Diversity & Leadership with ACF President Kimberly Brock Brown

TRANSCRIPT

Kirk Bachmann: Hi everyone. My name is Kirk Bachmann, and welcome back to the Ultimate Dish. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with chef Kimberly Brock Brown, president of the American Culinary Federation and the first African-American woman elected to the board of the ACF.

Leadership and cooking have always been part of Kimberly’s story. As an ACF member for over 40 years, she has been instrumental in shaping the chef community for the United States. Kimberly is the author of “Here I Am,” which discusses the importance of diversity in the chef world, and an author-contributor to several books, including “Real Women, Real Leaders,” and “Toques in Black.” In addition to being a regular guest chef on Charleston’s “Low Country Live” program, she is also a culinary arts educator, speaker and mentor. Join us today as we chat with Kimberly about leading a large organization, mentorship, fostering diversity, and the future of the culinary industry.

Welcome Chef Kimberly. It’s so good to see you. Thanks for being with us today. How are you?

Kimberly Brock Brown: Thanks for having me. It’s an honor and joy to be here. I’m doing good, so far so good. It’s still earlier, but I’m good.

Kirk Bachmann: What’s weather like in the Charleston area.

Kimberly Brock Brown: Wet. It’s been raining cats and dogs.

Kirk Bachmann: Has it?! Okay. Are there positive outcomes from a rainy August?

Kimberly Brock Brown: Yeah. It means that we don’t have to worry about watering and cutting the grass. Everything’s staying green, so eventually in the next week we’ll be cutting that grass once a week.

Kirk Bachmann: And it will be a little wet.

Congratulations to the new ACF President

First and foremost, I’m super honored. I’ve been a member of the American Culinary Federation for a long time. It gives me such happiness and joy to say congratulations on your recent naming as the president – the president! – of the American Culinary Federation. Has it sunk in yet?

Kimberly Brock Brown: It comes and goes. Some moments, it’s like, “Oh my God! I’ve got to do this, this, this and this.” And someone says to me, you need to take care of this. It just comes and goes. It’s like I should wear the tiara or the crown everyday? No. But life is going along. It’s alright.

Kirk Bachmann: More phone calls, more texts, more people reaching out.

Kimberly Brock Brown: More meetings, more of this, more of that.

Kirk Bachmann: You just finished up the annual national conference, which was live AND virtual this year. I tuned in virtual. I’m going to give you all the credit. The virtual experience I thought was really amazing. It was really, really well done, with the host.

Kimberly Brock Brown: I’m glad to hear that.

What’s Special about Charleston?

Kirk Bachmann: Absolutely. Charleston, South Caroline. I’ve been there just a couple of times, mostly for food. I’ve mentioned to you before that I enjoyed a great meal and experience at Husk. I just want to set the tone from a geography perspective. You’re in Charleston, low country, and I believe it stretches from where you are all the way down to Savannah. It’s the sea coast.

Kimberly Brock Brown: It’s a little bit past the Savannah area.

Kirk Bachmann: How long have you been in that area?

Kimberly Brock Brown: Oh my God, I moved here in ‘94.

Kirk Bachmann: Okay. Is that part of the country really special to you because of the food, or did work take you there initially?

Kimberly Brock Brown: Work. Work came. I do like it. The food is definitely different. I’ve told a lot of people over the years, especially when I was teaching or in the kitchen all the time in the hotels, that when you step out and you get the opportunity to be promoted or transferred, or you just want to move to another city, to think about what the cuisine is at the city. We have a sister property in New Orleans, and a chance to step up and be promoted, but sometimes you can get pigeonholed. People don’t go to New Orleans for Kentucky bourbon. They want the praline they want the bread pudding. You can get kind of sick and tired of making praline real quick. Because they’re not going there for New York style cheesecake. Make sure you have the variety of which you want to do, and grow as a pastry person or as a chef, period.
?We’re fortunate, we have a vast cuisine here in our area. We can pick and choose sweet and savory off a lot of different items to give people. But when you get to some places, there isn’t that choice or opportunity. So I think we are blessed to be on the water, to have a variety of semi-tropical climate, and the things that we can grow here ourselves.

