03-01-2014
Iside De Cesare and Romano Gordini, wife and husband and "partners" in life: they run family restaurant La Parolina, in Trevinano, a hamlet of Acquapendente (Viterbo), tel. +39.0763.717130 (photo credits Carbonara Club)
Woman, chef and mother: this is the topic on which I was asked to write. I’d like, however, to make a little change and speak instead of Iside as a woman, and then a chef, a wife and a mother. In order of appearance. Because I was born a woman and I confront myself with a career which, when I first began, was mostly a male one (now something is changing).
The Gordini family (photo by A Tavola con lo chef)
I personally had many experiences before returning to the concept of family restaurant. It is beautiful because now I can be with my children without forsaking my job. But the starting point was very different, because I didn’t grow up in a kitchen by chance: I began from the lower ranks, I studied, I worked, I worked hard and with lots of sacrifices, humility, perseverance, happiness and sometimes even some moments of discomfort. But always with lots of commitment.
Luckily, I learnt from some great chefs, both men and women, to all of whom I owe very much. And then I learnt from books, many books. And refresher courses and travels. And from the partnership with my husband Romano, the direct confrontation with him, and the birth of my children. This was an important moment: before I was already paying lots of attention to what I was cooking but after becoming a mother I began to consider each ingredient carefully, from a nutritional and transformation point of view. This is in fact what is truly beautiful in being a woman chef and a mother.
Now the question is: when will being a woman-chef stop being considered as an unusual fact? I believe our generation is working for our daughters (and our sons). Meanwhile we keep on doing what we love with passion and attention to detail. We keep on cooking with our arms, our mind and our heart.
See also Dear Santa Claus by Ana Roš I am a chef. Full stop by Antonia Klugmann Talent has nothing to do with gender by Aurora Mazzucchelli It’s not easy but it’s not impossible either by Loretta Fanella We’re not angels of the hearth by Cristina Bowerman
Men who, for a moment, leave pots and pans to tell us their experience and point of view
by
chef and owner, together with her husband Romano Gordini, of restaurant La Parolina Trevinano, near Acquapendente, Lazio region
From Western concert flute to cakes