Word: chef
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Slowly and after considerable struggle, this band of feisty and talented women, mostly in the U.S. but also in France and England, have wrested for themselves the full title of chef. To be sure, female cooks in restaurants have a long and honored history. They were the keepers of the flame who always produced traditional dishes without deviation, both in American mom-and-pop eateries and especially in France, where the cuisine de femme (woman's cooking) was celebrated by Escoffier...
...other arenas, women seeking full status in the kitchen have had to prove themselves by beating men at their own game. Most neither requested nor accepted help along the way. Mary Sue Milliken, who with her chef-partner Susan Feniger owns the Mexico-inspired Border Grill and the Oriental-eclectic City Restaurant in Los Angeles, recalls that in earlier kitchen jobs, "I insisted on hand-whisking 80 quarts of hollandaise sauce made with two cases of egg yolks...
...paid heavier dues than tiny, 5-ft.-tall Anne Rosenzweig, who during her first unpaid apprenticeship was made to lift all the stockpots alone, even though men in the kitchen helped one another. "The European chef there was miserable and kept saying that women had no strength, no stamina and no concentration," says Rosenzweig, who went on to become the controversial vice chairman at Manhattan's exclusive "21" Club, as well as chef-partner at her own New York City restaurant, Arcadia. Overprotectiveness, not abuse, was what almost undermined Leslie Revsin, a chef at the Barbizon Hotel in Manhattan...
Many women chefs have discovered exquisitely simple solutions to problems that arise because of their lack of the male's physical strength. Culinary Institute graduate Woodhull's is possibly the most obvious. "It's more stupid to do something dangerous in the kitchen than to ask for help. And asking for help doesn't mean you're not a good cook," she points out. On the other hand, advises Lynn Sheehan, a student at San Francisco's California Culinary Academy, where nearly half the 400 students are women, "if you feel you need more upper-body strength, go work...
...chefs have shown more culinary flair than Rosenzweig. Among her classic dishes: chimney-smoked lobster glossed with tarragon butter and buttressed against a crisp cake of threadlike Chinese noodles; roast quail with rhubarb bedded down on dandelion greens; and homespun corn cakes topped with caviar and creme fraiche. Similarly, Joyce Goldstein, chef-owner of the stylish Square One in San Francisco, creates an aura of flavor unity on a menu that may offer crusty Italian bread, Russian mushroom soup, pungent Korean steak and a very American spiced persimmon pudding...