Jody Adams is a James Beard award winning chef and owner of Rialto restaurant in Cambridge. As a contestant on Top Chef Masters Season 2, she earned $17,500 for her charity of choice, Partners in Health. We were fortunate enough to snag an interview with this celebrated and inspirational chef and are excited to share a glimpse into her busy life.
Who or what inspired you to become a chef?
I come from a family of academics who spent a lot of time around the dining room table eating, talking and arguing. I always loved food and cooking, but it never occurred to me to think about it as a career. At Brown I studied anthropology. I have an uncle who’s an anthropologist and it seemed a good idea at the time.
But even while I was in school I was still cooking and traveling as much as I could. I spent time in domestic kitchens from Guatemala to Morocco, but I got most of my hands on training with an Italian cooking teacher. I guess my path was already set, I just couldn’t see it.
By the time I was 24 I was divorced, unhappy in my job and uncertain about my direction. After some soul searching I realized that I was happiest in a kitchen. So with lots of cooking hours logged, but no restaurant experience, I started knocking on doors. Fortunately, someone took a chance on me.
What do you enjoy outside of cooking?
Luxury for me is a morning on the couch reading a novel I just can’t put down. About once a month I tell my staff I have a morning meeting out of the office and sink into a book. But generally, sitting still for me isn’t easy so getting out on a bike, taking a long walk or exploring a city with friends and family is what I tend to do when I’m not working. And when I can, I travel. But honestly, taking the kitchen and table out of “what I do in my spare time” is next to impossible. We always end up there.
What is it like being a successful female chef in a predominantly male industry?
Mercifully, the days when a woman would be excluded from a kitchen because of her sex are mostly behind us. Even three decades ago my first restaurant job was in a kitchen under a female chef, Lydia Shire, one of the most successful chefs in Boston. My first big step up in the game was as sous-chef, for Gorden Hamersley, who had once been Lydia’s sous-chef. Kitchens are meritocracies; at the minimum, you have to be able to do the physical labor. To advance, you need more than that–you need drive, ambition, talent and a willingness to push yourself outside your comfort zone. I’m a hard worker and I knew if I could get in the door I’d have a shot. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve never been employed by some moron with dinosaur attitudes toward women. That said, I think the current media tends to spin culinary culture in a way that doesn’t serve women well. It has to do with the whole I’m-a-bad-boy-chef-cooking-with-lots-of-pork affect. The press loves it, it makes good t.v., male cooks know it, and the public eats it up. It’s an easy sell. Not many female chefs enjoy playing in that arena; most of the male chefs I know don’t either. Women are just as tough as men, we work just as hard, but what we’re about as cooks is often a little more complicated. That means writers have to dig a little deeper, and the story’s a harder sell. My hope is that the work I and other women chefs have done for the last 30 years is building a more diverse culinary culture.
What was it like being a contestant on Top Chef Masters? Would you do it again?
The most difficult component of Top Chef Masters was being kept in the dark. Without knowledge you can’t prepare–and that’s how Top Chef Masters likes it. The what, why, how and where of our challenges were always a mystery until the actual taping of the show itself. We learn about a challenge at the same time as the audience. Then it’s off to the races. I’ve equated it to running a marathon blindfolded and naked, with a camera tracking you all the time.
It was exciting to be in the kitchen with so many amazing chefs, and I loved the work of cooking itself–it was like being a kid pumped full of adrenaline and back in the trenches again. Although we were all competing, there was a feeling of camaraderie, with me and the other cooks, just trying to do a good job and hang on for dear life.
Although I found Top Chef Masters to be great fun and an exciting challenge, I’m not sure I would do it again. It was hard! But another kind of TV might attract me. When I teach I’m always asked for smart interesting cooking techniques, for healthy recipes that taste great. I think there’s still an audience out there for an informative cooking show that’s fun. I’d love to do a show like that.
Any advice for other aspiring female chefs?
Becoming a cook is not for the faint of heart or those afraid of competition, male or female. To stand out, it’s key to push yourself out of your comfort zone into new and unfamiliar territory, even when a new situation is uncomfortable or feels unfriendly. Moving from line cook to chef, from chef to chef/owner, competing on TCM–none of it has been easy for me, but I’ve found that at each stage I seem to grow new muscles and I end up feeling stronger for the experience. So my advice to the next generation of female chefs is to work for chefs that you and admire and will force you to grow, whether male or female. Look at their food, their style of mentoring and their place in the world. Always strive for excellence in your own work and never settle for a job that is too comfortable. Be your own best advocate, go after what you want, and remember, you don’t get what you don’t ask for. Cooking is always hard, mostly underpaid, and not at all glamorous, at least in the beginning. But it’s also profoundly satisfying to feed people. If you think it might be for you, dive in, but never forget it’s a business and at the end of the day, be sure you’re making money.
Big thank you to Chef Adams for taking time out of her busy schedule to do this interview with us. Also, thanks to Brita Rosenheim of YC Media for setting it up!
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If you can’t make it out to Rialto, check out one of her recipes here:
Bucatini and Lobster
Makes 4 main course servings
Kosher salt
4 1-pound lobsters
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped into ¼ inch dice
Freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 tablespoon minced ginger
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1 pinch saffron
2 pounds green unripe tomatoes cut in half and charred under the broiler. Skin removed and meat chopped into ½ inch dice.
1 cup canned tomatoes, strained
2 pounds ripe plum tomatoes cut in half and charred under the broiler. Skin removed and meat chopped into ½ inch dice.
16 ounces imported bucatini
4 tablespoons freshly chopped basil
1. Fill a large pot with 1 inch of salted water. Invert a colander in the pot. Bring the water to a boil. Put the lobsters in the pot and cover tightly. Steam for 5 minutes, then open the pot carefully (steam is hot) and using a pair of tongs change the lobsters’ position. Quickly replace the lid and steam for 5 more minutes. Remove the cooked lobsters from the pot and allow to cool.
2. Separate the tails, claws and arms from the body of each lobster. Chop the bodies into 4 pieces. Remove the lobster meat from the shells and discard. Cut the shelled tails in half lengthwise and remove the digestive tract, the dark vein-like structure. Cut the tail into 1 ½ inch chunks. Cover and refrigerate the meat.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add onion and lobster body pieces, season with salt and pepper and cook 6 minutes, or until the onions are tender. Reduce the heat to low, add the garlic, ginger, fennel seeds, hot pepper flakes, saffron, and cook until aromatic, about 1 minute. Add the green tomatoes, strained tomatoes, and 1 cup water, and cook 15 minutes. Add the charred red tomatoes and cook 10 minutes more. Remove from the heat. The sauce should be fairly thick. Remove and discard the lobster body pieces.
4. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir occasionally until the water comes back to a boil, and cook 7-10 minutes, or until al dente.
5. While the pasta is cooking, heat the remaining oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the lobster meat and cook 1 minute. Add the tomato sauce to the lobster pan and keep warm.
6. Scoop the cooked pasta out of the boiling water and transfer the pasta to the pan with the sauce, add the basil and toss well. Serve immediately.
Enjoy! Please post comments on the dish if you make it.
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