The 'Gods of Food' Club (No Goddesses Allowed!)

November 15, 2013 6:26 AM

Last week, Time magazine put out a feature on the Gods of Food, a series of articles on 60-some-odd empire-building chefs who the magazine thinks are influencing and leading cuisine today. Beyond the statistical problems with the article ... some folks had the temerity to point out that this culinary Mount Olympus was basically a bunch of white dudes. Actually it was all dudes, not a single woman deified. Eater's interview with Time's food editor Howard Chua-Eoan about the story. Amanda Cohen's scathing takedown of the clusterfuck. The New York Times' Room for Debate feature asking leading female chefs about underrepresented women in food media. Eater's latest piece on the question of gender bias in food journalism. [via]
posted by Room 641-A (61 comments total)

The responses that Chua-Eoan gives whenever he is asked in the interview about specific women chefs is very telling. This man's gender bias is so strong that I can feel it through the screen.
posted by anansi at 6:32 AM on November 15, 2013 [3 favorites]

"It's all men because men still take care of themselves. The women really need someone — if not men, themselves actually — to sort of take care of each other."

What
posted by rtha at 6:34 AM on November 15, 2013 [17 favorites]

I particularly like Gabrielle Hamilton's response.
posted by Kitteh at 6:35 AM on November 15, 2013 [6 favorites]

The female chef is a relatively recent phenomenon, except for Alice who has been around for a long time.

Also, this makes me question his fitness to write about anything concerning food, ever.
posted by anansi at 6:37 AM on November 15, 2013 [21 favorites]

All part of the foodie circle jerk.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:37 AM on November 15, 2013

This is the problem with women; they really can't cook. We should just leave them in the boardroom where they belong.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:39 AM on November 15, 2013 [51 favorites]

I ate at Anita Lo's restaurant Annisa in NYC last year and all I know is this: if that jackhole eats there all the time, as comments on one of the stories said, and he didn't put her on, he is not only an asshole, his palate is covered with cheez whiz and ashes.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 6:45 AM on November 15, 2013 [6 favorites]

As someone who is very passionate about food, I do find it troubling that the world of professional chefdom is chiefly that of the braggadocio male. Or rather, that it is portrayed as being entirely that way. Ironically, most male chefs will tell interviewers or their ghost writers that it was always women in their family who taught them how to cook. It's all "my grandma used to make this and I wanted to learn and she taught me" or "the first time I ever ate this item was because of my mom who loved good food." Rarely I have read a male chef telling his audience that it was a grandfather/father/uncle who introduced him to the world of cookery (again, usually seen as woman's work). Paying homage to your nan or mom is not enough, guys. You should be hiring women who have worked hard/are working to be as much of a pro as you are, or at the very least encouraging the fuck out of them.
posted by Kitteh at 6:47 AM on November 15, 2013 [20 favorites]

Meanwhile, the majority of all cooking on Earth is done by women. Only, that cooking isn't the Important Cooking.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:53 AM on November 15, 2013 [27 favorites]

Amanda Cohen seems to have built her article around Human Centipede references.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:02 AM on November 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

In Chua-Eoan's defense, he probably simply didn't notice all the women in the kitchens because they weren't barefoot...
posted by Thorzdad at 7:03 AM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

The editor of Time, from the Eater interview: if chefs advocate for things and make news about it, as Anita has for years, talking about the gender divide among chefs, then I think it's worthwhile to cover them. But bring the subject up? I think we need someone to tell us, someone there who has an opinion that we can then reflect.

So, what this guy is saying that he will cover what chefs are talking about. Anita has been talking about it the gender divide. Anita is a chef. But it's somehow not worthwhile to cover it. Hmm.
posted by troika at 7:03 AM on November 15, 2013 [6 favorites]

I'm surprised about Amanda Cohen's assertion the chef world is not a boys club. In the lower echelons (the dirt, really) where I'm acquainted sexual harassment and discrimination is like, the #1 workplace problem. I'm happy if that's improved!
posted by Anonymous at 7:04 AM on November 15, 2013

The Time article actually includes four women, though none of them are chefs. While this is certainly no excuse, it's a factual point that the FPP omits & which confused me when I started in. From the first-linked Eater.com post:

Based on the online table of contents (subs. required), it seems the only woman profiled as an influencer is Aida Batlle, a fifth generation coffee producer in El Salvador who has worked with respected American coffee retailers like Stumptown and Blue Bottle. The magazine's list of the 13 Gods of Food highlights no female chefs, though it does mention four women connected to the global food world: Aida Batlle (coffee producer); Amrita Patel (Chairman of India's National Dairy Development Board); Vandana Shiva (environmental activist and author); and Ertharin Cousin (head of the U.N. World Food Programme).
posted by Going To Maine at 7:04 AM on November 15, 2013

