeah.
[01:01:42.873]
[01:01:46.050]
You always told me I'm you're guardian angel, right?
[01:01:50.440]
- You're my guardian angel, you're right.
[01:01:52.200]
[01:02:01.800]
- All I see is business, business, business.
[01:02:04.380]
So when you start small and you see customers,
[01:02:09.060]
they're so happy with you, you want to get a little bigger.
[01:02:12.990]
My first person that I asked was my dad
[01:02:16.560]
because he knew how this restaurant ran--
[01:02:19.980]
that in business, you stay small,
[01:02:22.980]
the big people eat you up.
[01:02:24.990]
You have to keep growing.
[01:02:27.600]
I called a good friend.
[01:02:29.590]
I said, "I need a bank to open Val's Function Room."
[01:02:33.460]
He said, "I'll bring him there."
[01:02:36.763]
I said, "You don't want me to go to the bank?"
[01:02:38.680]
"You're a big shot now, now I'm bringing the VPs to you."
[01:02:41.320]
The first guy that came in, I looked again, I go, "Holy shit.
[01:02:48.000]
What the hell is he doing?"
[01:02:49.845]
The guy five years ago when I needed the money,
[01:02:52.200]
he didn't even acknowledge me.
[01:02:53.790]
He didn't even look at me.
[01:02:55.570]
He didn't even say, "Good morning."
[01:02:58.910]
Well, guess what?
[01:03:01.360]
Karma is a bitch.
[01:03:03.680]
Five years later, who comes in?
[01:03:06.090]
Mr. (BLEEP).
[01:03:08.410]
"Mr. (BLEEP), I'm Valerie James, but I think we met before."
[01:03:14.740]
And he looked at me, and he said, "We have?"
[01:03:18.620]
I said, "You don't remember me, but I will never forget you.
[01:03:24.410]
I do not want your money today.
[01:03:26.930]
I want you to sit, have lunch, enjoy the atmosphere,
[01:03:33.100]
and have a good day."
[01:03:34.130]
[01:03:53.100]
Now us, doing a dinner like this here, it's unbelievable.
[01:03:58.770]
With Christos, my son, as the head chef,
[01:04:01.640]
and my daughter Joanna next to me--
[01:04:04.119]
- First course was a Petit Chablis.
[01:04:06.564]
The second course is the Riesling.
[01:04:08.520]
[01:04:13.726]
- I don't know why the the function room is not ready.
[01:04:15.976]
- Yeah, I know, honey.
[01:04:16.907]
But you don't need silverware here.
[01:04:18.365]
Yes.
[01:04:20.033]
Noreen?
[01:04:20.570]
- Yeah?
[01:04:21.070]
- Help Katie put that on and make it look pretty.
[01:04:23.270]
You're good now.
[01:04:24.360]
Now the room is ready.
[01:04:26.040]
I had a heart attack.
[01:04:27.130]
[01:04:33.540]
- The second pass h'orderve is going to be the gruyere.
[01:04:35.990]
It's going to be basically a pate achudu.
[01:04:38.060]
It's going to be a laminated dough with whipped gruyere
[01:04:41.660]
cheese in the middle.
[01:04:42.830]
- You guys know what to do.
[01:04:44.420]
Just don't be nervous, because I can see it all over you guys.
[01:04:48.130]
Really, you guys are going to kick it through.
[01:04:50.410]
- Yes, Val.
[01:04:50.950]
Yes, Val.
[01:04:51.650]
- All right, you ready?
[01:04:54.110]
This is good for you for culinary, right?
[01:04:56.040]
- Yes.
[01:04:56.540]
- Good.
[01:04:57.490]
I love you.
[01:04:58.153]
- We're in line for hugs.
[01:04:59.195]
Hold my drink.
[01:05:01.394]
Thanks, Val.
[01:05:02.157]
- I love you, honey.
[01:05:02.990]
Don't be nervous.
[01:05:03.880]
- I know.
[01:05:04.380]
- All right?
[01:05:05.210]
Who's coming to my table?
[01:05:06.355]
- Me.
[01:05:06.855]
- Me.
[01:05:07.180]
- Oh, good.
[01:05:07.760]
[01:05:12.940]
- Coming together as a family to host this dinner
[01:05:16.120]
makes me think of how my mother started out and all that she
[01:05:19.240]
faced, everything she had to overcome to get to this point.
[01:05:25.510]
The restaurant is secondary to the woman who built it.
[01:05:28.780]
[01:05:33.670]
(ALL APPLAUDING)
[01:05:38.071]
[01:05:41.500]
- I mean, this was a huge honor for us at Val's.
[01:05:43.530]
My mother, you know, she built this place 25 years ago.
[01:05:46.763]
And I don't think she ever thought
[01:05:48.180]
we'd be able to do this.
[01:05:49.410]
(INTERPOSING VOICES)
[01:05:52.988]
- You all did a wonderful job.
[01:05:56.555]
Val's is not known for this food, the fine dining.
[01:06:00.500]
But I think you did a beautiful seven course meal.
[01:06:03.820]
You did the wines with Joanna.
[01:06:06.070]
You put it together, and I think it was awesome.
[01:06:09.084]
[01:06:14.188]
- She's like, "Turn the heat up."
