Barbara Lynch is a gritty Boston restaurateur whose home kitchen is the height of industrial chic.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.
1 What does Barbara hate?
2 How old is she?
3 Who taught her how to cook?
4 What was she like as a child?
5 When does she cry now?
6 How many children does she have?
7 What effect does cooking at home have for her?
You may also be interested in Barbary Lynch's TED Talk in Boston Back to the Basics.
I think my approach to cooking is somewhat different from other chefs. You know, it's chaos usually here. It's fun.
Most
of my life is in the kitchen, so why wouldn't I want to have a
professional kitchen at home? And I wanted it to sort of look
professional, but yet home, like it's been here. I like to have clean
minds and clean space. I hate clutter. I hate it.
Believe it or
not, I was a really shy person, a really shy kid, up until 40, so that's
10 years ago. It's so nice not to have to talk. It's so nice just to
cook and just to focus on what you're doing.
My one obsession,
just because I'm self-taught, is cookbooks. I mean, I don't follow
recipes. It's the food porn. It's the beautiful photos. I got Suzanne
Goin. I got Julia Child. I got it all.
I'm still
self-conscious, you know? Do I really cook good? Can I… am I really
doing this? I always feel like, jeez, what the hell? How'd I get here?
So
I grew up in South Boston. We were crafty as kids. We weren't bad. We
were just creative. I was selling drugs off of like a moped, which we
stole, so I kind of had that like tough attitude, but honestly, I'm
really like a softy. I cry at commercials. You know, I'm a softy. I am.
For some reason, I always felt like I'm was Italian. Here I am, I
named my daughter Marchesa Fiorella Petri. I thought my mother was
going to kill me. She's like, why couldn't you name a Katherine, or
Denise, or Margaret? I'm like, I don't know, mom. I just didn't want
to.
I think people have a different perception of me. I think
they always think of me of Barbara the chef, but not Barbara the mother.
You know, I'm a different person at home.
Hi!
Hi.
I
have an 11-year-old girl, and she has a million friends, and my God,
they're picky. One has been a vegetarian since she's seven. One will
just eat pasta with butter. But I don't hold that against them. I was a
vegan once, maybe for a week.
Cooking to me is like, I don't know,
if you were a runner, you get into a zone. Your breathing is right.
You feel good. There could be chaos all around me, and if I'm working on
a particular dish, I don't even look up. When I'm home, I'm cooking,
and it's therapeutic.
Key:
1 clutter
2 fifty
3 nobody, she taught herself
4 (shy), crafty, creative, not bad
5 when watching commercials
6 an eleven-year-old daughter
7 it's therapeutic