I mean, even if you honestly think there are no women deserving of the title (you are probably an idiot if you think that, but whatever), even if you think that, you've got to look at your final list and think, "Oh shit, dude, we've got to put some women on this list or we are going to get raked over the coals on the Internet." Right? How did you not foresee this backlash?
posted by Rock Steady at 7:13 AM on November 15, 2013 [5 favorites]

*shrugs*

Men belong in the kitchen.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:17 AM on November 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

As a former Time Person of the Year, I've long questioned Time's editorial decisions.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:25 AM on November 15, 2013 [31 favorites]

"It's all men because men still take care of themselves. The women really need someone — if not men, themselves actually — to sort of take care of each other."

What

Here's the full quote:

But it's very strange, the network of women, as Anita herself has been saying for so many years now, isn't as strong as the network of men. And when you look at this chart it's very clear. It's all men because men still take care of themselves. The women really need someone — if not men, themselves actually — to sort of take care of each other. The thing about the women I named, they are all spectacularly good chefs. But they also had to force their way to where they are now, they are almost their own creations. It's unfortunate, the women who are there are very good, but very few of them actually benefitted from the boys club, as you can see from the chart.

posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:26 AM on November 15, 2013 [3 favorites]

Wow, those answers from Howard Chua-Eoan are horrifyingly clueless:

We went with the chefs with the most name recognition and the hot restaurants at the moment. I think there were various other factors as well. But there was no attempt to exclude women, we just went with the basic realities of what was going on and who was being talked about.

"I think there were various other factors as well"? And I love how "the basic realities of what was going on and who was being talked about" completely begs the question of systematic sexism in the process of deciding who gets talked about. Way to go, Howard, you've demonstrated your critics' point beautifully.
posted by mediareport at 7:26 AM on November 15, 2013 [4 favorites]

That any editor in 2013 would say out loud that raising questions about the lack of representation of women in coverage amounts to calls for "filling a quota" is stunning.

It's not about "filling a quota," Howard. It's about an editor having the brains to realize that when presented with an all-male list like this, there's a good chance that the "boys club" ethos has had a hand in the press coverage up to that point, too. Jumping jehosaphat, this is sexism 101 territory. Astonishing he could be so out of touch.
posted by mediareport at 7:31 AM on November 15, 2013 [7 favorites]

The female chef is a relatively recent phenomenon, except for Alice who has been around for a long time.

My late Aunt Perl as a young woman was catering parties for people like King Gilette. In the late 20's, early 30's - during the Depression, she had regular work. You don't get to do that if you're a hack chef of any gender.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:32 AM on November 15, 2013 [3 favorites]

So, this article is about the Gods of Food and its mostly about celebrity chefs in restaurants that the vast majority of humans never eat at or could really afford?

Celebrity chefs don't have much to do with the way 99% of humans on the globe deal with food. Double stupid.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:33 AM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

some folks had the temerity to point out that this culinary Mount Olympus was basically a bunch of white dudes

The only instance of the word "white" in all of the linked articles is in the phrase "White House". One of the three dudes on the Time cover isn't white. Where are the folks with the temerity?
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 7:33 AM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

there's a good chance that the "boys club" ethos has had a hand in the press coverage up to that point, too

Yeah, I actually don't mind the quote about the network of women versus the network of men. I'm not in that industry, but I'm guessing there's something to what he's saying. It's just galling that he misses the point that that "boys' club" isn't something separate and apart from this article; by only reporting on the male chefs, he's part of the boys' club.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:35 AM on November 15, 2013 [7 favorites]

"As I mentioned, these women are wonderful, but they don't have that..." ... and he trails off. What could that missing something be I wonder..? This is the very definition of someone who doesn't realise how deeply sexist they are-- the women chefs just somehow seem less important and he can't put his finger on why. It's this sort of blindness that makes me a supporter of quotas, because otherwise I just don't see how to get around this attitude. You can't have blind auditions for everything in life.

>by only reporting on the male chefs, he's part of the boys' club.

