improved tremendously nowadays, and she is very happy about that. “What we need to get better with is just [being] more accepting. And judging people based on their skills and abilities; rather than how they look, how they dress, how they talk, or what they believe in. None of that should matter,” she says. That seems like a worthy rule to follow—and a toast to drink to!
You can either be assertive, be the boss. Know what you need and be direct. Or you can be kind of a pushover, be all nice, and [act the way] the men in the kitchen would prefer—which was bullshit. So you have to be stern, you have to work harder. You have to take a lot of shit from everybody else. Of course, that portrays you in a certain light that makes people uncomfortable—having a queer, or just a woman, as a boss.” To be fair, she had not run into similar issues in many years. She also thinks that fortunately, the situation has
From Chef Fernandes’ experience, kitchens nowadays are much gentler environments than they were in her past, when chefs were more aggressive. Rules did not exist. People could do whatever they wanted and say whatever they wanted. They would be disrespectful or unresponsive right from the start just because of someone’s sexual orientation or sexuality. As a woman, she had been in a leadership role in the kitchen since she was eighteen, and she noticed something: “You have two routes you can take.
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