Qualitaly_105

JUN. JUL 2018 V “touch”. “I live the kitchen as a great place of freedom. The restaurant guest very often does not see who is cooking. The cook can be tall, short, beautiful, ugly, nice, unpleasant, a man or a woman. The only thing that counts is whether a dish is good or not,” says Antonia Klugmann from her restaurant the Argine di Vencò and fresh from the big renunciation of another edition of Master Chef. “The substantial difference is that if a woman dedicates herself to her career, she has to make sacrifices. Being head of a kitchen is a job that puts you to the test physically, you’re standing for hours, and it’s hard to run a family,” says Rosanna Marziale, a star-rated chef from Le Colonne in Caserta. A FAMILY AFFAIR As a result, there are positives and negatives, but why is it that in Italy, a country that does not shine for gender equality, there are more star-rated chefs than the rest of the world? “They are almost all in family restaurants, and not hired by a hotel or by investors who wish to create a brand (Romito, Bertolini), because it is assumed that a woman does not have managerial skills. When instead the first chef to be awarded three stars was a woman, Mère Brazier, Paul Bocuse’s teacher,” says Varese. “To have the same result a woman has to work three times more - says Cristina Bowerman - and expect much more criticism. There is male chauvinism everywhere, compared to other countries, but in Italy there is no possibility of defending oneself from small and large-scale abuses, whether at work or not. In the U.S. if you ask for help you are usually heard, not ridiculed. And then it becomes necessary to form a group, among women, as the #Metoo campaign shows: when women come together, they can bring the sacred idols to their knees. This is true in every area. Things are beginning to change, but the first ones to learn to network are women, to know that we have the right to choices and opportunities, but without any exclusions whatsoever”. ______________________________ BOX THE QUALITIES FOR SUCCESS Curiosity (Ceraudo), freedom (Varese), stubbornness (Bowerman), enthusiasm and identification with work (Klugmann), determination (Marziale): these are the traits of the character that allowed the chefs interviewed to emerge, with a common denominator: passion, without which this work just would not be possible. ______________________________ BOX BOWERMAN: “I LEARNED TO DEMAND RESPECT IN THE USA”. She made her first custard at the age of five, even though she does not come from a family of restaurateurs, Cristina Bowerman, from Puglia, with an added drive and a decidedly atypical career: “After graduating in law, I was a legal attorney for two years, then I left for the USA, the first stage in San Francisco, where I worked as a graphic designer for ten years. But the passion for cooking remained: in 2004 I graduated in culinary sciences. I always express my creativity with my cuisine, but also with another means. Then Glass Hostaria in Rome. “You understand that you’ve taken the right direction when you see customers coming back. In my kitchen I have a very low turnover, and there is respect: an approach that I learned in the United States and after 16 years has remained within me. ______________________________ BOX VARESE: “I WANTED TO GET THERE, YOU CAN DO IT IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE IT”. “I kneaded pizzas at the age of seven, at 13 I worked in the family restaurant and at 21 I opened my first restaurant, an osteria in the province of Lodi. And it wasn’t a bed of roses. “I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I asked for a large loan, for five years I did not take a day off. I lost myself working. The passion came later, with Alice opened with Sandra [Ciciriello]: I started at seven in the morning making bread and finished at one at night, but in the first six months 80 articles came out on us. Everything went smoothly, I didn’t want to make any mistakes anymore and in the end I managed to pay all the debts and buy myself a house. When I started I didn’t have a penny.” ______________________________ BOX ROSANNA MARZIALE: “IT HAS BEEN HARD TO CONVINCE THE CLIENT AND THE SACRIFICES ARE CONTINUOUS”. “I have always been in the family restaurant that has existed for 60 years, it wasn’t to be taken for granted but I became passionate. I have held all the roles: waitress, maître, sommelier, bartender. I did training courses with Gianfranco Vissani and Martin Berasategui, to learn how to organise the restaurant. The star award is mine, it arrived after quite some time, when we concentrated on working to make the customer happy. I never considered it limiting being in Rosanna Marziale Antonia Klugmann Cristina Bowerman EMANUELE CAMERINI