![\"Aub01\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Aub01.jpg\")
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Photo by Asia Morris.<\/em><\/p>\n To say that the women of Long Beach\u2019s culinary world are inspiring is an absolute understatement. To say that they\u2019re outstanding reminds me of how limiting this language is, of how I wish I could crumple up this online document and toss it backward into the trash bin. Where is the word for the woman who not only runs the back of the house, but also takes care of the business side of keeping her restaurant afloat?<\/p>\n What about the woman, far away from home, who misses her family, yet night after night brings to the table the comfort food she knows will make her guests smile? And what about the woman who has only lived in Long Beach for mere months, tasked with starting completely from scratch, tasked with starting a new life in a new city and creating a brand new menu for the city\u2019s residents? Who are these women and why are they important?<\/p>\n Katherine Humphus<\/strong> of Bo-beau Kitchen + Roof Tap, Janine Falvo<\/strong> of the SIP Lounge at The Renaissance Hotel, Rachael Beeman<\/strong> of The Pike Bar & Grill, Aubrey Neuman<\/strong> of The Social List and Natalie Gutenkauf<\/strong> of The Factory Gastrobar are five women who are making their names known in the Long Beach culinary scene and beyond. I was given the chance to interview the five of them, to find out why they cook, how they run a kitchen, how they stay sane and to find out what it\u2019s like to be a hard working woman in an industry that used to heavily favor men (and more often than not, still does).<\/p>\n Because employees, restaurants and organizations are working hard to make back-of-the-house positions more suitable for females and minorities<\/a>, I wanted to highlight the fact that Long Beach has a good thing going for its restaurant industry, and that\u2019s the women that run the show at several of the city\u2019s most popular eateries.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Katherine Humphus \u00a0| \u00a0Bo-beau Kitchen + Roof Tap<\/strong><\/p>\n Katherine Humphus, Executive Chef at Bo-beau on Pine Ave., while eating out, will never send a dish back, and while off the clock, likes to go skydiving. A woman with a light heart and a down-to-earth attitude, she has opened three restaurants in the past three years, and moved to Long Beach when the Cohn Restaurant Group asked her to open up Bo-beau on Pine. A rock star of the food industry, Katherine is easy to talk to and provided plenty of insight into what it means to work hard and run a kitchen.<\/p>\n Chef\u00a0Katherine Humphus. Photos by Brian Addison.<\/em><\/p>\n When asked how she feels when she\u2019s cooking and what inspires her to cook, Katherine leaned back in her desk chair and thought about her answer, comfortably, in a manner akin to a thinker, like a woman who had maybe thought about such questions but had yet to voice her opinion.<\/p>\n “That\u2019s like the hardest question to answer, everyone always asks me that, ‘Oh Katherine what inspired this dish?’ I don\u2019t know-w-w,” she drawls with a smile and an eye-roll, “but how do I feel? When I’m doing all this stuff and I’m trying to organize my day or my life, even when I’m at yoga I’m always like okay, you need to do this, you need to do that, my mind is always trying to compartmentalize everything. I have lists everywhere… and then when I cook it’s very free for me. When I’m cooking it\u2019s hard for me to get stressed out.”<\/p>\n “Actually, John,” Katherine nodded to one of her media professionals, typing away at a desk to her left, “made a comment to me the other day and people actually say this to me a lot: ‘I love when you\u2019re in your element’ and I had a former boss that used to say ‘I love watching you cook’ and I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ and she was like ‘Oh, you kind of turn into a different person.’ John was actually referring to me freaking out on someone but I don\u2019t know I guess it\u2019s sort of like I’m on autopilot when I cook.”<\/p>\n Katherine revisited the timeless, yet always slightly annoying inspiration question, my cliche inquiry on behalf of the curious and less culinary-inclined public, who tend to wonder how art is made. She immediately honed in on the details, knowing full-well that speaking from experience can sometimes generate universal applicability. She talked about one of Bo Beau’s Roof-tap menu items, the Shredded Beet Patty Melt, which is basically, according to her, “just a veggie burger made out of beets.”<\/p>\n “How it came about is I was visiting one of the other restaurants in the Cohn group and the owner’s son walked by me and was like, ‘Hey, Katherine check out this cookbook I got, it\u2019s this Persian cookbook,’ and he opened it up and there was this beet patty and I was like ‘Oooh’ and then the next day I was like ‘We\u2019re putting a beet patty on the menu.’ I didn\u2019t even get to see the recipe I was just like, ‘Okay yea, I like that idea, let’s do it.'”