Pnina L. Peled once faced the difficult choice between pursuing a career in the arts or a career in the kitchen. She had been around the restaurant industry for most of her life, pitching in as a young girl at her father’s cafe in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn, N.Y., and later working as a teenager in his subsequent restaurants.
“I was always involved somehow, if I was just brought there because there was no baby sitter or as a teenager actually working in one of them,” she says. “When I was about 18, I decided that the last place he had was just not doing as well as it should. I decided I was going to take it over, but in order to do that I had to go to school.”
However, by the time she had earned her degree in restaurant management from the New York City College of Technology, her father had sold the restaurant, and so she decided to give art a chance. One year of studying interior design was all it took to show her that her heart truly lay in cooking, and she enrolled in culinary school.
But her love of drawing still found a place in her cooking. When she was still working at her father’s restaurant, she would start drawing dishes as she thought they should be prepared and plated. She continued the habit in culinary school, sketching her assignments before she prepared them, and then later throughout her career. Today, she has journals filled with drawings that not only document many of her dishes, but also chronicle her development as a chef. While she now draws only the dishes she loves the most, including ones from Cinque Terre at the Jolly Hotel Madison Towers in New York, where she is executive chef, Peled says the drawings help remind her where she has been and how far she has come.
Does art play a role in cooking?
I know a lot of chefs will say, “Cooking is not an art. It’s cooking.” Well, yes, it is, but I kind of take art and combine it with cooking so it does become a different form of art. Because if you think about it, you can paint on a plate. There are so many different colors in food, and you have a white plate that can act as a canvas, and that won’t be called art?
What does your family think about what you do?
At first, they were like, “What, are you crazy? You want to cook? Come over every day, we’ll teach you how to cook. You don’t need to go to school for that.” When I had gone back to school to study interior design everyone was really excited. My grandfather was an architect. My cousin is an architect. Another cousin is an engineer. My mother is a really good artist—she designs wedding gowns and women’s evening wear and has a little store in Brooklyn. Drawing runs in my family.
BIOGRAPHY Title: executive chef, Ristorante Cinque Terre at the Jolly Hotel Madison Towers in New YorkBirth date: Oct. 3, 1973Birth place: Tel Aviv, IsraelEducation: degree in restaurant management, New York College of Technology; associate’s degree in business management, Berkeley College; culinary degree with a blue ribbon diploma in classic culinary arts, Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, now The Institute of Culinary Education in New YorkCareer highlights: working as a cook at Becco and Eleven Madison Park in New York; being named executive chef at Aleo and Nisos restaurants in New York; developing menus at other restaurants as a consulting chefHobbies: drawing, writing poetry and working on a book on her experiences as a chef
When I dropped out because I wanted to go to culinary school, everybody just flipped out. But then, when I got the [executive chef] position at Nisos, everything changed. My parents realized that there is more to this than just cooking and sweating behind a stove for your family. They realized that it was really a way for me to be artistic. There were a few articles written about me when I was at Nisos that got distributed throughout the neighborhood. An Israeli newspaper found out about me and came in and did a three-page article in Hebrew. My mother had it framed and made photocopies, and even the hair salon next door to her store had copies of it. Everything really changed from there, and she realized that this is what I really loved to do and it could really get me far.
When did you start sketching your dishes?
I started doing it when I was working at my father’s restaurants. I would watch the plates go out, and all I remember thinking was, “Wow, that is such a mess.” I started thinking of different ways to redo his plates. When it wasn’t busy, I would sketch the plate out, and then I would show my father and tell him that he should tell the chef. I was always drawing anyway, so my parents were used to it. It developed over the years, and it became more like my blueprint of every dish.
Tell me about the revision process.
Sometimes I’ll make up a dish and draw it out and then I’ll plate it and realize that it really would look better a different way. My sketchbooks go back from Nisos to today. It really shows how much I’ve grown throughout the years. And it amuses me. Sometimes I’ll think, “Oh, I should do that again.” Or sometimes, “I can’t believe I did that.” So I’ll laugh about it.
Do you sketch out all of your dishes?
When I first became a chef, I sketched out everything I did. In the books, everything is detailed and dated. As a few years went by, I just started to sketch out the things that I wanted to remember and the things that I would want to do again. Today, I just do what really makes me feel proud, the dishes that I really fall in love with.
Do you show them to your kitchen staff?
Yeah, the staff loves that I do that. And the items that are new on the menu in their stations, I sketch out for them on their mise-en-place sheets, and that gets posted at each station so there’s never a question about how it should be plated.
What are your thoughts on women in the culinary industry?
I had a hard time in this business, and I still do, as a female chef. The majority of the people in this business are male. Every employee I have here is male. Nobody should feel intimidated because you are a woman. I kind of tend to feel the opposite. Because I am a woman, I will intimidate you. Because I am a woman, I won’t back down to you. I won’t let you have the upper hand because you’re a man.
I think it’s really sad that a lot of women don’t realize the power they do have and the influence they can have. Today, more so than a few years back, women are realizing that, but not enough. Too many women or girls are being brought up to think that men are better than them. I am a member of Women Chefs & Restaurateurs, and I also am on the advisory board of the Culinary Academy of New York. I think it’s really important to influence other women to be more confident and more assertive. You just have to remain confident and strong and positive about everything you say and do.
CHEF’S TIPS Use fresh ingredients and be considerate to those ingredients in terms of sustainability. Keep perspective by remembering that, in the end, it’s only food.
Has it gotten better for women in the industry since you’ve been working?
Yes. But in the past and even here at the hotel, I’ve had externs, young girls, and they’ll come in very timid and very intimidated by my cooks. And I would say, “What’s going on? What’s the matter?” Because you see it on their faces. They’re very embarrassed and shy and afraid. They’ll say, “These guys are all over the place, and they’ll just push me out of their way.” And I say, “So? Get in their way, and do what you gotta do.” For me, no matter what goes on in your life as a woman, it should only empower you. Whether it be having children or being offered an executive chef position, you’re just showing capability. So, it’s really important for a woman to take whatever she feels, because of society’s or her family’s way of thinking, to be perceived as a weakness and make that into an accomplishment.
