Arlene Stewart
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
Day after day after day, he would relentlessly abuse me. He would say things like, would you eat that? Would that be something you'd serve your mother? There would be plates piled. You know when you throw a stone and it ripples on the water? He would throw the plate across the path and it would literally ripple across to me.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
Day after day, we're getting ready for opening night at the restaurant and he is riding me and riding me. It's opening night. And the runners are running in and out of the kitchen. The wait staff, the kitchen staff is getting their stations ready. And my dish is the first dish on the station to go out. Now, the who's who of New York is coming to this event. So there is an added excitement in this.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
It's not friends and family night. It is the night. One of the things that's coming off my station is his tuna gravlax. Now, I know how to make gravlax because my previous restaurant was a Scandinavian restaurant. Now, gravlax is a beautiful fish, usually with salmon. And you take the perfect amount of salt and sugar. And it has to be balanced because if you put too much salt, it will take away
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
The fact which is so important to give it that smooth, silky, buttery, sexy taste in your mouth. You put a little bit of dill and it just opens up in your palate. But this chef wants to speed up the process. He's using tuna and vodka to make this gravlax. He's not happy with my gravlax. He's on me, on me. So it's about 5.30 in the evening, and guests are about to arrive.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And he is still riding me, riding me. And I decided, you know what? Fuck this. I'm out. And I walk off the line. Now, I'm walking down the West Side Highway on the river. And I am sobbing. I am crying. I have no rights to be walking off a job. You see, I've been couch surfing and my visa's about to run out, so I really need this job.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
But I'm walking and I'm crying and I'm sobbing, as I said, and he is right behind me. And he is yelling and screaming at me, you don't have it. You don't have what it takes to make it in this business. You'll never make it in this business. And it's one of those beautiful moments
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
evenings in New York City when you know the sky gets that purple orange color and I'm just sobbing and in my vision to my right is the Statue of Liberty and to my left it's the Empire State Building and I am walking and crying and sobbing and I remember this is my love
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
You see, when I was eight years old, my grandmother's friend came back from missionary in Africa, and she asked me if I knew how to cook. And I'm like, I'm eight years old. And she says to me, she's going to set up the coal pot. We're cooking in the backyard. She's going to set up the coal pot, and then I need to go to the kitchen coop, get a chicken,
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
clean it, kill it, clean it, season it, and bring it back to her. Now I knew how to do that. In cleaning the chicken, it's a principle of you have to wash the chicken with lemon or vinegar. Otherwise, in a Caribbean house, they don't consider it clean. And I have to make this green seasoning. Now, green seasoning is in every Trinidad household.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
It is a combination of shadow benny, thyme, onions, garlic, and you either blend it or you mortar it. So I do all those things, and I bring it back to her. She said, we're going to make stewed chicken, lentils, and rice. Another staple. Now, the beautiful thing, if you've ever been to the Caribbean and you get a stewed chicken, it's this beautiful caramel.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
You put the oil in the pot and you add the sugar. Now, if you let the sugar go too far, it will burn and give you this bitter taste in your mouth. So we make the stewed chicken, the lentils, and the rice. I'm so excited. I go back to my home and I tell my grandmother. I'm like, you wouldn't believe what I did. And she sees my excitement and she decides that she's going to take me on in the kitchen.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
Now, I am excited to be in the kitchen with my grandmother because it's just her and I. This is our time together. Every time we're cooking together, it's just she and I. My grandmother was an excellent cook. She had sweet hands. That's what we call it, sweet hands, when everything you cook just tastes good.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And she taught me how to make callaloo and macaroni pie and bakes and cakes and sweetbreads. And I just enjoyed the opportunity to just spend time with her and learn how to cook. my future. I'm here in New York, and I'm working through my field, and I'm looking for work now, since I walked off the job.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And I'm going door to door, I'm looking through the Village Voice, and I'm looking for work, and I'm looking for work, and I'm being told things like, we don't hire women. Now, you have to remember, this is before becoming a chef was glamorous. This is when someone told me when I said I was going to be a chef that, oh, I'll pray for you. This is before the beer.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
So I'm looking, and chefs are saying, we don't hire women. You don't have what it takes to work here, and on and on. So I'm on the M10 bus going up Central Park West, if any of you know New York, going up Central Park West. And I look, and I said to a friend, I said, you know what? If I tell God I want to work there, he'll let me work there. There was John George. just opened up.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
This actually was something. So I called up and I asked if they were hiring and they said yes. Bring your resume and come. So I put my resume and I came. I am nervous. I remember standing there in the kitchen and my heart is beating and I just can't believe that I'm actually here. I'm looking around and I'm like, I didn't go to Culinary Institute of America. I didn't go to Johnson and Wales.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
I don't really have what it takes to be here. But guess what? He looks at my resume, he thought it was great enough, and he hires me. I'm excited to be here. It is an amazing place to work. There is camaraderie. There is love. There is exchange of ideas. I'm learning so much.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
I'm learning the importance of salt and pepper and just what acid does to a dish and how it brings depth of flavor and just what fat does to a dish. And it's just like a love fest. It just takes me back to my beginnings when I learned how to cook with my grandmother. And I can't believe this, that I am now here in this three-star Michelin restaurant working.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
One day we're having an event, and I'm getting my station ready. One of the dishes I have to make on my station is the garlic soup and frog legs, if any of you have ever been to John George. That's one of our staples. And I'm making my dish, and I'm getting it ready, and I'm putting it up on the pass, and I look up. And who do I see? My old chef. And our eyes connect.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And you know, he turns to his sous chef when he's talking to his sous chef. And you know when someone's talking about you. So I can tell that he's talking about me. And I'm probably sure he's wondering, is that her? Is she here? And I remember just standing up and just looking at him like, yeah, I'm here.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
I have since gone on to cook for presidents and kings, and I can stand and say, I do have what it takes.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
No, you have to be born with it. Every culture actually has a terminology in which they use, and it's from the hands. Because you can go to the best culinary school and still not become a good cook.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
You know, that's why some people can watch a recipe or what come up and make something that tastes better than you may have in a restaurant or you make better than someone who spent their life dedicated to cooking because they just didn't have that thing. Yeah. You know what I mean?
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
That thing in the hand that you can just, you know how much salt to put, you know how much of everything that would make it a perfect balance. It's a hard hand connection soul thing.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
It's late spring, early summer, 1997, New York City, Hudson River. It's the reopening and rebranding of an acclaimed New York City chef's restaurant. We have to learn his style, his techniques. We have to take his ideas, his palette, and put it on a plate. But for some reason, when the chef met me, he decided to make me his personal punching bag. No matter what I did, I could not please him.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
I love it. You know, the truth is it's satisfying. It fills me. It fills all of me. You know what I mean? Like I feel like I get to use all of my senses. I get to use my brain besides, you know, because your mind and your eyes and your palate,
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
actually creates the dish before it goes on the plate or before you would start to cook it it's just your mind starts working hmm i wonder if i take this and that and that and that and how would that and it it starts there and then when you see the final product which is you know when you present it on the plate and you're like wow that actually tasted how it tasted in my mind's eye that's what keeps me is that i'm still learning and growing and it still brings me lots of joy and satisfaction