<\/p>\n When asked what version of herself she has to be to run a kitchen, Katherine said, \u201cWell I try to stay pretty consistent but there is a certain side of me that comes out, it\u2019s been coming out a lot this week [she laughs] but people don\u2019t expect it and so it almost holds more weight because I am like really laid back, I\u2019m very understanding, I don\u2019t get upset very often. You know like if someone screws up i\u2019m like, \u2018Try harder next time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Katherine leads by example and in a way that she would want to be lead. She tries to be the type of executive chef that she would want to work for. \u201cIt\u2019s funny because you just have to step up and be such a leader, I have to always remind myself to lead by example, so whether i\u2019m asking someone, like if you see a piece of trash on the ground pick it up\u2014like okay that means if I see a piece of trash on the ground I have to pick it up. And that\u2019s the biggest thing, whether I\u2019m setting an example for my sous chef or the dishwashers or for the line cooks, whatever it is I just have to always know that someone is watching me and if I want them to do things a certain way then i have to do it that same way,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n On what she expects from a restaurant when she eats out, Katherine\u2019s only pet peeve is bad service. \u201cGood service, good food and that\u2019s pretty much it. I have this thing where I will not send food back to the kitchen unless it\u2019s completely the wrong order, but steak overdone, I\u2019ll eat it, lobster underdone, I\u2019ll eat it. I had like 2 \u00bd lbs of lobster the other day that was almost raw and I just can\u2019t send it back I just don\u2019t do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Katherine has this admirable knack for putting herself in the other person’s shoes. I asked why she can’t send the lobster back\u2014was it out of respect for the chef, or something else? \u201cYea, I mean I get it, obviously the lobster I received was virtually raw, obviously the chef didn\u2019t know that it went out like that, I just can\u2019t do it, there\u2019s like something inside of me that\u2019s just like, no. Even if I order a really nice steak and it\u2019s totally well done I\u2019m like ehhh… but service really annoys me. I\u2019m never like a complainer but that\u2019s the only thing at a restaurant that upsets me, just blatantly terrible service. Like, why are you on your phone over there? ‘Hello, I\u2019m ready to order.’\u201d<\/p>\n Wisps of wavy brown hair stuck out from Katherine’s haphazardly-made bun, the hairstyle of a woman too busy working to care very much about appearances. I thought about my own work, of the days where there is nothing left to pull from the pool of creativity or I’ve received an especially harsh critique from a reader and had to ask for my own selfish reasons, how on earth does she keep the burner lit. How do you, Katherine Humphus, find the motivation to keep going, especially at the end of an especially harsh week?<\/p>\n “This is something that I\u2019ve been asking myself a lot lately. It\u2019s hard when you open a restaurant. This is my third restaurant opening in three years, I\u2019ve done one a year and this one (Bo-Beau) was actually the easiest for me because I think I\u2019ve done so many so recently that I had a lot of the systems in place for myself, but it\u2019s so funny because you actually start getting used to working so much that you feel guilty taking a day off,” she said.<\/p>\n Katherine’s activities outside the kitchen are just as intense as inside, although, after every restaurant opening she’s had to remind herself what she likes to do for fun. “I did take the 4th of July off,” she said, referring to a day that was, at first, hard to remember amongst weeks of nonstop work. “I went to yoga on the bluff, went surfing, went skydiving, went kayaking in the ocean. I was like, ‘Oh yea, this is what I do for fun,’ and I remembered and I felt totally recharged. Friends that make me laugh, nothing crazy other than maybe skydiving…really any activity that doesn’t make me think about the restaurant helps me stay motivated. Like when I’m surfing I have to think about surfing or I’m going to die.”<\/p>\n On what advice she would give someone just starting out, Katherine said, \u201cIt just takes perseverance, you just have to get through it and however you can get through it, just keep going. I learned a lot and came out way stronger and way harder because of a tough experience I had in New York at wd~50. I would cry every day, like, every single day I\u2019d go into the locker room and cry my eyes out and call my mom and be like \u2018I wanna leave\u2019 and she\u2019d be like, \u2018You can\u2019t leave just keep going.\u2019 You have to have thick skin and you have to be confident in your skills. Even if you\u2019re doubting yourself you have to pretend like you\u2019re really confident, like you have to fake it \u2018till you make it and you have to really ask for what you want. Things won\u2019t just fall into your lap, every opportunity that I\u2019ve been given, specifically with this company, I\u2019ve been with them for a very long time, is because I\u2019ve been so annoying and so demanding and so \u2018just give me the chance and I\u2019ll show you that I can do it.