Yeah exactly! It's completely bizarre for a journalist of all people to claim to have nothing at all to do with what's seen as important.
posted by Erasmouse at 7:39 AM on November 15, 2013 [12 favorites]

That last Eater link by Paula Forbes, How Does Food Media Solve Its Gender Bias Problem?, is great, thoughtfully exploring the issues and providing tons of great links, like this one from Amanda Cohen's blog, where she continues to suggest that sexism in press coverage from places like Time mag is a key underlying problem.
posted by mediareport at 7:42 AM on November 15, 2013

Just because he's an asshole doesn't mean his end conclusion is wrong.

What American woman chef are you going to put on that list. Alice Waters is really about it, and she's influenced an entire generation of chefs, but she's on the downside of her career.

Probably Ruth Rogers and (were she not dead) Rose Gray should be on the list from the UK.

I don't know enough about Anne-Sophie Pic to know if she has a tree - but she probably does.

Now having a discussion of why this is the case, or why there aren't more Hispanic up and coming fine dining chefs as well given they form the back bone of most kitchens - that's well worth while. If Time knew that was the list they were publishing getting out in front of a discussion of racism and sexism in kitchens and in the food media would have been worthwhile.

And I like Annisa a lot for what it is - but Anita Lo just isn't very influential.
posted by JPD at 7:45 AM on November 15, 2013

Maybe the premise of the article is itself inherently flawed, JPD? "This boys' club that works via boys' clubbiness - let's find out who the boys are at the top! What? There are no women on the chart of influence in this boys' club? How dare you suggest we use quotas!"

Maybe there's something there that's just a little bit off. Like, the reporters and editors should have immediately seen a problem worth solving.
posted by mediareport at 7:49 AM on November 15, 2013 [3 favorites]

Sure, but Alice Waters was one of the big drivers of the local and sustainable food movement, which is one of the biggest trends in food today. Without Alice Waters, you don't have Michael Pollan and a bunch of these other guys on the list.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 7:50 AM on November 15, 2013 [4 favorites]

"It's all men because men still take care of themselves. The women really need someone — if not men, themselves actually — to sort of take care of each other."

What

In the context of the full quote, I don't believe his point was "Women need to shave their legs & etc". I think he was saying the network of male chefs generally give a boost to other male chefs, but is not as forgiving to female chefs. And the network of female chefs does not show similar favoritism towards other female chefs. I think this is an incredible simplification of the issue, but it would be hard to deny that kind of "boys helping boys" mentality--whether conscious or not--is prevalent in many professions.
posted by Anonymous at 7:50 AM on November 15, 2013

Welp. Last nail in the coffin of Time's relevance for this humble reader. Guess I'll start turning to Elle for my occasional waiting-room dose of casual sexism.
posted by Mooseli at 7:53 AM on November 15, 2013

I'm not defending his response, I'm saying its a sad fact that men vastly outnumber woman in any list of influential chefs.

Alice Waters was massively unbelievably influential. But she stopped innovating 30 years ago. Does that disqualify her from the list? No - but leaving her off it isn't inexcusable.
posted by JPD at 7:54 AM on November 15, 2013

The big story here isn't the gender break down (60 to zip! Scoreboard dudes!) but why it's like that. If you were to make a list of the sixty biggest names in cardiac surgery, or writing, or politics, or almost anything else you'd find a far greater sexual diversity. The interesting question isn't why are women underrepresented, it's why are women completely shut out? It would seem to be almost statistically impossible to create this list without having a woman on it.
posted by Keith Talent at 8:03 AM on November 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

20% of head chefs are women.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:06 AM on November 15, 2013

Nicole Kasinski.
Melissa Perello.
Traci Des Jardins.

And that's just a little thinking, and just the Bay Area.
posted by feckless at 8:06 AM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm not defending his response, I'm saying its a sad fact that men vastly outnumber woman in any list of influential chefs.

Weird to read this comment on the heels of reading this.

It's not as if the definition of what we consider "influential" isn't impacted by gender biases. Men are more likely to be celebrated as creatives of influence. Once, the word we would have used would have been "seminal."
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:07 AM on November 15, 2013 [10 favorites]

My comment is the first comment on the Eater interview with editor Howard Chua-Eoan

"But it's very strange, the network of women, as Anita herself has been saying for so many years now, isn't as strong as the network of men."

No, it's not strange. Many talented women just aren't invited to the big networking events. Read the interview between Daniel Patterson (Coi) and Gabrielle Hamilton (Prune) in the New Yorker. “I so want to get an invite!” Hamilton said about Cook It Raw, which is probably the most influential of these networking events lately. And then with media attitudes like this, the whole thing seems self-reinforcing.

It's the same phenomenon I'm so familiar with as a woman in tech. People make no effort whatsoever to include women and then say "well, women just aren't interested in tech as much as men."

