Black, White, and the Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant

by Mashama Bailey

was to do that and then reenter a professional kitchen down the road at a higher level. He just thought all of it was a step backward. My parents wanted a different future for me. They struggled to see past the White-male-dominated aspect of restaurant kitchens or the servitude implied in working in someone’s home and believed either of those things would make my career ascent even more difficult. This made it hard for them to have faith that I could do it and that cooking and leading a kitchen, a professional kitchen, was a step toward the future that I was becoming more interested in achieving. Working as a chef and inspiring a team to follow you is a position that holds power through its creative voice and independence. This is not how these positions have been viewed in the past in Black households but instead were and, maybe, are stigmatized because of the history of servitude connected with food service and hospitality. My father still struggles with some of these ideas and history behind my chosen career. I guess the ridiculous part of the conversation that these three White men were having is that it was necessary to have it at all. There are people like me, women like me, in kitchens all over America and yet, for the most part, we are still invisible and that is ridiculous.