From Fine Dining to the Personal Chef Business with Chef Lana Lagomarsini of Lana Cooks

Welcome to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. I'm your host Chris spear. On the show. I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. Their caterers research chefs, personal chefs cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers and all sorts of culinary renegades. I myself fall into the personal chef category as I started my own personal chef business perfect little bites 11 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s I've literally never worked in a restaurant. Welcome to season three of the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Did you miss me? I'm really looking forward to getting the season going. I've spent the past month recording some really great conversations and I can't wait to share them with you. This week we're joined by Lana Lagomarsini. She's the chef and owner of Lana Cooks, a personal chef business based in New York City. Lana comes from a fine dining background having cooked at Blue Hill at Stone barns, Gramercy Tavern, Daniel, and Momofuku Ko. Like many chefs when restaurants began shutting down due to COVID line I explored the personal chef sector. On the show, we discuss her restaurant background and her transition into the personal chef business. We talk about kitchen culture, finding her culinary voice and the future she'd like to see in the food industry. Want to also talks about cooking for her community, her involvement in the black food movement, and how African American cuisines and the slave trade impacted American cuisine. During the episode, you'll hear her talk about an upcoming event that she's going to be doing in a couple days. I had planned to drop links in the show notes for you to buy tickets, but I'm very happy to announce that she's actually sold out the event. I hope you enjoy our conversation. As always, I'd love feedback, jump into social media connect with us, maybe give Lana a follow. The easiest way to connect with me is on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants. Or you can send me an email to chefs without restaurants@gmail.com and now I'm pleased to welcome our newest sponsor, Baking Steel. Looking to make better pizza. How about bagels, bread or English muffins? Then you need a baking steal. Don't just take my word for it. Kenji Lopez-Alt of serious eats and the food lab said this is the answer I've been waiting for to produce consistently awesome pizza over and over. I've had my baking sale for a number of years and I absolutely love it. Besides baking bread goods in the oven, it's the best way for me to make tortillas at home. both corn and flour, as well as an amazing Smashburger. And if you want to hear the whole baking steel story, I have founder Andris Lagsdin as a guest this season. So that episodes should be dropping in a couple weeks. In the meantime, I'm going to drop a link in the show notes so you'll be able to pick up your own baking steal. Hey, Lana, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

I've admired the food that you're posting on Instagram. So I've wanted to talk to you and I think you have a really interesting story. So I can't wait to have you share it with our listeners.

Absolutely. Thank you for the compliment. Work really hard. So it's nice to appreciate it.

Well, I know there's a lot of serious stuff you want to talk about. So I'm going to jump right in with it. If you had to describe yourself as a flavor. What would it be

Cumin? Without a doubt. It's that flavor that no one can put their finger on if they don't know it exists. Exactly, but it really elevates. I can add something, I think to everything and I think that's kind of me like the dark horse of the spice cabinet. But you definitely if you know what's good, you have it on hand you know.

And also I mean this goes for all spices but like fresh cumin like, either you buy really amazing quality, you know ground from a company like spice ology, or you toast and grind your own. It's so transformative, like, compared to just like crappy Dollar Store cumin, right? Well, I usually start with your culinary backstory. So I'd love to hear about kind of like your upbringing as it relates to food. Did you always love food when you were a kid and growing up? And then how did you break into the food industry?

You know, it's funny, you asked that, because I didn't become a chef until my 20s. But now looking back on my life and my childhood, it's like, all the signs were there. Wow. You know, it's it's almost like I was fighting the inevitable in my life. When I look back at my childhood, so my earliest memories are of food. I grew up in New York City. I was born at New York Hospital. And my parents are both from New York City themselves. My mom, originally from Alabama, and my dad was born in Queens. And they brought me up in New York City. I grew up here until about 16. And my mom and I used to when I was like six or seven years old. One of my earliest memories is we used to go to my grandmother's house on the Upper West Side. And then we used to go to this one Italian joint, like right around the corner and get mussels. Like that was our dish together. Like we'd always get like a big bowl of mussels and like what six year old is like slurping down mussels, you know, like, but me I was, you know, I used to love eat broccoli and stuff, which is now actually a part of my logo. My parents used to sing a broccoli song to me when I was growing up.

I didn't know there was any broccoli songs. Oh, no, they made it up. They made they made it up, they made up the broccoli song. Okay, they did, they made

up a broccoli song just for me and to get me to, I guess to eat it. But I also apparently, once I started eating it, loved it. And I was always liking interesting foods from a young age I was exposed to good, you know, my parents didn't. They weren't really like chicken finger parents, you know, what I refer to as like, you know, parents who kind of, you know, want their children to eat. So they'll, like feed them more plain versions of food. They, as far as food was concerned, they definitely brought me into their level of, of eating quiet from a young age and something I really appreciate.

I think that's great. I mean, I have kids, and it's it's a mixed bag, broccoli, actually they love they, I don't know, I don't wanna say my kids are going to be vegetarians, but they gravitate more towards the vegetables than the meat. Like last night. They didn't want to eat the meatloaf, but we ate all the broccoli. Like they went for like three helpings of broccoli, which was amazing.

They're gonna have great iron in there. Yes.

So I know you ultimately went to culinary school, but you you actually went to school for journalism first, is that right?