I think tech has gotten better at this in the past few years as there have been efforts to include talented women, not with "quotas" but by reducing barriers that would prevent them from attending important events by providing scholarships or just reaching out to invite them in the first place. Saying "Hey this is a great event, I know you are going to have to take time off from your busy life and job, but you'll enjoy this, benefit from it, and we'd love to have you" often makes the difference between women (or other underrepresented groups) attending or not attending.
posted by melissam at 8:09 AM on November 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

If you look at the world and you go to compile like this and you can't come up with a single woman to be on a list of 60--and I really question how Alice Waters, even on the downswing, does not outrank any one of those 60 in influence, it's not like she should have to be #1 to be included--then you know what you do if you are a major national magazine? You draw attention to this fact and you accompany the list with, I don't know, 20 up-and-coming women who totally deserve more attention. Or 30. Or 60. You do not just quietly publish the list and hope that nobody notices.
posted by Sequence at 8:11 AM on November 15, 2013 [15 favorites]

The nicest restaurant in my town has a she-chef as the owner.
posted by oceanjesse at 8:11 AM on November 15, 2013 [3 favorites]

...And Ashley Christensen is dominating the Raleigh restaurant biz.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:21 AM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Not to mention the two women behind Fiction Kitchen, a brilliant little vegetarian locavore spot that opened in Raleigh last year and has gotten rave reviews for its cuisine.
posted by mediareport at 8:28 AM on November 15, 2013 [3 favorites]

I wouldn't say Amanda Cohen's piece was all that scathing. Just kinda bitter and whiny. Would anyone really have expected Time magazine to do a serious and rigorous study, full of equality and recognition for all? These stupid puff pieces have been around forever. Sure it's amusing when an article so brazenly sexist comes out but I don't find it particularly surprising. It's as if people think we've actually made progress! Ha.
posted by ReeMonster at 8:31 AM on November 15, 2013

But they also had to force their way to where they are now, they are almost their own creations. It's unfortunate, the women who are there are very good, but very few of them actually benefitted from the boys club, as you can see from the chart.

Okay, so now that I've had a little more time for the caffeine to kick in and such, I'm still ... what. His point is true, and at the same time he's unable to recognize that he's perpetuating that no-help-for-girls boys' club.

In a different life, I helped co-organize a large and fairly prestigious lgb(not so much on the t at the time) literary conference. A big but not insurmountable challenge was making sure we didn't just invite people we knew to be on panels and give keynotes. That's an easy way out - you ask people you know, or your ask people you know to recommend people they know, and VOILA, you've got a list that looks - amazing! - a whole lot like the organizers/in-group.

He can't even see that he can't think outside the box, and that's terrible.
posted by rtha at 8:33 AM on November 15, 2013 [6 favorites]

One of the lovely things about visiting Lyon was learning about Les Mères Lyonnaises. Modern high French cooking is largely a man's business, almost all the head chefs at top restaurants are men, and it's hard for women to be treated seriously. (The exception everyone mentions is Anne-Sophie Pic).

Lyon is the famous epicenter of modern French cuisine. More than Paris, Lyon is the restaurant city, or rather was in the 60s-80s when fine French cuisine was making its invention. And where does the Lyon cooking tradition come from? From "the mothers", a group of women in the 19th century who made a living cooking meals for silk workers in Lyon. Those restaurants evolved into quality cooking, fine dining. Over the years this group of women built up the foundation of high cuisine in Lyon.

la Mère Brazier is the most well known of this group now, because she came later and won six Michelin stars and there are awesome photos of her. Even the pater familias of fine French dining, Paul Bocuse, apprenticed in her restaurant. But she's only one of a grand tradition of top quality cooking by French women, one somewhat sadly forgotten.

There's a lovely word in French for strong women who hold their own: formidable.
posted by Nelson at 9:01 AM on November 15, 2013 [5 favorites]

As someone who is very passionate about food, I do find it troubling that the world of professional chefdom is chiefly that of the braggadocio male.

The impression I get from chefs I've met is that restaurant kitchens might as well be oil rigs or army barracks- environments where injuries are points of pride ("I cut my finger to the bone, dressed it myself, and finished out my shift!"), where the long and atypical hours lead to a serious in-group mentality (who else will go drinking with you at 5am?), where smoking, drinking and drug use are de rigueur, and where any complaints about the working conditions or low pay are seen as weak and cowardly. No wonder the types of people who wind up succeeding and thriving in that kind of environment are 'braggadocio males'.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:25 AM on November 15, 2013

Men belong in the kitchen.