The Apprentice’s Journey of Discovery

Kirk Bachmann: You mentioned pastry chef. I have to jump on there to give you your props there. I grew up in a pastry family. My father is a master pastry chef. Was that always the route you were going to go? Was it food or was it sweets?

Kimberly Brock Brown: Food. At the time, it wasn’t really differentiated. When I was an apprentice, I was a chef’s apprentice. I just happened because of my fear. The pastry chef we had at the time just scared the crap out of me. So I just did not want to go over to the baking and pastry shop. So in my three years, that was my last stop. I waited that guy out. He’s not there. He moved on and the new person took over, an American chef, he was great. He was all about teaching and coaching people. It was just known that working at that hotel, if you wanted to be a pastry chef and work at one of the other properties, you had to go to him. He was the trainer, basically.

I was already there. The class I had in my schooling, it was over my head. The French pastry chef in somebody’s hotel, and he spoke no English, and they brought in an assistant who was an American, wanted to be French. I had no clue. That class was just wasted. [Totally[00:06:13] foreign to me about baking the pastries at that point in time.

Kirk Bachmann: Now it’s your love. Now it’s your love.

Kimberly Brock Brown: But I also really had a love for saucier. I have to say that. But I knew, somehow – I don’t know how I figured it out – but I knew that chefs don’t come out of the saucier station. You’ve got do banquets and restaurants. As much as I liked the saucier station, I didn’t want to get stuck there.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s such a good point! It’s probably the most enjoyable time, when you’re creating sauces right of you. The most flavorful time, but you bring up a really, really good point, Chef. The idea of when you say a banquet chef or catering, you’re managing other people. That’s when you become a chef, when you manage the work of other people. Really, really good point.

ACF and Leadership

Let’s talk about the American Culinary Federation. We’ve said it a few times. Obviously we’ve met. We’re familiar. I’ve been a proud member since 1988, originally through the Denver chapter. Shamelessly, let’s just talk about the ACF for a little bit. Let’s assume no one knows, what is the American Culinary Federation? What’s your elevator speech?

Kimberly Brock Brown: The American Culinary Federation, I’m so glad you asked, is an organization of 14,000 members of 170 chapters nationwide and international, from the Bahamas, to the Dominican Republic, to Singapore, to the Philippines. We are all about teaching and educating, mentoring, networking our culinarians in all walks of life in our profession. If you’re a student, we have something for you. If you’re a student in the high school level or secondary, we have something for you. If you’re an educator, if you’re in a hospital situation, if you’re in a retirement center, we can teach, train, certify and get you on your way. Personal cheffing, we’ve got that covered.

We’re working on new certifications all the time so you stay cutting edge and on the forefront of what’s happening in our industry. We have a cannabis certification that we’re about to roll out by the end of this year. We’re working on something for vegan certification. That’s not obscure anymore. That’s a lifestyle that’s here to stay. So you want to stay cutting edge. You want to stay at the forefront of what’s happening.

Kirk Bachmann: You’ve been a member for a long time. From your eyes, how has the organization changed over the years? The piece of education and networking, even certification to some level, have really been very, very important parts of the ACF to me. The pandemic, obviously, has impacted a lot of things in our industry. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But the ACF as an organization, in your mind, how has it changed over the years?

Kimberly Brock Brown: I think the fact that I’m president, that’s a big one right there. In my time that I’ve seen, I’m the third female who’s been a regional vice president. You have the first national president, because you have to be on the national board to even run for the national president. In my 30-something years of membership, I’m the third female. That’s one.

And I’m the first pastry chef as president. That’s another thing. I can remember we had to fight tooth and nail back in the day to try to get more pastry classes, more baking classes. Everybody was always interested in it, but it was a matter of having the actual sessions in our mentions and conferences and stuff. For a while, we – being a bunch of pastry chefs and bakers – got our charter for another chapter based out of Williamsburg, Virginia, because the master baker up there at colonial Williamsburg, we all formed the Baking and Pastry Guild. We just got together maybe twice a year. We did hands-on bake shops, workshops for baking and pastry, master bakers. Ice cream. All that we weren’t getting through our regular conventions and conferences at ACF. Hands-on, 100 people. Can you imagine what that was like? We did it. We were doing it.

