An 'accidental' chef traces her unlikely journey into the culinary world in new memoir

Transcript

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Amna Nawaz: Food can be about comfort, craft or even culture, but, in Brigid Washington’s new memoir, it’s about survival. Her book traces her unlikely journey into the culinary world, one marked by loss, uncertainty and questions of identity.

Geoff Bennett recently spoke with Washington about that book, “Salt, Sweat and Steam.” It’s part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Geoff Bennett: Brigid Washington, welcome to the “News Hour.”

Brigid Washington, Author: Thank you for having me.

Geoff Bennett: This memoir, it starts with this high-stakes cooking exam, a real trial by fire. Why start there? What did that moment reveal about who you were becoming?

Brigid Washington: I started there because it really honed in on why I was there.

And at the time, it was a bad breakup and a leap first, look second decision to attend the nation’s top culinary school. And I didn’t recognize myself. Like many other young people in my 20s, I felt adrift professionally. And food has always been my anchor and also held me accountable.

And so I decided this would be a good decision to pursue something that I have loved for a very long time professionally, until I actually had to be there.

(Laughter)

Geoff Bennett: Well, right. You said in the book that the decision to go to culinary school, it followed right after a breakup.

And you wrote, “The only way to take myself out of this emotional fire was to walk directly into a physical one.”

What did the kitchen offer you that your life in that moment could not?

Brigid Washington: That’s a good question, because the kitchen was — has always been that safe space, as a child growing up in Trinidad, cooking at my mother’s side, helping her pick herbs outside, cilantro, cilantro, Spanish thyme.

That was always my second language. And I was looking for more of what felt natural, what felt like me, even though it was, like I said, a fire.

Geoff Bennett: Well, you write that: “It’s not enough for something to taste good. It also must reflect discipline, integrity.”

How did you learn that? How hard is that to internalize as a chef?

Brigid Washington: I learned that the hard way, because, naturally, I am freewheeling and messy and not given to rules. Don’t let the blazer fool you.

(Laughter)

Brigid Washington: And so being in the kitchen, and especially being at the CIA, with its strictures and its rules and regulations and brigade system and exacting standards for excellence, that is what I needed most.

And I think that is also what most good cooks understand, is that there is room for both, both the creativity and constraints. They have the space to breathe when you’re cooking.

Geoff Bennett: You refer to yourself as an accidental chef.

Brigid Washington: Absolutely.

Geoff Bennett: What about it felt accidental, and when did it start to feel inevitable for you?

Brigid Washington: I think the genesis was accidental.

At the time, I had a job that I did not enjoy, office job. And I remember just walking into a professional kitchen that I have never eaten in a white-table cloth establishment in Raleigh. And I said, I don’t know anything about cooking. I don’t know anything about food. But I am a hard and happy worker and I will work for free. Teach me how to do this.

And that was, that was the beginning. And that…

Geoff Bennett: Work for free.

Brigid Washington: I said, yes, I will volunteer after my 9:00-to-5:00. I went to that kitchen and they said, just stand and do not touch.

(Laughter)

Brigid Washington: And I said, what will I get to — they’re like, never.

(Laughter)

Brigid Washington: And that was — that was the accidental part, because I didn’t — I didn’t think anything would come from that.

And I think it started to feel inevitable when I started to appreciate the discipline and what I was really — the lessons behind the lessons that cooking taught me.

Geoff Bennett: There’s something else in the book that you wrote about that really struck me. And it was holding on to your accent. And you write that: “A country gives you an accent, but it is courage that allows you to keep it.”

In a kitchen, a place with its own, as you said, hard codes of authority, what did it mean to walk in as a proud Trinidadian woman and refuse to flatten that?

Brigid Washington: Well, it has gotten flattened.

(Laughter)

Geoff Bennett: In what ways?

Brigid Washington: Well, I mean, my mother would say that, like how I talk.

Geoff Bennett: Your accent has been flattened?

Brigid Washington: Yes. Yes.

Geoff Bennett: Oh, OK. Yes.

Brigid Washington: Yes, my accent has been flattened. That’s what — I would say something and she would kind of — I could hear her thinking over the phone.

(Laughter)

Brigid Washington: That’s not the way that’s pronounced.

(Laughter)

Brigid Washington: But I think that it was important for me to always be tethered to home.

That is the core anchor. And how that presents is by having and keeping an accent and paying attention to when it is slowly dissipating.

Geoff Bennett: You have been very candid about being afraid not just of failure, but of success. What did success represent to you throughout your journey and why was it so unsettling early on?

Brigid Washington: Well, at the time, I didn’t even know what success meant. I didn’t know how to quantify it.

It was — I know what I didn’t want. I wanted a relationally rich life, and I didn’t want a life where success is having a thriving restaurant, and that’s grossing eight figures, but no one to share that with.

So success for me now, it means being able to cook dinner for my family every night, teaching my children these are the foods that’s important. This is why. Here is why I am telling you this, even though they’re kind of rolling their eyes at me.

(Laughter)

Brigid Washington: And those moments are formative. And that’s what I was always angling towards.

Geoff Bennett: Does it still feel accidental or do you claim the title of chef now?

Brigid Washington: Honestly, it still feels a little accidental. It does.

(Laughter)

Geoff Bennett: Well, the memoir is terrific, “Salt, Sweat and Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef.”

Brigid Washington, a real pleasure to speak with you.

Brigid Washington: Thank you. Thank you so much, Geoff. Thank you for having me.