Yeah, so I was very interested in photography, actually, all through high school, I worked at the International Center of Photography, I always had a camera in my hand, and I did want to go to art school, but um, my parents, like suggested against it, if you will, and nudged me away from art school, they were really worried about me entering the art field. I was, at the time a very sensitive child. And, you know, my dad was an advertising for a hot minute, way back when and he was like, it's a tough field. You know, I don't want you know, to that to be your whole life. So they my mom said, Well, you're very good at writing. Why don't you think about doing like photojournalism when you go to journalism school? So I did. And I went to Northeastern in Boston. And I had a fantastic time there. I learned a great deal about journalism, I learned a great deal about myself. But during that time was actually when I started to realize how much I loved cooking as well.

So how did you break into the food industry? Like, what was your first job in food? And how did you get into it?

So I've always had jobs and food actually joke, I've had one set one office job, and I quit on the same day that I was fired. So it was one of those days where I walked in, I said, I can't do this anymore. And they were like, Thank God, we're gonna fire you today. But, um, so I've always had a job in the industry. I started out as a waitress when I was 15 years old. And so that was kind of a way for me to make money, as in high school, a good way for me to you know, be autonomous. I had a car and I had a job. So there really wasn't much you could tell 17 year old Lorna that she did not know. But I when I went to college, I stayed in the industry to make money as you do in college, you know, I was a bartender server and a shock girl and a bouncer for a minute. And yeah, so I kind of stayed in that realm for the majority of my life. So when I broke into actually going into backup house, it was more because I had started to really be in the culture and see what was going on. I realized how much I love food. And once you realize how much you love food and you really like to learn, all of a sudden you start to really like chefs. Once you really start to like shots, then you start to read a lot more and then you start really what try to understand their ideas. And before you know it, you know, like I'm certified foodie, like watching Topshop all the time and having my friends over for dinner. And then I like my senior year, I took a blogging class, like as a elective. And the teacher said, you can write about anything you want, as long as it's something that you can write about three times a week, you can create content for it. So I love to cook, you know, so I started a food blog. And I was cooking so much on it writing so much on it. One of my friends who I've worked previously with was a chef at a different restaurant. And he called me up one day, and he said, Hey, so Steven writing a lot about food here. He's like, Well, one of our line folks just walked out. So you want to put your money where your mouth is. And that was it, huh? And that was that was kind of it? Yeah. I said, Sure. I said, I don't have knives. He said, Don't worry. Just bring yourself We'll teach you everything. That was my first kitchen job at a small restaurant in Brookline, which is no more unfortunately. But it was named the Regal Beagle. And then shortly after that, I picked up a second job at the same time at a barbecue place in Boston called sweet cheeks.

And is that Tiffany? Is that her restaurant? It's Tiffany

faisons restaurant. Yeah. And through working with Tiffany and her, her exact chef, Dan. It just kind of they were very supportive of my thirst for wanting to know more. And it was one day I was watching my exec and one of his sous talking about konseling. And they were like describing it so offhandedly. But I had no idea what they were talking about. I asked him I was like, what is what are you? What are you talking about? Like, you know, how do you make Constantine he's like us classic culinary school like, you know, you don't really do it anymore. But you know, it's something you would learn if you went, that's like I want to go. So he helped me, you know, figure out which school to go to between him and my mom. I wanted to go abroad at first and then my mom called me up and was like, you know, CIA is like 40 minutes away from the house. Right? At this point. They live in the Hudson Valley. And so I ended up moving home. My exec chef was an alumnus of CIA. So he helped he helped write my admissions letter. And after that, CIA accepted me within a few weeks, it gave me a full ride and it was a wrap.

And then you ultimately ended up working at some of the best restaurants. I mean, I think these are places that everyone had no Blue Hill at Stone barns, Gramercy Tavern, Momofuku Ko, Danielle. I mean, those are some serious, serious places. What wasn't about fine dining, because you could go anywhere in the food industry. But it sounds like you really gravitated towards like, these really fine dining kind of best of the best places.

Yeah, it. It kind of started because I had known who Dan Barber was, you know, I gotten my research as wholeheartedly obsessed with most chefs. By the time I entered culinary school, I'd already read Kitchen Confidential, I was ready, you know, but I was older. And you know, as far as the kitchen is concerned, I was 24 when I entered school. So I felt like I was under the gun a little bit, that I should try to work at the best places I could to get as much knowledge as I, you know, as I could obtain and try and catch up with my 18 year old peers. So that kind of sparked it. But what really was the break that I needed was when I moved home to my parents home and beacon in preparation to go to culinary school, and I realized very quickly that I would need a job. You know, I had bills from from college. So I went on Craigslist, I'm pretty sure and Blue Hill at Stone barns just happened to have had put a posting up. And I said, No, no, this can't be the same place. So I sent my resume in and they called me the next day and had me come down for an interview that day. And I got hired on the spot to start working for their events Front of House Team. And that's kind of how I got my in app bluehill The man who was running events kind of saw something in me and kind of took me under his wing. You know, then I started bartending. I went down to the restaurant, I went in the kitchen, I went in the bakery, I went in pastry, you know, like I went on the farm like before, I knew it had been for years. And I worked at Blue Hill through my entire time at culinary school and also time on top of that. So that was a very intense moment of My life because I was going to school, you know, from seven in the morning to one in the afternoon and then rushing down to Blue Hill to go to work. And I was getting a lot of information at once, you know, I was going to CIA and I was going to be a university like, so I learned a lot in a very short period of time. And I feel like that really helped propel my career. And then of course, having Google my resume didn't hurt after that. As long as I maintain that, that thirst, it was very easy for me to keep the ball rolling with whatever rest, you know, whatever fine dining restaurant I wanted to move to next,

looking at all those places, what are some of the similarities in the way they operate? Because they're, again, at a totally different level than a lot of places? Did you notice similarities in the way the kitchen was organized, structured philosophies.