Kirk Bachmann: I want to go back a little bit to when you entered the industry. How did you become aware of the American Culinary Federation. Was it a mentor, or did you stumble upon it because of the education piece?

Kimberly Brock Brown: I stumbled upon it, truly. I was already graduated high school. I was in Dallas at the time, with one of my older sisters. It was never articulated to me about culinary arts. It was not a word. I was still “home ec.”

Kirk Bachmann: Home ec! Home ec was the word.

Kimberly Brock Brown: Home ec, see! I played sports in high school, but I didn’t put sports on my class reunion, I put home ec on my class reunion. We didn’t have culinary arts. Nobody even articulated that there was a culinary arts school in Chicago, which is where I’m from. I knew nothing about it. When somebody graduated out of the apprenticeship program in Dallas, there was a write-up in the paper. Nice write-up. I read it. The light bulb went off. That’s it! I want to do that. I called the number, and by fall semester I was enrolled and going for it. Didn’t look back.

Kirk Bachmann: Isn’t that something? What sport did you play in high school.

Kimberly Brock Brown: Oh my God. I did basketball, and I did softball.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. I love it. My 11-year-old is really big into baseball now. My parents wouldn’t let me play football, but I did do my best with basketball, but baseball was always my love. Absolutely.

Leading and Giving Back

The puzzle’s coming together. I love this. I want to give you the opportunity to talk about your passion for education, culinary education in particular. Obviously, you’re involvement with the largest organization of professional chefs. Why is being a mentor, why is giving back – because that’s what you’re doing, you’re literally setting the stage for the next generation – why is that so important to you? Why is it so important for our industry that we never give that up, that giving back, mentorship, so on and so forth.?

Kimberly Brock Brown: It’s interesting, because that word was so foreign to me. Mentor, mentees. I just learned. Somebody took the time to teach you. Someone will say, “Who was your mentor growing up, getting into this?” I was like, “Nobody.” I watched Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet as a kid.

Kirk Bachmann: Not bad mentors. Not bad mentors.

Kimberly Brock Brown: But I wouldn’t consider them to be mentors. If you think about it, they were never in chef’s clothes.

Kirk Bachmann: No! You’re right!

Kimberly Brock Brown: I never associated them with being chefs. That’s just not a word in my realm, in my reality at the time. To say that, “I want to give back,” somebody had to teach me and touch me. They had to teach me well, because I was ignorant. I did not know. The culinary arts was not in my background. Yeah, I worked a food service job in high school here and there, but that was it.

What are you going to do, die and take it with you? Give it to somebody. Share the knowledge. Share the wealth. Pass it on. There are so many people out there who could benefit from the little bit that you think you know, because – to them – you know everything and it’s the world to them. It didn’t down on me what it is that people are looking for, people are starving for the knowledge that I may have from my experiences.

I can remember when we were doing examinations on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. Nine out ten times I’m the only female, and I’m the only person of color. I happened to be both of them at this point in time. I was with four examiners on the ship. It was second day in. We’d done ten cooks, sous chefs, whatever. I’m in the chefs office doing the tallying up and everything, and I happened to look up and see one of the commis walk by. “Oh, hi.” She was a person of color, female. I waved to her to come into the office. She got this kind of scared face, going into the chef’s office, right.

I said, “Why aren’t you taking this test? What are you doing?” Their neckerchiefs were color-coded, so she was entry level. She said that she felt like the test weren’t for her. They weren’t trying to teach them to test. She felt like, “They don’t want to teach us. They don’t want us to know this stuff.”

I said, “Try it. Don’t you know, this is tied to your job. If you don’t take the certification test of whatever level you’re at, when your contract expires, you may not get the job back. If you take this test and they’re paying for it, whenever you get off of this ship, whatever country you’re from, you’ll be a queen! Because nobody else is going to have this, nine out of ten times. You can write your own ticket, do what you want to do with an American Culinary Federation certification coming from some other country. That you didn’t even pay for, for five years. You should take this test. This is so important.”

But she didn’t have it explained to her that way. And she had also never seen a female person of color with the patches and the stuff on the jacket. She had no hope.

Kirk Bachmann: The alphabet behind their name.

Kimberly Brock Brown: She’d never seen that. Oh my God! It dawned on me then. It really does matter that people see you, people know you, and they teach us. Pass that stuff.

