Share the Pie Normal Ain't Normal with Reem Assil

Chef Reem, how has the pandemic forced you to redefine success in the restaurant industry? Well, I think I defined success by- Would you say your Palestinian roots gave you the refugee resilience to make so many pivots these last few years? Well, I really wouldn't put it quite like that. I mean, really kind of being Palestinian- I don't like being called chef. Chefs are bosses. They just want you to fear them. The only thing I've ever done to scare my workers is breastfeed in the kitchen. I didn't even want a restaurant. I just wanted my manoucheh to give the pizza a run for its money. My greatest joy is eating dough, and I hella need dough right now. Shit would be easy if I was a trust fund baby like those famous white chefs on Netflix. Must be nice not having to be a bread maker and a bread winner all at the same time. Not having to deal with violent threats for being who you are. A Palestinian woman who dares to speak the truth. Yeah, that always goes well in America. But here I am, right? I must have tricked all these fancy foodie writers or something. Now they've got me all up in this weird ass world of VIP chefs. And all this hypo for who. I'm nothing without these folks. We're out of summer squash. What do you want us to use instead? What do we have on hand? Shit, it's summer. We could grow some corn, throw in some cotija, crema, cilantro in there. A couple of jalapeños. Boom, you got an elote manoucheh. Perfect. I'll throw some sumac on it. Heard that. How come we're around food all day long, but restaurant workers are some of the hungriest people I know? I mean, how was Tomas supposed to feed his kids off of eight bucks an hour at his last job? He barely had enough to feed himself. And Kendra, she worked 10 years without a single sick day because her famous Michelin star chef didn't know how to run this kitchen without her. I try to make sure that never happens here. But I'm not gonna lie, that ---- is hard. How do you pay everyone well without pricing out your own people, especially when your landlord keeps raising the rent on you like you're some millionaire techie? From the outside, everyone thinks that we're all good, that I'm all good. What am I supposed to say, that I'm miserable? That I feel alone? Working 16-hour days, getting oven burns up and down my body while my baby boy hardly knows me? Everyone keeps calling me a success, but I feel like a failure. It was the government that failed us. When the virus hit, they just left us out here exposed to die like the Hunger Games. And for what? To be stuck on a gerbil wheel going nowhere? The virus didn't kill me, but this industry almost did. I can't go back to how things were before. I won't. Come on, Chef Cinderella, you can't be late to the big ball. The prestigious Chef's Institute of America. Finally, a Palestinian infiltrating the CIA. She is a visionary, a culinary connector. On behalf of the board and with a special thanks to our corporate sponsor DoorDash, I am proud to present this year's Rising Star Chef of the Year award to Reem Asil. People like to call the chef a culinary wizard who makes magic in the kitchen all by himself. Well, I've been behind that curtain and I've seen Oz with my own two eyes. I'm here to tell you he's a ******* imposter. Stop making me the token brown woman for your American dream foodie fantasy. Y'all want to make me the hero of this story, but you don't even know who the villain is, do you? Speaking of which, shout out to DoorDash in the building. I see you out here making us restaurants dependent on you when you make billions of dollars off our backs. I've been in an abusive relationship before. I know one when I see it. And what up, big restaurant corporations? You got us small business owners pitted against our workers when really all we're just fighting for are crumbs. Meanwhile, you got the big boys at Shake Shack and P.F. Chang's taking all the PPP money, hogging the whole ******* pie. I mean, ----, I bake pies. Pie is meant to be shared. So you want to redefine success in the restaurant industry? Well, so do I. We're going to be a worker owned co-op. No more almighty chefs. No more bullshit. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got to go. My co-owners are working on a recipe from Halabiya custard that puts your creme brulee to ******* shame. We're going to be a worker owned co-op. No more almighty chefs. No more bullshit.