It's funny, because like, they're all like, they all differ a bit. But like, there's always certain things that are like always king in the kitchen, like the cleanliness standard, and like, how, like, the culture is different. And all that, like, you know, the culture of bluehill is very different on the culture, I tend to be very different than the culture at Ko. But all of those cooks are kind of coming from the same. They're all cut from the same cloth, you know, like, they're just like chefs that are looking to better themselves to push themselves to, like, cook at their highest level like that. That's definitely what I was doing there. You know, I want to see how good can I get? You know, how far can I push it?

Now, have you have you found the culture to always be good, because there's a lot of talk, especially these days about kitchen culture. And that usually is like, the precursor to like, how bad kitchen culture is, whether that be sexist, or you know, like, limiting of people who are not white men. So like, what have you seen kind of in some of those places?

I mean, yeah, the culture, it has its ups and it's downs, for sure. There's the beauty of the camaraderie of the kitchen. But you know, I've also seen some very negative things happen in fine dining kitchens. Some things directed at me, you know, I often would tell people, when I'm with meet people at random in the city, and he said, Oh, you're a chef. That's so cool. I'd say yeah, it's awesome. But it's definitely not for the faint of heart. That sensitive girl that my parents were worried about going into art school, like does not exist anymore. You know, I definitely have been toughened up a lot by the kitchen, which I'm grateful for. Because now as an adult, not much bothers me. I can roll with a lot of punches. I mean, I absolutely have had my fair share of things happen, you know, from sous chefs inappropriately grabbing me to being accused of that, because of my race to lots of different fun things like that. Yeah, I've definitely seen a lot. And as being a black woman, I'm a woman of mixed descent. I'm black and Latina. I'm German, and Italian as well. But I've definitely seen, you know, if I even see people that look like me in the kitchen were few and far in between, to see women that look like me in the kitchen are even more rare. So there is there is that culture, like I said, and especially when you go into fine dining, it is very, I feel like something people don't talk a lot about is like the upfront costs. And being a chef, it's a it's a career that notoriously doesn't make a lot of money, but actually costs quite a bit. If you think about it, our equipment is expensive. Our knives are expensive. Most chefs can't afford to live on their own. You know, most chefs don't see any portion of tips. But where the reason why people come to restaurants, you know, you go mostly for the food, of course, people go to restaurants or the atmosphere, that's what keeps people coming back is the hospitality. But if you hear the food is shit, you're probably not going to go to the restaurant, just because people are nice, you know, in the culture of finding fine dining restaurants, it's really like, you don't get a praise for doing good work. You only get in trouble if you do pad work, you know, it's you know, it's like kind of like, no news is good news kind of thing. Like, once in a while, you'll get chef saying something nice, but like, that's like, wow,

I hope that's changing.

Look, you know, old habits die hard. And it's a culture that, you know, perpetuates the boy club kind of atmosphere. And you know, I feel like it'll die a very slow death event. But it's kind of sad, because my industry also is like such a beautiful industry. But I see that suffering right now because of not necessarily the culture of the aspect but the culture of of chefs not getting paid too much and living these really difficult lives. You know, I struggled for a really long time, you know, like I my first apartment in New York City, like there's no way I would have gotten it if my parents couldn't help me out. You know, and to be like in your almost 30 You know, asking your parents for help is like not and you're still working 90 hours a week. You don't even have time to do your laundry. And he still need help. Like, that's like, so it gets almost demeaning, you know, I just wish that, you know, we're so cool. Everyone thinks chefs are so cool, but they don't think we're cool enough to pass.

Definitely. And, you know, now with the cost of goods going up, and the cost of everything going up, you know, there's a lot of conversation about what that's going to do to the industry. But these are costs that need to be absorbed by someone somewhere, and it's just like the market finally catching up.

Yeah, and like, you know, I don't necessarily have a solution to the problem, but I can tell you that, you know, something's got to give i That's why I feel like so many restaurants in New York City are hurting right now. They're looking for people, they're always looking for people, you know, and, and I, I've been a private chef for the past few years because of the pandemic, but I feel like restaurant life was taken from me. So it's something that I obviously still wax poetic about going back into. And every time I look for a job, you know, even if it's like a perfect plague, you know, situation like, at the end of the day, like not one of them is be is been able to offer me an actual cost of living salary.

So you started a personal chef business, I'd love to go down that avenue for a little bit. How did you come up with that? I mean, this is Chefs Without Restaurants, right? Yeah. So how did you start that? And when timeline? You know, COVID happened? When did you start this business?