\u2019 Lucky for me they have given me a lot of chances and they keep giving me more because I have been successful and have shown them okay I can do it, I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n BO-beau kitchen + roof tap<\/a> is located at\u00a0144 Pine Ave.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Janine Falvo \u00a0| \u00a0SIP Lounge at The Renaissance Hotel<\/strong><\/p>\n Janine Falvo is a woman of curt language, a fitting facet for a character who has time and time again proven how capable, creative and matter-of-fact she can be, whether she\u2019s running the kitchen at The Renaissance Hotel in downtown Long Beach or avoiding the played-up\u2014yet still\u00a0distracting\u2014television drama encompassing her stint on the 9th season of Bravo\u2019s Top Chef. Janine, like Katherine, is fairly new to Long Beach and is helping the city lift its reputation for innovative gastronomy.<\/p>\n While the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Long Beach is an international establishment, its restaurant, The SIP Lounge, has quickly become a hub for both the city’s eclectic locals and the hotel’s traveling guests, an always-unpredictable cocktail of beach dwellers and beach tourists. Janine\u2019s ocean-to-fork policy mimics\u2014and of course, revamps and extends\u2014former Executive Chef Michael Poompan\u2019s farm-to-table endeavors.<\/p>\n Janine cooks because her mother used to make a huge Christmas Eve dinner and it was the day after one especially inspiring holiday meal that she decided she really wanted to go to culinary school. \u201cI wanted to when I was in college but my parents were like, ‘No-o-o, you\u2019ll have to work holidays and blah blah blah.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018It doesn\u2019t matter,\u2019 and yea, it was right after Christmas and I went into school in April of that year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n As far as the physical act of cooking is concerned, Janine says\u00a0it\u2019s her zen. Lately, for her, cooking has been \u201ckind of a more peaceful thing than anything. It\u2019s been a lot of research and development and planning. I\u2019m at this point in my career that when I am cooking it\u2019s just as much, it\u2019s like the happiest I am all day for those few hours.\u201d Whether she\u2019s turning an artichoke or making something as simple as pasta, she says an armistice occurs between the mind, body and soul.<\/p>\n Asking the next question seemed like a long-shot and I wasn’t sure Janine would want to dredge up the past, but she did, and I’m certain her wise words can inspire anyone trying to make it in a difficult industry. As a well-established chef, I asked, do you ever have to deal with gaining respect in the kitchen?<\/p>\n “Not anymore,” Janine said.\u00a0“I put it in my head pretty early on that I would outlast anybody or outwork anybody in the kitchen. When I was at Disney I was a line cook and I worked the hardest station. I made sure I worked saute… and it was a finesse station and I got beat up, every single night, but I took it every night, I pushed myself.”<\/p>\n When I asked if being a woman made it more difficult to outlast the so-called \u201cboys club\u201d of the food industry, a hopefully soon-to-be outdated term used to describe the lack of women working in top culinary positions, Janine defined the situation as having everything to do with work ethic and very little to do with gender.<\/p>\n “I still push myself but I think you get respect by\u2014it\u2019s not just being a woman, I think it’s being a worker and being knowledgeable and knowing what you\u2019re doing. You know when you see people come in and they\u2019re enjoying what you do and other people that you work with, they see that and you\u2019re teaching them new things. I think there\u2019s a respect level there. So don\u2019t just focus on how you can get respect, just work with the intent that you have respect,”\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n In order to run the kitchen at The Renaissance, Janine\u2019s ability to meld with the personalities of each of her staff members is as much a tactic as a testament to her good character.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kitchen\u2019s a place where there are so many different types of people,” she explained. “I could be working next to a kid that\u2019s trying to go to school to be something completely different, but from the time he was 15 or she was 15, worked in a kitchen, and now they\u2019re in college and just doin\u2019 this now, and I could be next to somebody that hasn\u2019t been in this country for very long, I could be working next to somebody that was in prison a year ago… to say that I\u2019m not part of one of those freaks of the industry, like I have to be a little bit of all those people to understand them, to get everything I need out of each one of them and to have a cohesive team. So you know, I have to be a motivator, I have to be somewhat organized, I have to be creative, I have to have endurance. All of those versions of myself come out every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n But what keeps a her going at the end of a really crappy day? Her answer was simple. “Good beer. A lot of caffeine, um, I have a close circle of friends across the country that I could pick up and text at any point and just pick up a conversation. That keeps me sane. I have a motorcycle, so I might go for a ride. I mean, being honest a good beer, a bottle of wine, Fernet. Yea.”