New Year's Resolutions

Plus a vintage menu from a restaurant with no stove. And a recipe to celebrate.

This is part of a speech I gave ten years ago to a group of women in the hospitality industry. Every year, at around this time, I read it to remind myself how I hope to live my life.

I’m not there yet. But I’m trying.

People are always asking what obstacles I’ve encountered as a working woman. There have been plenty of them – but not the obvious kind. No man was ever promoted over me because he was a man. At least not that I’m aware of. I never lost a job because I was a woman. Was I sexually harassed? Only in ways that were more annoying than terrifying.

But there have been two almost insurmountable obstacles I’ve faced as a woman who works. The biggest one is time.

Nobody begrudges men the hours they spend at work. It’s different for us. Balancing work and family has been the most challenging thing I’ve had to face. So challenging, that whenever a young editor at Gourmet told me she was pregnant,  I’d ask if she was coming back after the baby was born. When they said yes – they all said yes – I gave them this little speech:

 “Now you are going to learn what serious guilt feels like. No matter where you are, you are going to feel you should be somewhere else. If you’re home you’ll feel that you should be at work.  If you’re at work you’re going to feel you should be home. There is only one way to win this battle: You have to be tough-minded enough to abandon that guilt. You have to recognize that the biggest obstacle is in your own mind, that you are the one manufacturing the guilt. And more than that, that the guilt is an indulgence that does nobody any good. All it does is hold you back.”

For people in the hospitality industry, people whose jobs involve late hours and long dinners - this is an especially difficult problem. I certainly know this first hand. When my son was born I’d been a restaurant critic for a dozen years, and in the beginning, I didn’t even understand what I was facing. Leaving a baby with a sitter is extremely easy, and during that first year I blithely went out every night. Then Nick turned two and everything changed.  From the ages of 2 to 6 my son grabbed my leg every night, crying, “Don’t leave me,” as we walked out the door. It was agonizing. I arrived at every restaurant shattered and absolutely drenched in guilt.

Looking back I can tell you two things I wish I’d known. Nick somehow survived the terrible trauma of my job. He even loves restaurants.

And this is the second: what the hell was wrong with me?  You’ll notice that I said “when WE walked out the door.” My husband usually joined me for dinner, but now I wonder why he didn’t stay home with our son? Why didn’t I ask him to? After all, he wasn’t a restaurant critic.

As far as I know, Michael never felt the guilt that I did. That was a while ago, but I don’t think much has changed. The day the school calls Daddy to say that his son is sick and needs to be taken home, the day they put changing tables in the mens room instead of the ladies room, the day people stop telling women how lucky they are to  have a husband who cooks or cleans, our lives will become considerably easier. But I suspect those days are still a long way off, and in the meantime, we’re on our own.

What can you do about it? For starters, forgive yourself. The best advice I can give you is to change your attitude.  Despite what everyone will tell you, children are resilient.  Even if you’re not a perfect mother - and you won’t be - they will survive. Give yourself a break.

But give other people a break too. We all know that abuse is cyclical: it’s common knowledge that children who have been abused often become abusers. And people who came up beneath tough bosses give themselves permission to pass it on, to be as mean to the people who work for them as their bosses were to them. This happens everywhere, but the hospitality business is a prime example. Restaurant kitchens are notoriously difficult workplaces where those who were tortured by old-time chefs feel entitled to behave the same way to their employees.

It’s time for us to break that cycle. Just because you were badly treated doesn’t mean you have the right to treat other people badly.

This is not entirely altruistic. As I grew older and became a manager I began to find that being a woman was not a handicap but an advantage.  The male bosses I’ve worked for have all been burdened by the need to feel stronger, brighter and better prepared than those who worked for them. They wanted to be the smartest person in the room. But I’ve gone out of my way to hire people who were wiser than me and knew more than I did. And to take their advice.

If you’ve read any of my books you know that when I was the restaurant critic of the New York Times I turned myself into dozens of different characters in an attempt to be anonymous.  I was just trying to do my job - trying to fly under the radar so I would not be treated as the - ta da! - Restaurant Critic of the NY Times. My goal was to tell my readers what would happen to them when they went out to eat, but what I ended up with was something more valuable than merely good copy.

At first these were just disguises, but over the years they become increasingly elaborate until I truly did become the person I was pretending to be. So I became a sad little old lady, a midwestern housewife, a flamboyant redhead, a sophisticated blonde. And along the way I discovered how different it feels to be all these people. And this is the lesson I learned by being gentle Molly, sad Betty, sexy Chloe, sweet Brenda and awful Emily: kindness is better. It feels good. It matters. And it changed my life.

So this is what I have to tell you: Be as generous as you can. 

But this brings me to the other major hurdle that I’ve faced as a woman in the workplace. 

Image. Appearance. Perception.