Women also belong in the kitchen. Everyone belongs in the kitchen. It's where the food is.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:12 AM on November 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

It must be time for a Raleigh/Durham food meetup. I came to mention Lantern (Andrea Reusing), Ashley Christensen (four places in Raleigh, almost a mini-empire), and Fiction Kitchen which my wife keeps talking about. But you guys beat me to all three!
posted by freecellwizard at 10:15 AM on November 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

Also, showbiz_liz, I think that there are plenty of women who'd be able to thrive just fine with the machismo no matter what gender stereotypes are, but it draws heavily from an economic class where a man going off to work six nights a week and barely seeing his family would not draw much censure and his wife/girlfriend would be strongly expected to just grin and bear it, but a woman would have almost no social support for doing the same.

Honestly, working class women are not generally fragile little flowers, but like most people they do usually want to have a partner and kids at some point, and the lifestyle is very hostile to that. Waiting tables is much more likely at the lower levels to earn you enough money without having to work every single night, so you try hard at that stage to get a job out front with tips.
posted by Sequence at 10:27 AM on November 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

Alice Waters is really about it, and she's influenced an entire generation of chefs, but she's on the downside of her career. [ ... ] And I like Annisa a lot for what it is - but Anita Lo just isn't very influential.

And had Anita Lo and Alice Waters been included, people could easily be discussing whether they belonged on the list, just as I'm sure that elsewhere people are discussing the relative merits of those that were included. I don't think there's an expectation is that this is otherwise a list everyone would agree on.
posted by Room 641-A at 11:24 AM on November 15, 2013

most male chefs will tell interviewers or their ghost writers that it was always women in their family who taught them how to cook

It all comes back to the idea that "women are cooks, men are chefs," or that work done in the home is obligatory and expected, while work done outside the home is a laudatory career. Even with the example of "the mothers" of Lyon, who were making a living off their cuisine, someone (let's say Strawman Chua-Eoan) might argue that what they did doesn't actually rise to the level of professionalism, artistry, entreprenuership, or whatever vague criteria are used to perpetuate the idea that women's culinary work is an extension of the womanly duties while men's work in the field is necessarily more professional.

Or as a guest post on the Feminist Kitchen, A Sociological Study of Why So Few Women Chefs in Restaurant Kitchens, put it:

Positive media attention can help make or break a chef’s career, and we wondered if how chefs were evaluated had to do with gender. To do this, we compared hundreds of high-end restaurant reviews and chef profiles in magazines (e.g. Food & Wine) and newspapers (e.g. The New York Times). There were some pretty stark differences in how men and women chefs were discussed.

Men were given credit for the intellectual and technical work involved in producing a dish. They are masters who dominate the food they produce. Critics rarely mentioned technical skills of women—they are more likely to be praised for being “hard workers.” Successful men are described as iconoclastic rule breakers (especially men working in technically advanced food styles like molecular gastronomy). Women, on the other hand, were praised for following food traditions. When men chefs achieve status, the natural next step was to start a culinary empire of multiple restaurants, cookbooks and media exposure. Yet, women are described as shying away from this type of success — they cook from the heart and are motivated by the caring act of feeding people, not personal ego or financial success.

posted by Panjandrum at 11:33 AM on November 15, 2013 [11 favorites]

Gonna enjoy reading about how this shitbag lost his position at Time in a few days/weeks. Quitting to "pursue other opportunities." Right after the non-apology apology from Time.
posted by IAmBroom at 1:01 PM on November 15, 2013

I'm a chef. I'm also a man.
This list is infuriating.
Not including chefs like Elena Arzak or Christina Tosi is just wilfully ignorant of Chua-Eoan.

I'll say it: not including any women chefs on this list makes it a joke. Gabrielle Hamilton's response (linked to in a comment above) is pretty much all I would want to say on this subject. As usual, Ms. Hamilton has gotten to the heart of the matter: in an industry that is at the forefront of media attention right now, with very cutting edge happenings in it, why are some chefs and journalists trying to pull the same old shit?

On women professional cooks in general:
Of all the kitchens I have cooked in professionally, the ones that employed women were by far the most enjoyable. It brings the testosterone down to an acceptable level for me. I get so, so, so tired of naked aggression, sports and military analogies and general "bro-iness" in a kitchen.