<\/p>\n On how to survive and succeed, Janine advises those new to the industry to \u201chave thick skin, be tough, and don\u2019t ever, ever cry.”<\/p>\n “Don\u2019t sleep around with every single person in the kitchen,” she continued, “because it does get out, not that I know this from experience, but\u201d\u2014she laughed and brought herself back to the point\u2014\u201cyou have to be tough, you have to be resilient, you have to be one of the guys, you can\u2019t lose it an any point because eyes are on you no matter what, male or female. Eyes are on you and you can\u2019t be the weak link.\u201d<\/p>\n SIP Lounge at The Renaissance Hotel<\/a> is located at\u00a0111 E. Ocean Blvd.<\/em><\/p>\n Rachael Beeman \u00a0| \u00a0The Pike Bar & Grill<\/strong><\/p>\n When I called The Pike Bar & Grill to see if Rachael Beeman would sit down for an interview, Chris Reece answered the phone and told me to call their Los Alamitos location. So I sent my phone signal across the orange curtain and was met with a tone of complete surprise.<\/p>\n \u201cHi Rachael, this is Asia from the Long Beach Post<\/em> and I\u2019m writing an article on influential female chefs in Long Beach, I was wondering if you\u2019d be willing to talk a little bit about your role at The Pike,\u201d I said somewhat mechanically, unsure as to how she\u2019d respond.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you serious?!\u201d Rachael exclaimed, \u201cWow…that is really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n Her baffled excitement, I would later learn, is one of the reasons Rachael is so great. She doesn\u2019t hold much in, she doesn\u2019t care much for composure and she is certainly at least half the reason The Pike Bar & Grill is such a raucous good time and one of Long Beach\u2019s long-time favorite places for eating, drinking, good music and getting crazy.<\/p>\n Rachael hails from the tiny city of Monessen, PA, having moved to Long Beach in 2009 to try and make a relationship more feasible.<\/p>\n In Monessen, her cousin owned a pizza shop down the street from her house. Rachael would fold together pizza boxes and eventually started making the pizza when she was 14. Throughout high school and into her 20’s she held two to three jobs at a time, until at 25 years old she was offered a full-time job with benefits at the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. She didn\u2019t think that that was really “her thing,” though, so saying \u201cWhat the hell,\u201d she hopped on a plane to Long Beach with two suitcases, and the rest, as she says, is history. Delicious history.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first moved here I didn\u2019t make Baja tacos; I grew up making raviolis, meatballs and cabbage rolls, so like it was kinda weird to me. A taco to me is like Taco Bell. There\u2019s not too many Mexican restaurants on the East Coast and if you do have them they\u2019re like, you know, so-so,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Rachael started at The Pike as a bus girl who closed down the kitchen every Thursday night. She had recently been let go from a pizza shop in Long Beach for sticking up for herself against a rude customer. Her boyfriend, who already worked at The Pike, contacted Chris. \u201cSo Chris called me up,” she said, “he was like ‘be here Thursday at 10:00PM, you\u2019re closin\u2019 down the kitchen.’ I was just washin\u2019 dishes, and we got busy one night, I stepped and in and never moved. One of the cooks got really busy and I already knew how to do everything by then. I\u2019d been observing it and just like watching and I just jumped on and Chris was like \u2018Alright!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Rachael has been at The Pike for five years now, yet humbly avoids the title of executive or head chef. \u201cWe all kind of run the kitchen together, but I just – I\u2019m boisterous and I know how things are supposed to be and sometimes people get lazy and you know, I\u2019m a girl, I\u2019m bossy and I have to be like that because you know if I don\u2019t then I\u2019ll get walked all over and that\u2019s not about to happen, not where I\u2019m from.\u201d<\/p>\n Although humble, her confidence for her profession and work ethic shone through her attempt at not taking too much credit. Her words quickened as she said, \u201cEverybody\u2019s like \u2018she runs it,\u2019 but no, I\u2019ve done this for so long, like I\u2019ll work every part of this bar with no problem, it\u2019s just easy, I love it, it\u2019s what I love to do, you know what I mean? Like I always say I\u2019m going to have my own bar, I\u2019m going to have my own restaurant, and I\u2019m going to cook the food and I\u2019m going to serve your drink and serve you your food and then I\u2019m going to clean your shit up after your done. And that\u2019s exactly what I did and then the boss noticed that and everybody else started noticing that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Even taking a compliment is hard for Rachael, who knows that cooking a good meal is the bar minimum. \u201cWhen people tell me \u2018Aahh it\u2019s soo good,\u2019 I\u2019m like thanks, it\u2019s supposed to be good. I feel weird. I don\u2019t really know how to react sometimes,\u201d she said with a smirk.