Yeah, so I had been kind of like, like dipping my toes into it. Like, in the year prior to COVID, I had kind of gotten hooked up with an agency and was doing like a meal prep or two a week, just to kind of make ends meet again, because I wasn't making enough. And I was at a restaurant that I loved. I was working at Charlie Bird. And I loved working there. Like, my, the crew was great, the food was great. It was fun. It was finally like, I felt like finally a restaurant that I want to be at, for a very, very long time. Like I was there for six months, I was on track to be a sous chef there. And then COVID happened and everyone got laid off and not hurt. Because that was like that was the like I said, one of the flow, the most comfortable I've ever felt in a restaurant setting. And so to have that just like totally taken like very suddenly was a little jarring. But I went you know, everything in New York around that time was very, up in the air, everything's over things were very uncertain. And, you know, I at least took solace in the fact that like, everyone got laid off the same day, you know, everyone in my industry was pretty much laid

off within a week. That doesn't make it any easier, though.

It doesn't make it any easier. But it, you know, again, like a lot of kitchen culture is about the camaraderie, you know, so we had, we were all in it together, me and all my chef friends that I've met at different restaurants, over the course of you know, how many years working in New York City fine dining, like we were all like, Wait, this is all happening, you know, so it was at least we're in it together. But, you know, things got pretty dicey, and moved home for a little bit, tried to figure it out. But I just I wanted to cook, you know, I wanted to cook. So and I just I, I can't ever see myself doing anything other than Cooking. Cooking is one of the few things that quiets my very busy mind. So because of that I'm forever grateful for something like that. So I knew I had to find a way to still kind of more fit into my life. And it kind of just fell into my lap that there was a family that needed a private chef and I started working with the agency a little bit more. And before I knew it, it kind of snowballed. A few months later, I just through the luck of the draw of meeting people and networking, I was asked to go out to Arizona to do a retreat to be a chef out there. And it was during that it was like a women's retreat. And it was very small. So I ended up talking to most of my clients like after dinner. And a lot of them were really pushing for me, they were it was all black women, and they were all business owners, and they're like you need to join us really kind of was like the final push that I needed, because I incorporated on my birthday that like a couple months later as a birthday gift to myself. And it was just kind of the way that I see it. Like, you know, I want to own my own restaurant someday, I'm gonna need to learn how to run a business from you know whether or not it's a brick and mortar or it's just me, so I might as well start now.

I mean, it's really tough to start a business, especially if you don't know. So starting this new business, what were some things that were maybe surprising to you that you had no idea about going into starting a business.

I mean, I still probably call my accountant at least once a month in a actual panic because I don't know what's happening. So the finances is the hardest part. Honestly, I'm dealing with the business side of business, but that is I don't really like I'm not like a taxes and numbers kind of gal, you know, so that's always gonna be a bit of a learning curve. blessedly, there are apps for that. And I have an amazing accountant who takes my phone calls all the time, and he always laughs at me when I call him in a panic because he's like, it's fine, relax, you know, the easy part of the business is cooking. And then like the medium side is like dealing dealing with clients and stuff. Some some clients are more pleasant than others. But after years of being yelled at, and having people screaming my face and having to take that and fine dining, I can I can handle most of my clients, you know, even if they're very persnickety. So I think that that my years of training and fine dining, basically, taking abuse, for lack of a better term actually helped me stay very calm when I deal with clients who are very needy.

So do you kind of have a timeline? Like where do you see yourself personal chef versus restaurant? Like, are you trying to keep going with the personal chef thing? Get back into cooking at restaurants? Like how are you balancing that?

So one day at a time, I guess, I found, you know, when I started the LLC, I was like, I'm going to be doing this and this many months and doing this and you know what, it's like a few months after I started, my LLC actually ended up getting a job offer in St. John in the Virgin Islands. And I went down there for three weeks, and then ended up turning into four months. So you know, I've learned that the most I can plan for is probably the month ahead. I know that my goal is to have my own restaurant one day. So when I make major decisions based on my business, they're all going toward that goal. But the minute I start trying to put myself on a timeline is the minute that things are gonna go like, totally haywire. So I might as well just ride with it go where it seems, you know, go where it goes and, and just do the best I can to kind of keep myself afloat as a business owner. So that you know, right now it looks very different. I do meal preps, I do dinner parties, I'm also doing pop ups, which is kind of, you know, the meal preps and the dinner parties, obviously more catered to my clients and what and their needs. And so I do the pop ups and stuff to continue to challenge myself as a chef, and to find my own voice. Because the goal is still to have my own restaurant not to have my own private, you know, to be a caterer for the rest of my life. I want to speak my own visions through food. So I'm doing pop ups and stuff. So I can continue to foster and work through that own creative process. You know, while I'm also making money as a private chef,

I guess I have a two part question related to that. One is what is your style your vision? Like, if you could make whatever you want? What would that be? And then to kind of tie it into what you kind of alluded to is like, it sounds like you don't feel like you could cook your food for your clients. And and why is that and you think you could ever get there because this is something that if you've listened on the podcast, I talked to personal chefs all the time, you know, it's like, I have dishes I want to make, but I have all these clients who just want like crab cakes and Philemon yawn. It's like super frustrating. So like, finding that balance of like, do you stick to your guns and say, This is what I make and hope that the customers come to you? So all makes sense?

