Turn up the Heat

places that served the best food. The macho quality of the initiation rites wasn’t surprising, since most professional chefs were men. There were exceptions: Julia Child, Jody Adams, and Lydia Shire came to mind, as did the female chefs featured on the Food Network. Even so, and in spite of the stereotype of home cooking as women’s work, the culinary world was dominated by men. Why? That’s exactly what I asked the table.
    “You’re right,” Digger agreed. “It’s dominated by men, and it probably comes from a couple things. The kitchen can have a pretty nasty caveman attitude. Culinary school is brutal, and I think a lot of women drop out of the profession then. Like, when I was there, I had this crazy old Swiss chef as one of my instructors. Real bastard, that guy. And one day I went to go change the oil in the Frialator. So the oil is kept in this big vat in a stainless steel cabinet right next to the Frialator. Well, someone had rigged it so that when I opened the door, the whole goddamn thing fell out and spilled dirty oil all over this twenty-by-ten area. Okay, obviously not my fault, but this Swiss chef made me clean the whole frickin’ thing up by myself. You can imagine how much fun that was.” Digger snorted at the memory. “Then he made me spend the next two days doing nothing but peeling vegetables. Not fair, right, since I didn’t monkey with the oil vat?”
    I nodded.
    Digger continued. “Now, how many women would put up with that?”
    “Most women probably have more common sense than to tolerate obnoxious, juvenile behavior,” I agreed.
    “I went to the CIA,” continued Digger, referring to the Culinary Institute of America, “and I’d say the ratio of men to women was four to one. By the second year, there were even fewer women. The kitchen is a vulgar, intense, foul-mouthed place to be. Guys are always grabbing each others’ asses, there’s tons of sexual jokes being told, and all that crap. And women don’t want to put up with it.”
    As I saw the problem, there was no need for women to learn to suck it up; on the contrary, that kind of bullshit shouldn’t be allowed in the first place. I hated to consider what my beloved Josh might be like. I knew, however, that Josh went out of his way to make his female employees comfortable—the few he had, that is.
    Josh jumped in. “The other reality is that the hours you have to work as a chef aren’t family friendly. Most women who want children don’t want to be gone from their kids twelve hours a day and really don’t want to work until past midnight. Right or wrong, men are more willing to do that. They’re more willing to put in the hours, claw their way to the top, and tough it out. But,” Josh continued, seeing my feminist side beginning to boil over, “let me say that I’ve worked with a couple excellent women chefs before, and I do wish there were more women in this field. But it’s a chauvinistic field. There’s no denying that.”
    “You’ve only worked with a couple of women chefs?”
    “Yeah,” Josh admitted. “But I’m not even thirty yet, so give me some time.” He smiled in the hope of lightening my declining mood.
    “How come Isabelle is the only female in your kitchen now?” I was irritated.
    “Because when I was hiring, I didn’t have any women come in to interview. I have no problem hiring women, but if they don’t apply, I can’t hire them.”
    “Okay, well, that’s not your fault, I guess,” I conceded. “Same here,” volunteered Digger. “I’ve worked for more than two women, but still only a few, and I’m well over thirty, and I’ve worked at a lot of places. Some of the women chefs have been crap, and a few have been great. Actually, one of my biggest influences was the first chef I worked for, who was a woman. She was the most awesome chef. She used great flavors. She went through hell with us and gave us just as much crap as we dished out. I think most women in the kitchen have this tendency to be real timid, you know? You gotta pay your dues and peel fifty pounds of potatoes when you start out, no matter who you are or who you know. Women take that to mean that they’re being ignored or treated unfairly. And in this profession, a woman has to stand out and grow some balls. You can’t hide out or be squeamish. When you get out of school, it’s easy to disappear into a hotel job and shape cantaloupes to make a pretty fruit plate. Women give up and don’t always want to