<\/p>\n Rachael is expressive, to say the least, and I couldn\u2019t help but laugh with her when she brought up how foreign the concept of a seafood-inspired menu was to her five years ago. When I asked how she creates, she sort of shrugged and made it simple. \u201cI just stick to what I know. I know stuffed peppers, I know cabbage rolls, I know comfort food. We like meat and potatoes where I\u2019m from, this fish shit that I\u2019m dealin\u2019 with here, you know I\u2019m like \u2018WHAT?!\u2019 It\u2019s kinda weird for me, you know what I mean? I read a lot of cooking magazines, sometimes I\u2019m like ‘Ah, I could make that better,’ or I\u2019ll eat something somewhere and I\u2019ll be like ‘Ah, I can make that better,’ and that\u2019s what I do and it works. I\u2019m a pretty simple person, I didn\u2019t go to school for this, I didn’t go take any special classes, I just experience through life. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve done and it\u2019s worked,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On being the only female working in the The Pike kitchen, Rachael knows what works and what doesn\u2019t. \u201cThere\u2019s never been a girl in the kitchen, never, well there has been one, but that didn\u2019t work out. It\u2019s pretty tough to work with all men. It depends on the girl, not any female is going to be able to be back there, it\u2019s not so much because they\u2019re men, it\u2019s just because like women have somewhere in their head that men have all this control and it\u2019s not even like that,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n Rachael\u2019s eyes began to water as she continued. \u201cThese guys, they\u2019re like my brothers, they protect me, it\u2019s not like that here. There are a lot of important people here to me, I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like in other kitchens with guys, but here we\u2019re kinda family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her advice to others wanting to get into the industry is simple. \u201cAnybody can go to cooking school,” she said. “But if you learn all the little things that I\u2019ve learned throughout the years you\u2019re not going to learn that in cooking school. Stay true to yourself. That\u2019s all i do. I just stick to what I know. Just keep trying. It just makes you better at what you\u2019re trying to get good at. Don\u2019t let anybody walk on ya.\u201d<\/p>\n The Pike Bar & Grill<\/a> is located at\u00a01836 E 4th St. in Long Beach, and\u00a011272 Los Alamitos Blvd. in Los Alamitos.<\/em><\/p>\n Aubrey Neuman \u00a0| \u00a0The Social List<\/strong><\/p>\n I can\u2019t help but mention Aubrey Neuman\u2019s age\u2014a failed attempt to avoid seeming ageist, but a necessary fact to show just how extraordinary a situation Aubrey has been tasked with, as the Executive Chef at The Social List, one of Retro Row\u2019s most recent additions. Aubrey Neuman is 23 years old, has six years of on-the-line culinary experience and is in charge of running the kitchen of one of Long Beach\u2019s most talked-about new restaurants today.<\/p>\n Chef\u00a0Aubrey Neuman. Photos by Asia Morris.<\/em><\/p>\n On the obstacles she encounters on a daily basis, Aubrey says she is at a point in her career where she has to prove herself to gain the respect of her peers. Of course, at first glance, she seems like an inexperienced young adult, one who you typically wouldn’t guess would be where she is today. But looks are clearly deceiving.<\/p>\n \u201cLots of the kitchen staff are people that I know through someone or have worked with before, where respect has already been built, a little bit,\u201d her voice raises an octave, \u201cbut I did hire a few people that had no idea who I was. One of my biggest obstacles was hiring, and shaking their hand, whoever I\u2019m interviewing, and them looking at me like, ‘who the hell is this young kid?’\u201d<\/p>\n So how do you gain respect from the people who are supposed to answer to you? Do certain methods work better than others? Aubrey barely had to think about the question and toward the end of her response, I could sense she felt she had already wasted enough time on the topic.<\/p>\n I was reminded of a classic coming-of-age story, where a sensitive young woman enters her industry of choice, gets pushed around mentally, cries, pities herself, then eventually learns she\u2019ll have to pick herself up by her own damn bootstraps if she\u2019s going to be worth something, if she\u2019s going to make her dreams come true. I\u2019m not sure Aubrey noticed, but I had a very Devil Wears Prada<\/em> moment of inspiration as I listened to her speak of her growth. It seems like to make it in this industry, one has to get knocked around a bit before they can really say, yes, I am here.