Issue Number 966 | Kiss the Cook | Advocate.com Kiss the Cook  |  | Advocate.com

Advocate.com health Channel
||  Fast Lane  ||
 
Kiss the Cook
How a new memoir (and homemade doughnuts) are bridging the culinary divide.
From The Advocate  July 4, 2006
Kiss the Cook

When lesbian chef Gillian Clark opened Colorado Kitchen in Washington, D.C.’s Brightwood neighborhood in 2001, the only other restaurant where you could sit down to eat was McDonald’s. There were, however, plenty of places to order carryout through bulletproof glass.

“I was disgusted by it,” says the Long Island native, whose memoir, Out of the Frying Pan: A Chef’s Memoir of Hot Kitchens, Single Motherhood, and the Family Meal, hit bookstores this October. “They prepared the food way in back and out of sight. I thought, Who’s cooking it, and is it squirrel?”

Six years later, Colorado Kitchen, which Clark owns with her partner, Robin Smith, is something of an oasis in a neighborhood many still consider “sketchy.” Inspired by her grandmother’s kitchen, the eatery has a black-and-white checkered floor, red vinyl chairs, a tin ceiling, and cloth napkins. The bathroom walls are papered with recipes for cold-water sponge cake and buttermilk biscuits. And the kitchen -- unlike those of her armored neighbors -- is wide open, so six days a week (Monday is her only day off) patrons can watch Clark make culinary magic.

Clark’s food has been described as “contemporary American,” but she prefers to explain it as what you’d get “if Betty Crocker went to cooking school.” Incidentally, the chef honed her skills at L’Academie de Cuisine in Maryland. “It’s all the things my parents and grandparents cooked for me; I re-create a lot of my good food memories.” That means meat loaf with truffle gravy, homemade doughnut holes, codfish cakes, and what’s arguably the best burger in town.

Clark isn’t just transforming the culinary landscape of D.C. -- she’s bridging the cultural divide too.

“As a federal city, the population is very aware of their civil rights in society; being a lesbian chef is just not an issue,” says Clark. Oddly, race is a different story. “In D.C. eating is usually pretty segregated. Everyone comes together at Colorado Kitchen. An old church lady is sitting next to a 20-year-old with tattoos, Latinos, Asians. It’s very diverse and multicultural.”

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Be the first to comment on this story.

Back to top

Submit a comment for this story:

*Type your comment here (Required, 1000 characters max.):

*Name (Required): 

*Hometown (Required): 

*E-mail address: (Required, but will not be displayed)

Is this comment for publication? 
Yes   No

Daytime phone number: (Required for print publication only and will not be displayed)

Please enter the words you see in the box, in order and separated by a space. Doing so helps prevent automated programs from abusing this service.

  

If you would like to submit a comment for posting, please fill out the form above. 

All comments submitted via this form are subject to posting or publication. (To send a private letter to an Advocate editor or writer, please use the e-mail button at the top of the page, or use snail mail.) If you would like your comment considered for publication in The Advocate magazine, please include your full name, your city of residence, and a phone number where you can be reached during business hours so that we can confirm your identity. Your e-mail address and telephone number are strictly confidential and will not be shared or used for any purpose other than to contact you about your comment.

Comments that do not concern specific articles in The Advocate or on Advocate.com will not be posted or published. See the Contact page for sending comments for reasons other than responding to Advocate editorial and news stories.

Please note that comments sent by fax or snail mail are unlikely to be posted, although they will be considered for publication along with all letters received via e-mail or via this Web page. Comments that chiefly concern Advocate.com content will be considered for posting only on the Web site. The Advocate reserves the right to edit submitted comments for grammar, spelling, obscenities, or libel; we will, however, do our best to preserve the original comment's style and intent. Comments considered for publication in The Advocate magazine may also be edited for length.