You know? Yes, of course it makes it makes sense. And I wasn't sitting to one of your podcasts about that. And for those SHFC I absolutely commend you know, people were like, Nah, I'm making this and this is this, you know, but for me, I'm still starting a business. I'm a young woman living by herself in New York City. I'm not going to like dumbed down my food and like make crappy food. But like, you know, if my client wants, like, you know, something more simple, then I'll make something more simple for them. And I'll make it delicious. You know, like, for me, I still see it as a challenge. Like, okay, so they all they want us Philemon, yawn, but like, let me like nail this temp. I mean, now, all of these times when we do the flaming on hold, I love to cook, you know, so I like even if I'm cooking chicken breast every day, like, I still love to do it, I love to just like the action of it. Like I said, It calms my mind very much. So no matter what, as long as my hands on a knife, I'll probably find a way to throw my own little style on it. So you know, and that being said, so you know, I'm very excited, I'm still in a in a very new business area as well. So I'm not really in a position to turn down a lot of work, you know, I still need to make money, I still need to figure out, you know, what I'm doing. And I also, you know, not even from a financial standpoint, as I need to get my name out there and network, you know, so I need to continue to take jobs so people know who I am. And they talked about me to other people. So for all those reasons, you know, I'm more than happy to, you know, do something more on the simple side. And that's why I sought out doing pop ups because I knew that that would satisfy me also as a chef, is I'm still finding my own voice. So the pop ups helped with that and they helped me push myself as a chef and they they satisfy that creative outlet that I so desperately need as an artist. You know, so it for me, I'm able to do both. So I feel quite satisfied and more on that.

So that What is that voice? What's your style? What? What foods are you drawn to?

Um, you know, I'm from New York and I am a Libra. And so I'm incredibly indecisive. So I love everything. You know, I love all these different types of food. I love to, you know, one of my favorite foods to eat is Mofongo. But I also love wa gras. And everything in between, you know, so, you know, that's probably part of the difficulty, and in trying to find my voice as a chef, because I find so much beauty and so many different styles of cooking. But I personally feel like what's resonating with me right now is telling my story through food of my ancestry and my heritage. That's really been coming up a lot for me, there, I actually am doing a pop up in on February 3, and fourth with another chef named Nana, Walmart. And she and I are doing a like six or seven course tasting menu that's basically telling the story of African migration through the United States, and on its way up to New York. And in doing this, you know, we had started talking about this a couple months ago. She's well, way more versed in African cuisine, she's Ghanian, but she also used to work at Lake cuckoo. So she has, you know, similar training, and we know, we have similar experiences in the kitchen. So we're very quickly kindred spirits. She's much more familiar though, with with this story. She's been doing research on this, you know, for the past year or so. And I just started to dip my toes in. And it was one of those things where like, you dip your toes in something you think is like a shallow pool. But instead, it's like, actually, like the deepest pool in the world. There's like, as soon as I started to learn a little, I realized how much there is to learn, and how much is still unspoken about, especially with African American cuisines. And its impact on American cuisine, even today, how the slave trade still impacts American cuisine today, you know, people don't want to talk about it, but it's the truth. You know, there's an old phrase my mom used to tell me is, the harder it is to talk about something, the sooner you need to talk about it. And I think that this is a story that a lot of other chefs of color are trying to tell and that I am now really, really understanding why this is such a wide and varied story and my place in it, and what that could mean for me as a chef, and what that could mean for me as a black woman in America, and a black woman, business owner, and what I want to do for my community, so there's, there's a lot that's been coming up in the research for this pop up. And, you know, I've made the realization that this is probably going to be something I'll be exploring for quite some time. So I think finally, I'm like, getting a little squeak in my voice, you know, as a shop, after years of trying to find out what it was, you know, working in mostly classically French places, and then working in some Asian cuisine, you know, working in Italian cuisine, like, you know, I love all these cuisines and techniques. But I think that there's something I could say that's uniquely me, you know, my, my upbringing, you know, I have all these different cultures and ethnicities mixed in me. And there's a lot of history that I feel like I can speak upon. So I've kind of just been exploring that avenue.

It's exciting. It sounds like, you know, you're kind of at the beginning of your journey to find your voice. And I think most chefs go through that, you know, the first couple years are just getting the foundational training being exposed to ingredients and stuff. But when you can really find that thing that kind of lights you up in the kitchen, I think it's amazing. I look forward to seeing I'm sure, hopefully, you'll be posting photos online of all the stuff that you do for this dinner. And

yes, I'm going to start recipe testing this weekend. I'm very excited because I was not as hard as I thought it would be for me to locate a whole pig's head. So that is something I'm really excited to work with. I, you know, started reading about this. They make what's called Head hash and Carolinas. And it's basically they take a whole pig's head and just like boil it down and like chop up the meat mix it with barbecue sauce, and it creates like this, like luxurious sauce, as I want to try to make that

they're one of my favorite things to cook. I think they're totally under utilized, disrespected. And anytime I can get a whole pig's head and cook it. I love it. Actually, I'm Momofuku, the first cookbook. He does pig's head torch on. I don't know if you've ever seen that technique or whatever. Like I read that book and just taught myself how to make that dish just by using that cookbook. And it's like some of my favorite things like, Well, Chris Cosentino had done way back in the early days of YouTube, like an eight part video series of how to like bone out a whole pig's head completely whole in like one piece. Wow. So I mean, this was like 12 years ago at this point, I think and I watched that and just kind of practiced in my kitchen at home doing pig's head and I don't think my wife loved coming home and seeing this like you trash bag with a pig's head in it in the fridge, but got to start somewhere.