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone is replaceable in this business, especially in the back of the house. I don\u2019t know what it is but in the past four or five years this big trend with cooking… everyone loves it, everyone is super into it, but not everyone knows what it entails, everyone thinks it\u2019s all fun and joy and food. It’s almost like bikram yoga, it\u2019s hot now, you know, but they don’t know that it entails long hours, extremely hot conditions, burns, cuts, lots of blood,”\u2014I assume we’re talking about cooking at this point, not yoga\u2014”lots of dead animals… it\u2019s not that awesome if you don’t love it. You have to love it, you have to love it to be good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Aubrey\u2019s experience, you have to have a thick skin to make it in this business, something she learned while working for Antonio Medina of Gastronomico in West Hollywood. \u201cWhen I first got into this business I was extremely sensitive,” Aubrey explained.\u00a0“I\u2019m just a sensitive person, nice, caring, always making sure everyone’s okay. I\u2019m still like that but I really don\u2019t care as much as I used to anymore, which is a good and a bad thing. It\u2019s good for my profession, and it\u2019s\u2026 I wouldn\u2019t say bad, but it takes a toll on any other relationship that I have with people, because I have to have that exterior shell now because I can\u2019t cry in the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n And when it comes to crying, Aubrey says she certainly used to. \u201cWhen Antonio used to scream at me I would have to take 5 minutes in the bathroom and cry a little bit, clear my head, then walk back out. Even at The Attic I would get so frustrated. I have this issue where if you\u2019re screaming at me I can\u2019t handle it. I would rather you throw a pan at my face then you yell at me because I\u2019m sensitive,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Aubrey\u2019s time at The Attic showed her partially what it means to be a hard working woman in a demanding position. \u201cWorking with a very strong independent female executive chef before this job showed me a lot,” she explained. “It showed me that you have to work harder and you have to be a lot more tough and not take shit from anyone. Raq (Raquel Jubran of The Attic) would always tell me that. It\u2019s going to be 50 times harder.\u201d<\/p>\n On working in a mostly male kitchen, however, Aubrey said she actually prefers it. \u201cTo be completely honest with you, I would rather work in an all-male kitchen, although it was really nice working in a mostly female kitchen at The Attic. In an all-male kitchen there\u2019s less drama, less shit talking, and I mean actual shit talking, you know. There\u2019s a difference between actually meaning it and just saying it to say it. The boys just say it to say it, they\u2019re crude, but women, they mean it. Even if they sound like they don\u2019t mean it, they mean it. It\u2019s just more catty with women, in my experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Aubrey is passionate about her profession and it shows. She spoke of the ups and downs, yet landed on exactly why such a laborious, stressful and sometimes degrading job is worth her time, having a sense of ownership at the end of the day, and knowing the product of your labor is delicious.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s gotten to the point where it\u2019s almost scabbed up. You have to scab up, to be in this\u2026 this industry because guys don\u2019t care and that\u2019s one of the biggest reasons why they\u2019re so praised about it, is because they can do this and that and this and that and not feel any emotion towards it. I feel like a woman has more passion when it comes to this business, which shows, and if you can place that passion toward your work it\u2019s amazing, but you have to scab up and you have to have that armor, you just have to. It\u2019s a difficult balance that you have to find, but once you find it, it\u2019s great, you know, it\u2019s something that I can\u2019t even explain, when i feel that i don\u2019t care what you think of my food because I know that it\u2019s good, it\u2019s the best feeling in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Kat01\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Kat01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Kat02\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Kat02.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Kat03\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Kat03.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Aub04\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Aub04.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Aub02\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Aub02.jpg\")
\u201cYea, I don\u2019t really care too much about it, if you don\u2019t wanna respect me then you don\u2019t have to work for me, it\u2019s not an option. It\u2019s either ya do or ya don\u2019t and if you don\u2019t then there\u2019s the door. That\u2019s the way that I feel most younger women executive chefs have to deal with things. They\u2019re not going to invest their time in someone that obviously doesn\u2019t want to invest their time in them either, so it\u2019s not \u2026 really, I don\u2019t really care. Everyone is replaceable in this business.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Aub03\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Aub03.jpg\")
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