[01:06:15.990]
(LAUGHING)
[01:06:21.760]
- Family means everything to me, and I
[01:06:24.520]
carry that same philosophy in my restaurant.
[01:06:28.930]
I just love to see everyone happy.
[01:06:31.600]
[01:07:06.450]
- You ready?
[01:07:07.932]
(INTERPOSING VOICES)
[01:07:12.467]
- ...to have you all here.
[01:07:13.550]
- Health and happiness!
[01:07:15.260]
- Cheers.
[01:07:16.098]
- Thank you.
[01:07:18.240]
- Cheers, Mariella.
[01:07:19.280]
[01:07:21.300]
- So what do you think, my first film and it's on you?
[01:07:25.640]
- Yeah, you're going to make me cry now, just because I--
[01:07:30.640]
when you told me you wanted to do this,
[01:07:32.475]
I was a little taken by that.
[01:07:35.790]
Because every mother should work hard for their kids,
[01:07:40.050]
because that's what happens.
[01:07:42.570]
Life is a rotation of fathers and mothers
[01:07:47.160]
and grown children that become us.
[01:07:50.560]
And I remember when you were young you said, "Oh no,
[01:07:53.160]
I'm never going to be like you."
[01:07:54.717]
Well, guess what, my girl?
[01:07:55.800]
You are.
[01:07:56.440]
[01:08:02.140]
- Mom--
[01:08:03.540]
- I love you.
[01:08:04.210]
- Love you.
[01:08:04.710]
[01:08:11.184]
(BARKING)
[01:08:13.656]
- Gigi.
[01:08:14.156]
[01:08:26.080]
- I don't take "No."
[01:08:29.040]
When somebody says, "You cannot do it," I say, "Yes, of course,
[01:08:32.700]
I can do it."
[01:08:34.300]
- What can you do?
[01:08:35.050]
You can fail.
[01:08:35.850]
So you fail.
[01:08:36.870]
You learn from failure and you move on.
[01:08:39.460]
But what if you win?
[01:08:40.850]
So you just keep at it.
[01:08:42.270]
I think you can change the pattern of life
[01:08:45.090]
at any time you want.
[01:08:46.960]
- So it was for myself, not for money, but just
[01:08:49.470]
for that instant gratification, the satisfaction of creating
[01:08:53.859]
food and putting it out.
[01:08:55.260]
- My drive was, I've got to prove to Mom and Dad
[01:08:58.210]
that their decision was right,
[01:08:59.710]
that this was the best opportunity
[01:09:01.390]
they could of had for their children.
[01:09:03.729]
- Having a farm has always been the seed
[01:09:05.770]
in the back of my head.
[01:09:07.120]
And I just think as I start to get busier with my company
[01:09:11.350]
and we start expanding, we need to start just
[01:09:13.990]
making things smaller and keep things honest and real.
[01:09:19.779]
- My father was working at the Ritz Carlton as a carpet layer,
[01:09:23.170]
and he was doing all the carpet.
[01:09:25.069]
And my dad is a combat wounded World War II veteran
[01:09:27.670]
from France, from the European campaign, so he spoke French.
[01:09:31.340]
So he talked to all the French chefs during the opening,
[01:09:33.729]
and he said, "My daughter is just crazy about cooking."
[01:09:36.640]
And to a Frenchman, an American speaking French to him,
[01:09:39.928]
but an American that got wounded defending their country
[01:09:44.410]
and helping with the occupation and liberation of Paris,
[01:09:49.000]
it didn't get any better than that.
[01:09:51.109]
And that's what opened my door.
[01:09:52.720]
- Well, being from the South and being Greek American,
[01:09:55.000]
you know, it was a real big influence on my cooking
[01:09:58.030]
and how I actually fell in love and had a passion for food.
[01:10:02.800]
- I was living with my grandmother
[01:10:04.360]
for about three years before I got the job
[01:10:06.670]
offer to move to Savannah.
[01:10:08.080]
After she said, "I knew you were going
[01:10:10.350]
to leave one day," and the second thing she said was,
[01:10:13.240]
"Now you're ready for a restaurant."
[01:10:14.890]
So that was just that little bit of extra confidence
[01:10:18.640]
that I needed.
[01:10:19.870]
- A good way of expressing, you know,
[01:10:21.990]
ourself is to really do the things that
[01:10:24.250]
matter to us inside.
[01:10:26.350]
And maybe in our society, it's taking risk and to be brave.
[01:10:32.170]
And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work.
[01:10:36.100]
But I think it's very important to have a vision
[01:10:40.090]
and to carry the vision.
[01:10:41.280]
(ALL CHEERING)
[01:10:45.753]
[01:10:51.720]
- You just keep going.
[01:10:53.100]
Do not stop.
[01:10:55.290]
Everybody has struggles.
[01:10:56.460]
Every day there's a struggle in life.
[01:10:58.600]
This is not a struggle.
[01:11:00.480]
This is a will.
[01:11:03.290]
I come in here and it's home.
[01:11:06.540]
I feel that I've accomplished
[01:11:08.760]
what I should have done for my family.
[01:11:12.030]
Now it's my turn.
[01:11:14.060]
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 71 minutes
Date: 2020
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
Interactive Transcript: Available
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