It happens so rarely that I find such a person that this column has sat silent for a good 6 months -- but all of that is about to change. Today, I am proud to introduce you to Chef Michele Ragussis who I met in my neighborhood in Brooklyn many a moons ago. Usually you don't see chefs in public, but Michele was easy to spot because even though she was busy as a bee running the kitchen of a neighborhood hotspot, she could also be simultaneously found running food to virtually everyone she came into contact with - soemthing which made her the instant darling of Crown Heights -- and earned her the street name SWEET PEA from yours truly.
As it so happens, Michele Ragussis, a Johnson & Wales trained Chef, has found herself as a finalist competitor in the current season of Food Star on The Food Network, a reality-based network show where each competitor joins the team of a reknowned chef (Michele is on Bobby Flay's team and god knows Madame B. hearts Bobby Flay!) and in the end, the winner left standing after numerous challenges and dismissals, is given their own Cooking Show on Television. YAY!
This season the stakes are higher than ever before because for the first time, the AUDIENCE votes for the winner -- which means that you could be the best suited, the most capable and the all around winner of all of the challenges, a favorite even, but if someone else has more friends & strangers willing to vote for you -- you lose. Just like that. CAN YOU IMAGINE? Can you imagine if at your next audition, after going through cut after cut after cut, they asked the audience to vote?
Can we say Le Sigh? Le Heart Attack!
To go even further, can you imagine if your friends were busy New Yorkers like all of us --rarely ever home and certainly not prone to having time to cook, watch TV or vote for reality shows, and your competitor's friends were conveniently located in the rest of the US where Cooking, TV watching and Reality Show Voting is part and parcel to their daily life??
This is called S.T.R.E.S.S. FULL!
What is so fascinating about Michele is that I feel we dancers can really relate to her -- being a Chef holds many similarities to being a Dancer: First, like Dancers, CHEFS ARE DREAMERS and as such cooking requires a great amount of LOVE! Food prepared perfectly without love is just bland, much like a perfectly executed variation without feeling! Further, even those most talented spend years apprenticing and educating themeselves to hone their craft; the profession requires grueling physical work at all hours, missing holidays, family gatherings and sleep, all while -- more often than not -- being terribly underpaid; injury is a common risk with Chefs -- experiencing leg pain from long bouts of standing, burns, and Carpel Tunnel Syndrome and other nerve injuries for overuse of the hands and wrists; the work of a Chef is temporal -- it disappears the moment it is eaten -- and even the best meal can never truly be duplicated because no two meals are exactly alike; Further there is an elusive "IT quality" to cooking just like in dance -- for some reason the exact same recipe prepared by 2 different people in the exact same way often tastes vastly different and NO ONE CAN TRULY DEFINE EXACTLY WHAT MAKES A GREAT CHEF..but just like in Ballet, Chefs are continuously compared to their predecessors -- some of them even dating back a hundred years like Escoffier! Finally, just like in dance, you can't exact pinpoint what makes a great, but you know one when you've met one and you know a great meal when you taste it. Oh and one more thing, Professional Chefs are always sort of bantering on about things called Stages ....sound familiar? :)
So today I want to really highlight Michele for you and BEG OF YOU to spend approximately 10 minutes of your time to help make another person's dream come true. It may seem like it doesn't matter, but imagine if the dream you worked for was hanging on a actions of others... perhaps the actions of not only friends and family, but of total strangers? Wouldn't you hope all hopes and pray to all the gods in the sky that someone, ANYONE would have a heart and do an act of generosity on your behalf??? I know I sure would.
SO! TODAY IS THE DAY TO VOTE -- the crucial and last day of voting! Nothing before today really matters... SO WON'T YOU PLEASE VOTE?
You have until later today (Tuesday, July 17th) at 5pm NYC Time to be counted -- after which voting will close. The Winner will be announced on Sunday at 9pm on The Food Network.
You can easily go to this link here and then you can vote again by phoning in your votes to her private vote number 1-855-547-8273, which is totally legal in this final vote!
Yes, I am asking you to vote for a stranger -- yes I know it takes precious time out of your day, but for Michele, someone I have come to know as an incredibly genuine, fun and generous person, it would truly mean the world to help her dream come true!
CHEERS TO OUR DREAMS!
Madame B.