Kirk Bachmann: I love when you bring up the uniform. There’s something very special about putting that uniform on, everyday. Even if it’s for a podcast. In many ways, we have the Escoffiers and the [Parems[00:15:14] to thank for being cognizant of that. Let’s be professionals in the kitchen, all the time.

Leaving an Impact

With all that said, gosh, so passionate, so many questions. With this platform now that you have on opportunity, a vision for the future, in what area would you like to look back years from now and say, “I made a really big impact there”? Or you see the impact there and feel really good about that. Would it be increasing the membership? I remember a few years ago, the big push for the ACF was to get accreditation for the certification process, which I thought was amazing. Almost validating something that we already believed in, but validating it. A third party came in and said, “You’re doing it the right way.” Do you think about that sometimes? Tough question.

Kimberly Brock Brown: I’ve thought about it more and more as of late. I would love to grow membership, and I think there’s so many little parts to that, as far as what I can do to grow membership. It’s going to be that I will feel satisfied if there are more things in the funnel coming down the pike, things as to women, taking president’s roles, chapter level or committee roles, or on the national level, getting on the boards and doing things.

It would be great to see more people of color, male, female, Black, Filipino, Hispanic, whatever. Taking in the same thing. Getting in those positions instead of letting all the guys do all the work all the time. When I see more of it, I burst forward, cross all the levels. Membership comes. When people see and they then believe that they, too, can achieve, it just brings more people.

Kirk Bachmann: Well said.

Quality of Life in a Changing Industry

Let’s talk about the industry just a little bit. We’re still in this thing called covid. It’s been very emotional. Lots of conversations with many restaurateurs and hotels. Everyone’s looking for great help. The question is no longer a challenge in terms of the benefit piece. It’s higher wages, great benefits, good working hours, and things like that. If we take a step back and look at the last 10 to 20 years, things that you’ve already mentioned, how do you see the culinary industry alongside the ACF changing?

Kimberly Brock Brown: I think we have to accommodate the people and the life that they have. I had this argument years ago when I was executive chef at a hospital. At the hospital, we rotated schedules so that all employees had two weekends off, on two, off two. And even the managers had the weekends off rotated. We knew the schedule two weeks, three weeks out in advance. I thought, why couldn’t this carry over into other parts of our businesses? In restaurant, in [inaudible [00:18:10] whatever. The quality of life is real.

I left my job as executive pastry chef after the birth of my son because I knew I did not want him to grow up the way his sister, my bonus daughter, grew up. They’re twelve years apart. So when she grew up, Mother’s Day, Easter, Christmas, that was when Mommy came home from work by 6 o’clock in the evening. Him, he doesn’t know any of that. I have my own business, Monday through Friday. He was singing in the choir at his school, I can go see that. He was in the play. We could go out to brunch if I wanted to for Easter. That’s how he grew up. It’s about quality of life.

I remember telling a chef years ago when I first came here. When it was time for my review, I said, “You can keep a little money if you’ll give me another extra day off.” I can do more with my time than that tax bracket you just put me in is going to do for me. He was like, “What?!” Yeah, I’d rather have the time off than you giving me that 4 percent. Just give me the time. I can do more things with my time.

Kirk Bachmann: Quality of life. Quality of life.

Kimberly Brock Brown: We have to rectify that. We have to.

Expanding Knowledge of Diversity in the Culinary World

Kirk Bachmann: Let’s talk a little bit the books you’ve been involved with. I’d love you to speak a little bit about “Here I Am.” Was that something you thought about doing for a long time? A lot of chefs either go the coffee table book route – lots of beautiful pictures and recipes that you hope work – or just a really meaningful book. So speak a little bit about “Here I Am.”

Kimberly Brock Brown: “Here I Am” is the answer to the question, “Where are all the female and minority chefs?” That truly was a question that was asked of me and other friends so many times. It’s like there was the go-to Black guy, the go-to Black woman, and that was it. Just that one. Do you not know any other Black chefs. And then when somebody asked me, “This person gave me your number. I’m doing an article on fine dining with Black chefs. Can you give me some leads?” And I could not give that reporter any leads. All my friends that I had in my realm were hospital chefs or educators or private catering. To name a restaurant, fine dining with a Black chef, I could not. But I knew we were out there. I thought, “I’ve got to expand, do some research.” She was looking, she was doing her homework. I know they’re out there. Where are they?