Exactly. And that's how you know that you're on the right track or what you want to do with your life too. I mean, if you're if you're deep, like if you're elbow deep in pigs face by choice at your home. Yeah, you're probably meant to be a chef. Yeah.

It's one of those weird hobbies. I was gonna say habits, it could turn into a habit, but it's one of those weird hobbies, right?

Well, yeah, exactly. Again, that's how it started with me as well. You know, like it. It was a slow roll. And then all of a sudden, my parents had to get another fridge for me because I was pickling everything and they were upset. You know, the whole house smelled like vinegar. And that was kind of how, you know, things kind of started that was that was very much influenced by Gramercy Tavern and their pickle program was just it just blew me away. I was like, they're pickling with all these different things I'd even thought to pickle with yet like, I want to do it.

There's nothing wrong with having a whole dedicated fridge for pickles. I'm pickling shutoff keys right now. That's something I just got going before we hopped on here today.

Nice. Nice. I loved I love that pickled mushroom. Now my question is, do you hold in the vinegar? Or do you take it out and put it in oil?

No, I hold I hold in the vinegar, because I'm talking about just like a very quick for an event that's coming up in like Google days. So it's just gonna be a quick I'm gonna pickle it. And then it'll be used in like three days. So it's not a long term hold.

Yeah, I have some nice pickled mushroom recipes. I could send your way. So I picked on mushrooms. I feel like the onions like people don't talk about them. They're delicious.

Yeah, well, I'm doing a like a Cristini like a whipped ricotta with herbs and Meyer lemon oil and stuff and then put some roasted roasted mushrooms on top. But then you need that acid, right? So like, yes, you find like a shittaka is really good and pickled. So a little pickled mushroom on top gives it just that little clean bite that you need.

And people are like, what is that that's always the best. Even though I do want to own my own restaurant one day, I still want it to be quite interactive with the guests. That's something that, you know, after years of working front of house, like I do enjoy that interaction. Even when I was down in St. John, I, they needed I was working in a kitchen. But then it was a very small restaurant. And my boss needed a pinch hitter for the front of the house just for a couple of days a week. And I went out there and I was like, Oh, this is so fun. I forgot about how much fun it is to talk to people. So I'm still wanting to be quite interactive, because one of my favorite things is like, seeing when people eat your food. Wow, that's really good. Yeah, like, it's so it's so nice to see how hard how your hard work is like, people like appreciate it. And it's nice to see that, you know, something I didn't see in every kitchen I've worked in. So yeah, I mean, like I said, when I have my own place, I would love it to be a place where I'm still interacting with people.

That's what I love about the personal chef thing is because it bridges the gap between front and back of the house where it's like, you know, if you're doing an event, you're in their home, and you can almost always interact with them. So you see how they enjoy it. I just remember days of like, serving food server takes out to the dining room. And then you know, like, plates come back and you say did you enjoy? They enjoy it? And they say, oh, yeah, I think so. But as you know, like you you don't really know, like you didn't have that interaction with the customer. Not all chefs like that. I think that's one of the biggest challenges for people who come exclusively from back into house into the shop thing. Like, they don't they don't expect some of those things, or they don't necessarily want to be on show.

No, I get it. And you're absolutely right. You know, I'm lucky for me, and I love to be the star of the show.

One of the other things you're involved in is the black chef movement. For people who don't know what that is, can you talk about that for a bit?

