Lead Culinary Instructor at Hot Bread Kitchen

I need patience beyond belief. Teaching technical skills, and trying to instill a sense of duty and responsibility can be a challenge. We work with folks across all identity categories, so we also need to be able to connect with any kind of person, and understand their struggles from their perspectives. So a lot of patience is needed.

Skill and intelligence are not innate; they come from somewhere and/or someone. This means that anyone can possess any skill and any kind of knowledge if they can successfully seek it out.

I get inspiration through necessity and whim. I make some of the best dishes when I use whatever I have on hand and just go with it. I also try to connect with my roots and my family—I always think about what my mom's and grandpa’s food tastes like. Whoever I’m cooking for, I like to intimately observe peoples’ reaction as they eat and try to give them food suited to their specific tastes. That’s my way of testing how well I know someone. Seasonal and local ingredients always make great meals.

I love to go bouldering and I love to practice a little boxing as my self-care. Bouldering is great because I can actually track my progress and growth as I become increasingly able to take on higher-level climbs. It’s equally mental as it is physical. Boxing is for stamina and taking out my frustration, gathering them into energy that I use to fuel the workout.

I keep the team motivated and learning by keeping the work environment safe, open, equal, and fun. Safe by ensuring respect and holding folks accountable for their actions. Open by allowing honesty and humanity; always explaining why a decision was made or why things are or are not permissible. Equal by treating folks like partners; relaying information you yourself might find useful, giving folks advance notice of change, and really anything that promotes human dignity. Fun by connecting with folks and incorporating their ways of having fun with work culture. For us at Hot Bread Kitchen, that’s music. We play it when we clean, we sing loudly, we do karaoke, and we dance on occasion when an appropriate moment allows.

One piece of advice: just do it.

This career is one of passion and endless sacrifice. Struggle is the air you breathe in kitchens. You struggle through difficult work and eventually just get better at it until the struggle becomes a fine challenge. It’s like if you decide to run a marathon. Day one of training you would be BLESSED to be able to run the full length of the race, let alone do so with a good time. But after practice and struggle, you get there. Kitchens require you to run this culinary marathon every day of work. Struggling and sticking to it IS the work. The amount required to make money in a restaurant is insane, and if it can’t be done, the restaurant will simply close. So either you keep at it and embrace the struggle, or you move out of the way so that someone else can do it.

Leaders set the standard. If we refused to continue bad culinary business practices, then they would cease. If we show that compassion and kindness and respect can be more powerful than fear and veneration and reverence, then we will be stronger as a whole. It’s not some hippie dream- it can be our reality. I know because I have seen it. Happy kitchens make better food. Happy people go about their lives with more zeal and with better success.

Working at Momofuku Ssam Bar was crazy. I learned so much about food and grew so much as a cook and person. I owe a lot of what I know now to my time with the cooks and chefs there. I matured a great deal and experienced a lot of hardship, as well as pride. I laughed to tears with co-workers who would later bring me to tears of anger. I learned how to move my body faster. I learned how to ride stress like a stormy sea, rather than just finding a clever way to avoid it. The Momofuku restaurant group continues to make food and drink that consistently blow my mind.

I have learned so much about life and history and states of existence through co-workers. I learned how badly some folks struggle and how easy others have it. I learned new songs and dances, and languages and how to express myself. I learned how different flavors and techniques can be applied just as well out of context. I learned the values of different cultures and how A LOT of our world is the same with a little spin or accent on it.