Time to Make The Donuts, The Pastry Grind
“Pastry still is this sort of afterthought, or it is sort of this like cutesy fun thing. Prime example: I was at dinner and there was this actor sitting next to us, and he had eaten my boyfriend’s food, and like loved it, and was raving about it, and ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so great, and you were on that TV show … and you’re this celebrity, and everybody loved you and I was rooting for you and your food’s so great and amazing!’ And he [my boyfriend] had mentioned I’m a pastry chef, and this guy was like, ‘Oh. Keep makin’ the donuts.’ And I wanted to punch him in the face. I was like, I have never been so insulted, and never been so demeaned in my entire life. I was like, what I do, and the skill and the craft, blows doors on even his [my boyfriend’s] cooking no matter how great it is. And I got so defensive and so upset. I was like, wow, I’m the cutesy girl just making the donuts, like that’s all pastry chefs do—Oh, we just make donuts and cookies and cupcakes, which makes me irate, because we do—I do—so much more than that … it’s so ignorant.”
-Waylynn Lucas, Executive Pastry Chef, The Bazaar, Los Angeles, CA
UPDATE: On August 24, 2011 (5 months after this interview), Lucas transcended her donut-loathing and revolutionized the hole-y landscape when she opened her first FONUTS shop in LA. (www.fonuts.com)
http://la.eater.com/archives/2011/08/23/the_full_reveal_inside_fonuts_opening_tomorrow.php