Sure, um, I did some work with them over the over the summer of 2020. I haven't actually been able to do any volunteer work with them this year. But they definitely helped open my eyes a little bit to to the different ways that you can help feed your community, which is also something now that's become very important. But the black chef movement started up during the you know, the Black Lives Matter revival that happened in 2020. In the wake of everything that happened with George Floyd, they started setting up tables to feed protesters and it just kind of snowballed. And before I knew it, I was helping them lead events and and getting people you know, bed and having, you know, trying not to have too many tassels with the cops. But I definitely saw some things that are gonna be seared in my memory forever. Even as a bystander had some things said said to me by cops, by other fellow New Yorkers that I never thought I would hear come out come out of the mouths of like incredibly racist things that I'm really, you know, again, glad I had been exposed to that because I definitely was under the guise that like everyone in New York was kind of like, you know, all a melting pot, but there's, there's not everyone you know, and you have to understand we're a melting pot of everything. So it might not even be a melting pot of people whose views may not even jive with what you think New York is. So Working with them was such a such a powerful experience, honestly. And it also put in my head, you know, which is something I'm trying to move forward with as well that like, I want to help my own community, I've lived in Harlem for a while my family is from here, and I have called, you know, Sugar Hill my home for a while, and I love it here. I love my community. I feel like sometimes it's not fair. I do pop ups that are, you know, out of the price range of my neighbors and people that I live with and stuff. So, you know, I want to try and give back this next pop up that I'm doing for Black History Month, some of the proceeds are going to Harlem Grown, which is a nonprofit here in Harlem that actually like is setting up gardens all over Harlem and compost bins, which I actually utilize so because New York City composting won't come to my building, even though I called them like six times. So as you know, the Carlin bonus, the reason why I'm still able to compost my materials, so they are really important. And also they offer like offer after school programs for children, show them how to grow their vegetables, like just show them, like, you know, when you are watching a vegetable grow, like all of a sudden, it's like, it's a different experience. And like, it creates that like love of food at a very young age for the kids in my community. So they're not just eating fast food all the time. And so I think it's really important that we give out, you know, some some proceeds. And Nana also has a charity in Philly that she is that some of our proceeds are going to as well that is near and dear to her heart that it's helping communities out there as well. So you know, it's it's a lot about working with black chef movement definitely reminded me how important it is, if I'm going to stand on the soapbox and say I'm a black woman that you know, has a story to tell about her heritage, you know that I'm also making sure that I'm not just making money for me, but that I'm turning around and giving money back to my community. So I'm, you know, good, I'm good on my word. You know, I'm not just utilizing my blackness for my own benefit, like, I want to utilize it for the benefit of every, you know, every one of my community. So I'm doing my best to try and make sure that I can give back and definitely been looking into doing kind of like delivery type pop ups that are a lot more affordable. And that will be focused more in the Harlem area, so that people in my neighborhood can try some of my food, you know, and have it been more of a community effort.

I think it's so hard because a lot of what we do is exclusionary, like we got into food cooking, because we love feeding people being creative, nourishing them and the hospitality, but because of all the costs, the overhead and everything that comes along with that, I think there's a huge portion of people who usually never get to try our food.

Yeah, and isn't that's kind of sad, is like, we definitely got into this industry to feed people, you know, not just one type of people. So, I've definitely been trying, like, as the summer comes up and stuff, too, you know, I want to do like cookouts more in Harlem. And, you know, I just I'm trying to figure out how to make it make sense for me from a business perspective, while still like, you know, have it make sense for my community, you know, from a financial perspective to you know, so that's, that's kind of like figuring that out. You know, if I if I take like a pay cut, and I throw a party and a barbecue in Harlem, and I'm at least able to cover my costs and make a little bit of money to live, and everyone's paying keep prices I think we can make, we can have a little party on the street, you know, and that's what Harlem is about. It's about the community. I know, most of the people on my block. You know, most of the people on my block when I'm having issues finding a parking spot, they'll tell me where to go, like, you know, we just kind of all look out for each other like, yeah, I feel like New York, like this part of New York still feels like that community era like of New York,

I think chefs are some of the most giving and generous kind of people I know. And I think a lot of that goes back to the hospitality, but I'm just really proud to be in an industry where so many people I mean, obviously not everyone, but so many people find some way to give back to their community.

I mean, food is, you know, especially coming from like, you know, very, my, the black side of my family has been very influential in my life here. And because they're all here in New York, food is something shared around the table, you know, along with your family. And that's where history starts. That's where history is made this bursaries passed on. I love hanging out my family and then and food's always a part of the equation when we're all getting together. It's so essential, just the human experience. I really think you know, I believe that and I'm very honored to be a part of it. And to do my part to like, give people's joy like that's like the best. Like, I'm not very good with telling people that I love them but I am very good and making them really good plate of food that that'll show them.

What else would you like to share before we get out of here today? Any thing on your mind about food world about the food business?

Basically, you know what I would love to see in my industry is as much as I enjoy, like the piratey chef culture, I would love to see that kind of take a backseat to a more inclusive culture with chefs, I would love to see more women of color in fine dining kitchens, I would like to see more women of color in executive positions and fine dining kitchens. I would like to see people getting paid a living wage so that restaurants can continue. And as far as where I'm going, I just want to be able to tell the stories of people that we may not even know about, like, you know, Hercules Posey, who was George Washington's cook and enslaved man who actually ran away on his birthday and came here to New York, the key brought so many like, he brought so much food into the United States, and started creating like this fine dining culture. And then people like Thomas Jefferson's enslaved Cook, who went to France and ended up becoming like, the Executive Sous Chef of like, one of the best restaurants there and then actually, like, issued his asleep in, like his freedom to come back into enslavement in the United States to continue to cook for Jefferson. And now the reason we like French food so much is because of an enslaved black man. And I feel like people don't talk about stuff like that enough. You don't really acknowledge that enough. So, you know, Hercules Posey, like he was Washington's slave, as I was saying, but why it's widely thought that like a lot of Martha Washington's recipes are actually hits, you know, and he doesn't get any credit for that. And I just, it's hard now, hundreds of years later to kind of go back and get that important information that was so needed back, you know, to just be gotten back then. But that's, you know, obviously, because the way that the world was people didn't care enough to kind of make the right documentation. But I think that it's really important to go back as far as we can, and to talk about our four founders of foods, you know, like people like, bow down to Paul bow Cousteau, and as they should, because he's an incredible shop and the grandfather of so much here in the United States. But I never heard about Hercules Posey until, you know, like, four months ago. Why is that?

