When I spoke with Cristina Bowerman, she was the chef of Glass Hostaria in Rome, Italy, where her cooking had earned a Michelin star.
Bowerman speaks to a cost the field has imposed on women across her generation, and to what she carried into the kitchen that let her pay it. She was, and still is, a professional chef in a man’s world, and she remembers vividly how her peers treated her at the beginning of her career. Some could not see her talent. Others did not realize she was willing to study and work 20 hours a day to become a good cook first and a good chef second. She arrived by an unusual road: a law degree, foreign languages, a decade as a graphic designer, and a change of career at 32, when she enrolled in culinary school in Austin and gave herself ten years to succeed as a chef. The way back to Rome ran through six months learning fresh pasta in a professional kitchen. None of the detour was wasted. The law, the languages and the design work, she told me, helped her speed up the learning curve.
“Some of them could not see my talent. Others did not realize I was willing to study and work 20 hours a day to become a good cook first and a good chef second.” Cristina Bowerman, chef, Glass Hostaria
In the book, Cristina Bowerman appears in Chapter 13, The Long Game, in two places. The first is the chapter’s account of the costs a long career exacts, where hers is the cost specific to her path, one the field is slowly beginning to acknowledge and address, though not at the pace the operators absorbing it would prefer. The chefs and hoteliers in the book who have endured despite it have done so by treating the obstacle as one more thing to outlast. The second is the chapter’s look at what people bring with them into the work, where her earlier life is the example of a detour that turned out to be preparation. The field made her pay twice the entry price. The life she brought with her is part of how she could afford it.
“My degree in law, my studies of foreign languages, and my job as a graphic designer helped me speed up the learning curve” Cristina Bowerman, chef, Glass Hostaria