There have been four chief restaurant critics at the New York Times since I left in 1999.  Not one of them has been a woman. Here’s this great job, and it always goes to a man. Many people have pointed to this as an example of sexism in the workplace.

I do think it’s sexist, but not in the accepted sense of the word.  Eating every meal out is hard on your body. It is difficult to do it without gaining a lot of weight.  Marian Burros refused to do the job for very long because she feared getting fat. Mimi Sheraton did the job - and then lost 60 pounds after she gave it up. And although I don’t know this firsthand, I’ve been told the late Molly O’Neill was offered the job before I was and turned it down because she was worried about her weight. Body image looms large for women. When a woman puts on a lot of weight people say she’s fat. It’s less troublesome for men.  Large men - and many restaurant critics are large men - are routinely called Falstaffian.

It’s no fun to be a fat woman, and I doubt if there’s a single person in this room who hasn’t struggled with this in some form or another. We all have to eat - and drink - professionally; it’s part of the job.  So here’s the question: is there some way to have your cake and eat it too?

I think there is. When people ask me - as they always do - why aren’t you fat? - I give them a simple answer. 

Nobody ever said you had to eat everything on your plate.  Take a bite. Savor the flavor. Then let it go.

And that, I think, is the secret to loving the life you lead. Take a bite. Savor the flavor. Move on. You don’t have to eat everything. And you don’t have to do everything. 

I came to this position later in life than I’d like to admit. A few years ago, when I was touring for Not Becoming My Mother, a young woman in the audience stood up to say, “ You may not want to be your mother, but I do. I certainly don’t want to be you.” It was like a bucket of cold water heaved straight at my face.  She continued, “ I don’t want to be Superwoman. I don’t want to have it all.  I’m almost twenty, and I’m trying to figure out whether I want a career or a family. I know I don’t want both. Why would I ever want to work as hard as you do?  Why would anyone?”

I was speechless. To me the answer had been obvious. I thought that while we may not have solved the issues of gender, family and power that plagued earlier generations, in the America of the 21st century we had at least defined the terms.  

But I was wrong.  And I had to admit that she had a point. I was trying to do everything. And that was crazy.

 So I sat down and made a list of all the things I wish someone else would do:

Laundry.

Housekeeping.

Gardening.

And then I let them all go. I can’t do everything. And if my epitaph reads, “Her house was a big mess,” - well, I won’t be embarrassed.

You really can’t do everything.  So my advice is to be honest with yourself, decide what it is that you no longer need to do. Give them up. 

Then concentrate on being really really good at the things you like to do, the ones you care about. Work hard. Be the best you can be. Be as kind as you can.  And do your best to banish guilt.

It’s harder than it sounds. It takes discipline.

But you can do it.

Speaking of women in the hospitality industry….

In the early eighties Wolfgang Puck insisted that I visit City Cafe, a tiny restaurant on Melrose Avenue. “You won’t believe the food those girls are turning out,” he told me. “I’m not even sure they have a kitchen.”

They didn’t. When Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken opened their first restaurant in 1981 they had no stove at all. They had a little grill out back. Inside there was a hot plate. “The first special I ever ran was veal tongue with lobster sauce and sautéed pears,” Feniger once told me. “I made it on a hot plate.” That lasted two years before the health department arrived to say that wasn’t such a great idea. But just look at the food they were turning out!

By 1984 they knew they’d outgrown the place and the next year they opened the much larger, and much loved, City Restaurant. Incidentally, their cookbook, City Cuisine is a favorite. (I wrote about Mary Sue, Susan and other women chefs of the time in this 1983 article.)

Having people over for New Year’s? Looking for an easy recipe that requires no exotic ingredients? You’ve come to the right place.

And while I have you, Happy New Year!

Poor Man’s Tarte Flambée

This was a big favorite at Gourmet, but around our house it’s known as “Robert’s Cheese Toast” because my friend Robert likes it so much. The truth is, everybody I know loves this old-fashioned American classic, which makes it the perfect snack for a Super Bowl party. No matter how much I make, it always vanishes in a flash.

Coarsely grate or chop a quarter pound of extra-sharp white cheddar. Chop a quarter pound of cold uncooked bacon and mix it in with the cheddar. Mince half a small white onion and add that, along with a tablespoon of well drained bottled horseradish. Sprinkle in a quarter teaspoon of salt and a few good grinds of black pepper. 

Spread this onto 6 or 7 slices of thin white bread (Pepperidge Farm is perfect), set them on a baking sheet and freeze for 15 minutes. Or longer; I like to keep a few slices in the freezer in case unexpected guests arrive.

Cut off the crusts and then cut each toast in quarters. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20 minutes or so, until everything has melted into a delicious golden goo.  

This is enough for 4 or 5 people.  

Click HERE for a printable recipe Robert’s Cheese Toast