In the Beginning...

My whole adult life I have been wondering what to do for a living while working retail jobs that left me hollow and bored. For years I helped rich women (and sometimes men) pick out their lingerie, listened to their tales of happiness and woe and sometimes even found myself entertained. I have to say that sometimes I miss my little lingerie store, albeit briefly and out of pure sentimentality. I certainly miss the products. But most of all I miss seeing the regulars, many of whom I got to know over the years and truly liked.

From Austrian lingerie I transitioned to French candles and a managerial position, quickly discovering that it was not for me. So when I got unexpectedly laid off last February, I told myself that it was a sign from the Universe telling me I’m no longer allowed to do what I don’t love. I looked at my work history for what it was and saw that I had been a coward, settling for what was easy and unwilling to risk admitting what I really wanted for fear that I would fail.

There are many things I love; most of them are unprofitable. I’ve thought about being a painter, but found no pleasure in the idea of having to sell my art for a living. I’ve thought about being an advertising copywriter, but decided that it was more selling than I ever wanted to do again. Unexpectedly for myself I fell in love with constitutional law. The idea of law school had a pull for a while because of the structured path it delineated and because being a lawyer appealed to me in many ways. But asking myself honestly if I was ready for the life commitment, I realized that I wanted to do something more light hearted on a long-term basis.

I looked at the few strands running consistently throughout my life: art, music, literature, the need for spirituality and magic, the love of food, wine and writing, and saw how hard I’ve tried to fight against them all to some degree, putting them in the hobbies bin and believing that work could only pollute those things that I held close.

In August I went on a 10 day fast, which put me in a state of semi trance, bringing me uncomfortably close to the mechanics of my thoughts. It is amazing how much more time there is in a day when food is not involved. During this time naturally I thought about food all the time. I read articles and books about local l restaurants and chefs and tortured myself with vivid literary images of delicacies I could not have. But out of it all came a realization more insistent than any I’d had in a long time - I wanted to know more and I wanted to participate in the Bay Area food scene somehow. More than that, I wanted to make it my own. And at that moment with a deep sigh of relief I let go of my years of fighting against myself and collapsed into the glowing dream of being a food writer. Out of those 10 days of fasting came the idea for a book.

I’ve always loved food and restaurant culture. In high school I was friends with all the baristas of all the coffee houses I frequented and loved staying after hours and feeling like I was allowed back stage. I should have gone into the food industry instead of retail, but knowing how labor intensive it was, I was afraid to dip my toes in further than being a kind and frequent patron. Now I wanted to know more about the people who stood behind the stoves and cut the vegetables, the ones who opened restaurants of their dreams with nothing more than 10 maxed out credit cards and the help of all their friends, the ones who had been more brave than I.


I’m lucky to have grown up in Berkeley, the hot bed of California cuisine. It is a place where it is easy to fall in love with food and fantasize about the mythology of running a restaurant. There are places I had been going to for so long they became part of who I am. So I decided to give something back by writing a book about the trials and tribulations of the people who stood behind them. I wanted to put the spotlight on those who most often operate behind the scenes, so armed with this idea and little of anything else, I started boldly contacting all of my favorite local restaurant owners and chefs, hoping they would be willing to tell me their life stories. Thus my journey began.



(Photograph from the contact sheet of Dennis Letbetter, who has incredibly generously agreed to work with me on this project. )