Choices

This is what I used to do, 15 years ago, when it was unfashionable for a college graduate to work in the kitchen, when you were called a cook, not a chef, before CCA, before all these culinary schools sprouted in the metropolis and any graduate of these schools called themselves chefs, before entering the mad mad world of the kitchen.

I apprenticed at the Mandarin Oriental and knew right away that I wasn’t Front Office or Sales material – where most HRA graduates aspired to be. Let’s just say I didn’t have the uhmm, “nature” for it. But in the kitchen I felt alive, largely in part to a trailblazing Austrian Chef who saw in me and my friend two guinea pigs, part of his grand scheme to revolutionize the culinary world of Manila where there were but a few female chefs. So bright eyed and bushy tailed (as all new graduates are) I willingly accepted the position he offered me, the lowest rung in the culinary scheme of things, a commis, a kitchen helper.

So in the inevitable run-ins with fellow graduates after the “how are you, where do you work etc” I would get two very different reactions, a glazed “I’m-embarrassed-for-you” look and a “that’s-wonderful” look. Believe me, 90% of the time it was the former look. “So...you do...what? You cook?" (subtext: she’s probably not bright enough or not pretty enough for Sales) Remember at that time, the kitchen was a man’s world, and college graduates (especially those from UP) would never even think of working there.

But cook I did. First I entered the gardemanger - the cold kitchen. This is where most females start (and occupy, even today) and if they have enough grit, move on to the hot section. I enjoyed myself enough but wanted to join the guys, in the action of the hot kitchen. Frankly, a club sandwich is a club sandwich and if you do about 10 a day, you just don’t want to look at another piece of bacon again. 6 months later and I got my wish and was transferred to the hot section where I first did the job of the entremetier – vegetable and sides preparation. Little by little you learn more and then move on to soups and sauces, the saucier, the tricky part. More and more you get the trophies of war, those knicks and cuts and burns from grease and hot ovens.

Many of my co-commis are successful now, a few of them opening their own restaurants. I’ve decided to move on, to the dark side, the front of the house. Not because I couldn’t stand the heat but because I knew that to be successful you needed more than hard work and dedication, you needed passion. This was the one thing I lacked. I loved food, I loved to cook but I wasn’t passionate enough, didn’t have the hunger to be the first female Executive Chef in a five star hotel in Manila.

No regrets - to this day I consider those two years the most fun I’ve had working. And whatever I am today, I’m still a kusinera at heart and my pantheon of heroes include Ducasse, Bouloud, Keller, Adria, Arzak.


Suggested reading for newbies : “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain, “Art Culinaire” series of gourmet magazines.