So where are all the Black chefs? How do we get to know where we are and what we’re doing? How can we pull this together and be a source of inspiration and help to each other? How can we find each other and just help? That’s what it was. People just kept asking, “where are all the people? Where can I find another Black chef?” Behind Black History Month in February. Beyond that. In another couple of months, where is the Black chef when I want to talk to a Black chef. Where is the experience about this or that? What else can we say about low country cooking or soul food besides talking to this chef or that chef or that one chef that you talk to every year for the same article? What is it? Where are these people?

Using What You Have

Kirk Bachmann: What is low country cooking, from your vantage point? Walk me through low country. You’re a guest on a local program there. Walk us through low country cooking?

Kimberly Brock Brown: Low country cooking – we still have a bunch of plantations around here. You have to think about what the people back in the day, the indigent servants, the slaves did. People used everything, as they say, “from the oink to the tootie.” They utilized everything. That flavor and those foods are still prominent in a lot of people’s cooking. You can say low country cooking, you can say soul food, you can say Southern. They kind of all circle around and intertwine. It really is using what you have in the land.

Here in the Charleston area its rice. I’ve never been anywhere else where I can go to the local grocery store and get a 50-pound bag of rice. But you can in Charleston, because some people here have to eat rice every day. Every day. Rice is here. Grits. You’ve got to have your rice or you’ve got to have your grits. Shrimp in grits, because we have shrimp season, or we have oyster season. Oyster festivals are happening, or the shuckings. We go crabbing and clamming. When the tide is right. Using what you have.

We have an abundance of things here. Pineapple is our friendship symbol but it wasn’t normal here. We do have palm trees, but we don’t have pineapple trees that grow, but because it was brought here, there are a lot of things that are known to be for pineapples here, as well.

What’s low country? Making those pan gravies. Making those pineapple hummingbird cakes and stuff. Utilizing what’s known and what you have in your backyard.

Kirk Bachmann: I love the idea of the pan gravy you just mentioned. The building of flavors. You know what’s amazing: that cuisine has been in that area for a very long time. It’s comfort food. It’s food that makes people happy. It’s the food that you serve to your family. Isn’t it amazing that that concept is now so popular in restaurants across the country. It’s just simple, simple cooking with the ingredients that you’re presented with.

We’re in Boulder, Colorado, not far from Denver, but if you head west, it gets hotter and flatter and more arid and the peaches are absolutely amazing. I don’t want to make any enemies with my friends in Georgia, but until you have Palisade…

Kimberly Brock Brown: North Carolina has more peaches per capita than Georgia.

Advice to Young People

Kirk Bachmann: I love digressing to food as much as possible. What advice would you give to anyone who wanted to start a career, who was where you were a bunch of years ago when you were looking at home ec and culinary education? What advice would you give to young people today that want to go into our industry?

Kimberly Brock Brown: You’ve got to get the education. Things change all the time with our food, with our safety, with our nutrition. Imagine, when I started, it was the food pyramid. And now it’s the plate. And I don’t think it’ll be the plate anymore. We grow, diets change as the population is an average of 55 and older. How do you feed that population as a majority? What’s keeping us healthy? What is that fountain of youth for us?

The younger people coming who may be more vegetarian-based or more vegan-based.

Kirk Bachmann: Variety. Yeah.

Kimberly Brock Brown: What is it that’s going to keep everybody going and moving? What’s the new kid factor? We didn’t know certain foods when I was in school.

Get the education. Get the certifications. Certifications have opened up many doors for me. Those alphabets behind my name have gotten me to the TV, have gotten me in somebody else’s book, have gotten me to talk to other people, have gotten me out of the country.

Get the education. The education part of these initials. Learn what you can learn. Get yourself ready for your skills, for your teacher, for your profession. It is a profession. We’re not just here doing a job, we’re here doing a profession. It’s a big difference than just go and learn a trade. Well, you’re learning more than a trade. You could kill somebody. You need to learn and know what you’re doing, so get the education.

