the return of the CHEFY — Arielle Giusto

I am officially back at the helm of the stoves at M.H. Bread & Butter. And stoked! When I heard that my replacements had put in their notice, I had no other single thought in my mind: I must go back. It seemed impossible to ask customers to stomach yet another menu change, not to mention the stress that another chef change puts on the front of house staff, the cooks, and the huge strain it would put on the owners. I am very happy that Devon and Nathan felt the same way.

In order to keep up my budding catering business, as well as continue to have time for all of the household work I have embraced and really enjoyed in the past five months, we agreed that I would come back as consulting chef. How this would ever work kept me up at night...staffing! training! ordering! I couldn't imagine how I would not be there over 40 hours a week. But I am proud and happy to report that three weeks in, it worked! I have a strong, kick ass crew. Some days I am there, some days I just check in. We streamlined a lot of systems that were not efficient. Turns out coming back with fresh eyes really does work.

Four months ago I would never have seen this coming. Now I am so happy that it did. There has been a special joy to seeing old customers again, getting big hugs, hearing how happy they are to see me. I love that I get to see some of my favorite people almost every day - Nathan, Devon and Josephine. And I really love the daily contact with my cooks. They are happy to be held to a strict standard, no matter how often I correct and re-correct, always pushing to inch closer to perfection. Hard work is easier with purpose and a cheerleader. That's how I like to think of myself sometimes. A "real" chef encompasses many things beyond putting fancy dishes on the menu. Teamwork makes the dream work! I love that one - thanks Wilcox.

So come down and say hi! If you've never been, now's a great time to visit. I may be there, and I may not, but either way the experience should be grand. And please do yourself a favor and get a chocolate chip cookie or a piece of basque cake for dessert. It will make your day.

May 11, 2020

Mating Dance

April 1st and it is the 23rd anniversary of my mother’s death. Usually I go walk the beach, to the place where we scattered her ashes and where she spent her last years, but it’s 2020 and the beaches are closed so instead I go for a walk around the block. In my seventh month of pregnancy now and my feet have started to ache from the extra weight, so the walk starts out slowly, gingerly. I conjure her here, in step beside me - Suzanne Segal, born on Friday the 13th and died on April Fool’s Day. Was that her ridiculous way of encouraging us to see some of the humor, the lightness of life? Those deep dimples and that shrieking laugh are with me as much today as they were decades ago.

February 20, 2020

santa fe, NM 1995

My mom and I got off the plane in Albuquerque and headed for the white Isuzu Trooper we kept parked at the airport. After our first few visits to New Mexico, when my mom had properly fallen in love with the landscape and started buying property – all sagebrush and pink dirt – she decided we needed our own car there. This one was properly beat up enough to fit in, as I learned after my eyes had adjusted from the bombastic wealth of the Bay Area to this perennially poor state. But the colors! Even on the license plates! The flamboyant yellow, red and turquoise delighted me, set as they were against the glow of the high desert. I suppose we both were in love with this new frontier.

December 15, 2019

Peeking through the Back Door

I have always felt most at home in restaurant kitchens. No matter how glossy the paint or how shiny the brass door handle on the imposing front door to the dining room, there is always a dinged up, unmarked back door that leads to the real heart of the beast. It took a few weeks into my first cooking job at The Olema Inn to get used to the complete lack of glamour of it all. Only now do I see how the paucity of it helped to form our psyches, ordained us cooks with the chips on our shoulders and the swagger in our steps. We’re here to do the real work. We don’t need no fancy door.