My wife is a chef and the level of sexism she has to deal with on a daily basis is astounding. We do live in an area that is kind of known for the macho maleness of the population, so it's not too surprising but even when we've been in other areas (Portland, France, etc.) it's still prevalent. I always have thought that it's a fucking shame my wife has to work twice as hard as I do to get respect. She puts up with it because she's doing what she loves, but seeing her come home some times after dealing with angry, yelling dudes who just plain don't want to do what a woman tells them is shitty.

Maybe more later when I calm down.
posted by kaiseki at 2:12 PM on November 15, 2013 [6 favorites]

The idea that chefs of any gender are authorities on food is pathetic and stupid.
posted by jamjam at 2:16 PM on November 15, 2013

By the Numbers: Women and the Food Events Circuit

posted by melissam at 4:12 PM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

The idea that chefs of any gender are authorities on food is pathetic and stupid.

what
posted by feckless at 4:32 PM on November 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

Andrea Reusing and other highly celebrated women chefs from the NC Triangle area respond to this, in an article in Chapel Hill Magazine.
posted by statolith at 6:50 PM on November 15, 2013 [3 favorites]

My mother, who is almost 70, has been a professional chef for most of her life. She trained at the Cordon Bleu in Paris in the 70s, trained, and even guest lectured at the CIA in NY and CA, and was the master chef for a large property which served hundreds of plates a day. Just saying; female professional chefs have been around a while.

I love cooking. I do. But I saw commercial kitchens, and how women were treated. There is nothing I wanted less than to be in the line. I knew that I would be way too damn close to cleavers and morons simultaneously.

JPD: "Just because he's an asshole doesn't mean his end conclusion is wrong. What American woman chef are you going to put on that list. "

Off the top of my head:

Traci Des Jardins
Ina Gartner
Cat Cora
Elizabeth Falkner
Susan Spicer
Nigella Lawson

And this isn't my industry. Someone who actually works a line, and stays up with food trends could probably dump a dozen names.

Russ Parsons over at the LA Times has a list that is influential female chefs, and his list is only from California.

Imagine how big the list would be if included places like Chicago, and Dallas and every other place in between the coasts.
posted by dejah420 at 10:01 PM on November 15, 2013

"As I mentioned, these women are wonderful, but they don't have that..." ... and he trails off. What could that missing something be I wonder..?"

Could it be...A PENIS? A flat chest? An extra foot in height? The braggadocio?

The impression I have here is that this fellow just wanted to chart out the patterns of bros helping bros. Since bros won't help women and there's no women high up enough to help women, women are just fucked, man.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:46 PM on November 15, 2013 [5 favorites]

Having grown up in the area in the 70s, I'd argue that without Nancy Silverton's La Brea Bakery and Mary Sue Milliken & Susan Feniger's City Cafe, the entire La Brea area of L.A. wouldn't be the upscale neighborhood it is today.

And speaking of Nancy Silverton, there's her whole partnership with Mario Batali, which includes Mozza and Eataly. Of course, Batali probably couldn't do it without his business partner, so I guess we can thank Lidia Bastianich for giving birth to her son, Joe.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:47 AM on November 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

Barbara Lynch at the MAD Symposium saying she wouldn't be there if (I'm not sure who she is referring to, either David Chang or Rene Redzepi?) one of the hosts hadn't sent her a three page invite.

My friend Iliana on getting her first Michelin star in the midst of the controversy:

I don't get too heated about that kind of stuff because it's just kind of the way it is and I don't like to perpetuate the sexism. But it's just how this industry is, as a lot of industries are. But I think a lot of other people were more of the worriers about it than I was. But I thought that it was really nice, especially I think Michelin gave a comment to Bloomberg saying they really love to give stars to women chefs because they can be role models. But, yeah, I didn't focus too much on that. I thought it was silly and I thought that the editor's response just made it even sillier. (laughs) I thought it was nice timing, sure.

In the end I remember another female chef friend who told me she worried about getting funding for her projects because she is a woman. Media publicity is worth a lot to people like her, because it makes it easier to get funding. And lack of it can be a vicious cycle: women whose businesses are on less stable financial footing are less likely to be able to attend important networking events. I know female chefs who have turned down things like Top Chef because they couldn't risk it business-wise when they already live on the edge financially.
posted by melissam at 12:27 PM on November 18, 2013

jenfullmoon: ""As I mentioned, these women are wonderful, but they don't have that..." ... and he trails off. What could that missing something be I wonder..?"

Could it be...A PENIS? "

With God as my witness... if ANY of those chefs are using their penises to make the food, I'm going straight McDonalds4Life!
posted by IAmBroom at 1:26 PM on November 18, 2013