Kirk Bachmann: Absolutely. That’s really, really good advice. Powerful word, education. A very powerful word. I’m giving you all these tough questions, but it’s fascinating to me. Let’s say education is the common denominator; is it easier to find success in our industry than it maybe was 20 years ago?

Kimberly Brock Brown: Only because you see a lot more cooking on TV.

Kirk Bachmann: Exposure.

Kimberly Brock Brown: Everybody’s talk show, they might have a cooking segment. Let alone there’s a cooking show, network or two. With that, yeah. That’s been a help. It’s also been a hindrance because people think they can just go out. “I’m the master chef now. Look what I can do!” No, it’s not quite that way.

My husband goes and he picks up a Cobb salad from a fast food place, and I look at it and I say, “That’s not a Cobb salad, because a Cobb salad is supposed to be in rows, right?” Food on top of it, like corn of the cob, in rows. This was like a chef’s salad with stuff on it. There’s a few things specific to a Cobb salad. Educate yourself. You just can’t call it a Cobb salad because you own a Sonic. Don’t call something a Napoleon if it’s not a Napoleon and you know what it is supposed to be. A Napoleon is layers. Know what you’re talking about. Know the food terms and the basis of them before you start putting your spin and your flair on it.

Kirk Bachmann: My father’s still around, 85 years old. He still does some baking. The best advice he ever gave me was to just focus on being a cook for life. Don’t worry about titles. That will take care of itself. Focus on being…

Kimberly Brock Brown: A friend of mine wanted me to talk to her 15-year-old daughter who was using food as a vehicle to become famous. Okay, I get that. If you’re going to be famous, if you’re going to do food, then you need to do food right. She had the long fake nails and the hair down the back, and she was cooking with them. “I know when you’re cooking, the hair should be off the collar. We don’t have the fake nails, and we really don’t have the jewelry on and stuff like that.” I was breaking it down. Break that down.

“But I’ve got to be cute when I’m cooking.” “No. That’s not what we do.”

Kirk Bachmann: And we’re not chipping away at them. There’s nothing wrong with the nails, but I don’t want the nails in the food.

Kimberly Brock Brown: That’s right. They’ll break off, and nails carry bacteria in them.

Kirk Bachmann: I have to tease a little bit. I think I read an article in “Sports Illustrated,” but Doc Rivers was really excited to say he went to high school with the president of the ACF. Did I get that story right?

Kimberly Brock Brown: Yes you did.

Kirk Bachmann: This is so much fun, but we’re running to the end of our time. I hope you come back. Congratulation again on being our president. I’m so honored. I voted for you.

Chef Kimberley’s Ultimate Dish

One final little chat: The name of the podcast is The Ultimate Dish. I think I know where you’re going to go, but Chef, what is The Ultimate Dish?

Kimberly Brock Brown: I have said this before. I won an award for it. I put it in a couple books. I tell people, and when I tell them I’m going to make it, that this is not your mama’s bread pudding. It’s NOT your mama’s bread pudding. This bread pudding is on point, and it’s made with a purpose. It is a white chocolate bread pudding. It is made with pure fat of the croissants, of egg yolks, and heavy cream. Which is a big difference from leftover bread, milk, and whole eggs. Plus you’ve got the white chocolate. So you have the richness and the fullness of the white chocolate, the yolks and the croissants, and the heavy cream. It is a very rich, dense, white chocolate bread pudding.

When I first made it, my crew was eating it with vanilla bean ice cream, I said, “You guys are killing me. You’re killing me!” Because it is just that rich and dense. People who say, “I don’t like bread pudding.” Taste this one. Please taste this one. Oh my God. My new favorite thing.

Kirk Bachmann: Raisins in it?

Kimberly Brock Brown: No.

Kirk Bachmann: No raisins. Good. It sounds amazing. My best part is that it is “made with purpose.” Absolutely wonderful.

Chef, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you come back. Absolutely. Best of luck.

Kimberly Brock Brown: Thank you. I’m going to need it.

Kirk Bachmann: We’re here for you.

And thank you for listening to The Ultimate Dish podcast, brought to you by Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. Visit Escoffier.edu/podcast where you’ll find any materials mentioned during the podcast, including notes, links, and other resources. You can also browse other episodes and subscribe.