I met the effervescent
lady chef Carrie Nahabedian- proud owner of Naha,a Michelin star restaurant in Chicago- at the Zomato masterclass held at Le Cirque. This event was organized by CSSG
which tied up with Michelin star chefs to train underprivileged girls from
India to help them start a career in the food industry.I caught up with her to
know more about what drives her.
Coming from a family
of 1st generation Armenian immigrants, Carrie’s father visualised
all his children as college grads but Carrie joined the Ritz Carlton at the age
of 17 instead of opting for higher education. She felt she was learning much
more at the Ritz than she would ever be able to at school. Her dad conceded but
not without offering to pay for her education whenever she desired, which of-course
turned out to be the pivotal point of her life(That is what funded “Naha “) .On being asked about what
motivates her, she answered immediately -
love for cooking. The joy of customers leaving her restaurant with a smile
on their faces and an experience to cherish, is what drives her. Like a lot of
other chefs, she did not start out as one, and again like many other chefs who
she says are generally very loving (and I second that), for her too it’s all
about putting a smile on customer’s face.
Her two sisters went
to college and ironically work with her now (it’d be such fun for me and my
sisters to run our own company). Carrie swears she could not have done it without
them and it’s because they take care of the management, the accounts and the over
all functioning of the business that she’s free to focus on cooking and gets
the opportunity for fuelling her creativity.
I expected a fancier
answer when I quizzed her about Comfort food but her reply was a simple something
soft- yoghurt /cereal or a well-cooked risotto.
As a blogger I could
not refrain from raking up the topic of “food-blogging” and Carrie feels that the
problem is that bloggers fall in the trap
of perceiving themselves as critics. A food critic is one is qualified and
experienced and has expertise in the field, who’s aware of the nuances of a
certain cuisine and judges on the basis of that. Hence their inputs are very
valuable. A blogger judges on the basis of his/her personal likes and dislikes
and if influential then a negative review can cause unnecessary harm to any
restaurant. Very few are sensible and some are just a nuisance.
So how did she react on winning the Michelin star? She was
shocked by this pleasant surprise and to celebrate asked her team as to what they
wished to do. They all chose to have a party at this Asian place which also
serves good beer to celebrate the milestone.
All you people reading
this post and staying in or visiting Chicago, don’t forget
to check out Naha to savour some
outstanding food and meet this convivial chef.
thats nice
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