I've never heard of him at all. So this is all new to me.

Like, and according to like, reports of what he was like, he was very much like a flamboyant t like kind of person. Like, imagine like Django Unchained, but like a chef, and like, he was doing fusion food before that was cool. You know, like, it's just an odd, you know, and and he ended up like I said, he ended up escaping on George Washington's Birthday and coming here to New York. So I've been doing my best to try to find some records up in somewhere, you know, and Thomas downing was the was another chef here in New York City that was like known as like the oyster chain. And he was so popular that they ended up on when he passed, they shut down Wall Street, to memorialize this black man who had the best oysters in all of New York, because he would go out to the oyster dot like dogs on in his rowboat, to find the best, you know, oysters that he could and if that's not a chef, I don't know what it's like. And so I feel like if I can just get these names out here, we're doing okay. You know, Netflix came out with a series high on the hog, I highly recommend that the series or the book, it's a very easily digestible for no pun intended on just the history of blacks food systems in America and how much they really, truly permeate. So much of our culture, you know, like, things like Carolina rice, that that is so synonymous with Carolina with the Carolinas, I feel like most people don't realize that the South wasn't really the landscape in this house wasn't really made for rice paddies, they actually spent somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars in money back then. Totally terraforming like this the south so they could grow rice, because the people that they were enslaving from Africa were rice farmers, and they wanted to make it easier for them. So the 60, you know, and still 60% of black Americans can still trace their lineage to someone who came to the port of South Carolina to the Port of Charleston. Today, you know, I started to do the research for this to try and decide dishes and stuff. And then as I dipped my toes in, I was like, wow, this is i It was like one of those very, like, came over me, I was like, This is gonna take a few years of my life to get through this. And I hope on the other side, I will have a voice of clear, like, you know, a very clear vision, but I'm very much called to honor my ancestors or my family and to try and tell their story through my lens as much as I can. You know, so he, as much as I want to tell the story of the black experience, I have to also understand I'm a girl from New York. So, you know, I, you know, I know of these dishes, but I have to really learn them and learn that culture and I can't pretend like I'm from the south and I can just talk about it. You know, like, I have to really kind of talk about it from the perspective of I have with the techniques that I learned in all these classic restaurants. And now like and find a way to make those two things make sense in a way that feels genuine. And not like I'm, you know, a set like, what's the word, like taking over any anyone's culture, anything like that I want it to really be my own voice. And by finding my own voice will be very neat. But I have to make sure that it's not anyone else's, or anyone else's perspective.

I think you can still honor the tradition, honor the ingredients, but kind of show it through your lens, I think that's the best way to respect it. I mean, if you didn't grow up eating these dishes, then it's not natural to be recreating them. Right. So I think, I think you're gonna find you're, you're gonna find your way there. I think with that, yeah. And

are some dishes I did grow up with like collard greens and yams, but my grandmother was from Alabama. So, you know, they she moved my mother up here when she was two. So my mother's, you know, essentially from New York City, but we have a lot of family still in the south. So there, you know, there are some foods that I grew up with. And there's others that I didn't. And it's just finding the best way, like you said, to just like, tell my story through my lens. And I'm trying to do it in a very, in a very conscious way.

So for anyone listening who wants to come to your event, this episode should drop right before it. So I don't know if people can still get in. But can you give us a little more info on the event you're going to be doing?

Absolutely. So it's a six course tasting menu that we are doing in partnership. So mionetto has kind of like a very long quest. She's actually in Ghana right now. So we've had lots of conversations about how we want to tell this story. But there's, there's a link in my Instagram. For the tickets if there are any left. If not, this is again, I will be as soon as the events over, I'll actually put my website link back onto my Instagram page. And that will be like the main place to go for events that I'm doing. This is a story that this will be the first of many, I hope to my story and what I'm trying to say. So I'm hoping that there'll be more opportunities for people to come and enjoy.

Thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it. This is exciting. This should be the kickoff to season three of the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. So Woohoo, yeah, whoa, I look forward to season three, season three, look forward to getting it out there. So thanks so much. And it's been great talking to you and having you be a part of the community.

Yeah, thank you. And thank you for listening and, you know, letting me tell my, my story. You know, I'm truly you know, if anything comes across more than anything, I just, I want it to be gratitude. You know, like, I'm truly so grateful for every thing that's happened to me in my life good and bad. Like, I'm just happy because it's all led to this moment. Every person that's touched my life, every job I've ever had, you know, it all was very much needed to get to where I am now. So I just want that to definitely permeate through everything I say, you know, all the clients I have that, you know, that have helped me fund everything that I'm doing. It's it's I'm very, very grateful for the community that I have the support I've received.

Well, it's definitely great to have people like you in the community. And as we talked about culture shifts, I think we just need to have more people like you in the culinary industry, whether it be personal chef or restaurant to kind of get the get it moving in the way that I think it needs to move. Awesome. Thank

you. I appreciate that.

And to all of our listeners, this has been Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast, go to chefs without restaurants.org To find our Facebook group, mailing list and ship database. The community's free to join. You'll get gig opportunities, advice on building and growing your business and you'll never miss an episode of our podcast. Have a great week.