 and you and everyone, I swear. Thank you, Milena. I appreciate that so much, and I'm apparently supposed to sit on the stool that some NOMA intern just built for me, so thank you, NOMA intern who built this. I know, I saw them out back there like, oh, shit, this is what I came here for. Anyway, and I did wanna say just, you know, Trish, we started writing about sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the restaurant industry, and with my co-writer, Julia Moskin, and we were like, we're the recipe girls, what are we doing, this is crazy. But we, and we talked to dozens of people, and most of whom were off the record, and Trish and some of her colleagues agreed to go on the record, which was an incredibly brave thing to do, and I think it made our journalists much more powerful, and I think also took some of the shame and the fear out of speaking up, and so I think you've seen a cascade of people who are willing to go on the record now, and it's because Trish and people like her were brave enough to do that, so I just wanna say one more thank you for that. Because it's a hard thing to do to have your name on the front page of the paper talking about things your boss did to you, that's not an easy thing. And I also just wanna say that the Pulitzer Committee gave the New York Times an award for public service for not only the package of stories that we did on Mario Batali and the Spotted Pig and Ken Friedman and that, but also for a series of stories from Harvey Weinstein to Bill O'Reilly, and the fact in our business, public service is the highest Pulitzer you can get, and the fact that the Pulitzer Committee saw that the Me Too movement was really the social issue of our time speaks a lot to where we are and to the topic of the seminar, so thanks, Melina and to Renee for making this topic. Can I introduce my panelists now? Oh good, okay. My panelists, would you please come out? There should be some like great music, but there's not. I could hum, but you really don't want me to do that. All right, so Wade Davis, the son of the South, I live in Atlanta now, so he is a former NFL player, and for those of you who aren't from America, that's the football with the long pointing football. He started writing about being a closeted gay man in the NFL in 2012 and it kind of burst open this second career. He's a social justice advocate who writes, teaches, educates about, particularly about the intersection between race, the LGBTQ community, which even though I am a member of, can never get right, but I think I got all the acronyms in. Thank you. And also does a lot about, a lot of instruction on teaching men how to be feminist. Next to him is Lisa Donovan, who, excuse me, my nose is running. I said this, this is why I'm a writer, not a TV person, because I'm, I don't think Ellen, you're generous, has to like worry about her nose running on stage. Lisa Donovan, also a daughter of the South from Nashville. She's a pastry chef, but used her skills to bring the Nashville community together in a series of events and that kind of evolved into a book and also she's doing some television. And for our purposes here, wrote a very moving essay in December for Food and Wine that won a Beard Award. Are you passing me a Kleenex? I love this. That's sweet. Oh my God, thank you. Isn't that sweet? I swear the people here are so nice. It's amazing. I know all the, I don't thank you. I know all of the, all the Noma and the mad people, they're always like, can I do anything for you? I'm on a three legged pony and I would like it delivered to my, anyway. So, Alisa has articulated, I think what so many people have felt about the nascent Me Too movement. And we have to remember this is a movement that is still very young. And as we learn what the Asi-Argento thing can be very complicated and is just really beginning. And it's important to kind of think about this is there's the world of sexual assault. There's sexual harassment. There's sexism. There's power and privilege. And kind of there's a Venn diagram like there's a place where all that meets. And because food is our cultural currency, it's really playing out in the restaurant business. So we'll have a discussion about all of this and I think we have about an hour. So halfway through or so, we wanna open it up to questions that you all have. And so we can start a little bit more of a dialogue. So just kind of keep your questions in mind. There'll be two microphones and we'll sort of point to each of you and make sure you wait until you get the microphone to speak so people who are listening at home can hear what you have to say. I just wanna read for one just a bit about from the essay that Lisa wrote in Food and Wine in December. We've all been surrounded by a kind of terrible and disgusting behavior. It's a boys club that we've all just laughed off dismissed, denied, rolled our eyes at even when we have seen it day in and day out. When we've seen women give up, when we've heard people say they just couldn't hack it, when we brought into, when we bought into all the ridiculously damaging mythos of our industry, it's birthed a deeply set way of denial and delusional behavior. So I think we are kind of coming out of the denial period a little bit. And then the question is how do we move forward? Do you think, Lisa, do those words still ring true to you? Do you think we are past denial or do you think we're still in that? I think we're having different conversations. I think that's why this was really important to sit in a room full of people who are all having maybe similar thoughts, but probably also somewhat divisive thoughts, right? Like, I think there are small groups of us having conversations together, but I don't know that yet we've been able to have a really big conversation about, you know, what feels like a weird fever dream, right? Like, it feels like this last, all of the information we've just sort of been buried for the last six months and, and I came here with no answers, so I'm just gonna, I mean, I came here just wanting to be honest about how I feel not to be correct, right? Like, I think that we're all sort of watching things change and I think Trish was correct. We're writing this chapter right now and I know what my experiences were. I know how I was complicit. I know what I wish I could have done better and I think I know what I wanna try to do to move forward. So, you know, I think it's different every day and that was last November, you know? Right, I mean, I think we're in a period where, okay, is it enough to throw away your Mario Batali cookbook, maybe think about getting a new HR policy and then stop telling the new girl in pastry she has a cute haircut. Like, I think we need to move to something more internal, maybe? A little bit? Yeah, I think so. So, do you think that, and we had talked a little bit about this offstage, there's a place in the business where there's that sexualized camaraderie that's kind of cool about being in the restaurant business. Yeah. As you said, we're all kind of, you know, people in the restaurant business are sort of misfits and you kind of like that playfulness on the line and then there's sexual predation. Right. Right. And I think initially, I think maybe again, we're a little bit beyond that, but I do think that there's a hesitation. And again, not to keep riding on Trisha's wave, but I can only speak to my experiences in American kitchens. And when I'm here, I see a very different set of dynamics. Of course, I haven't worked in one, I'm just watching. But I do feel a hesitation amongst chefs that was always sort of the latent hesitation, which was I, this is my community. This is my family. I trust these people. You know, I'll crack a boob joke better than anybody in this room. You know, like I don't mind it. It's not that, that's not the conversation I think I'm having or a lot of women are having. I think that there's an understanding for me anyway that there's a safety with the majority of people that I interact with and that I'm on the line with and that I worked with for years. That wasn't for me. Of course, there were times that that line gets crossed, right? And I think when you're in a position, a managerial position, or a position of power that the dynamics change. And maybe the dynamics just need to change in general because I think it gets convoluted and complex and complicated. But I think that the initial hesitation from a lot of the people I was having conversations about was the protective feelings we have about the kitchen. I think a lot of us don't feel like we have a place anywhere else, right? Like we come to these kitchens because we're a certain kind of vulnerable, we're a certain kind of sensitive, we're a certain kind of active, we're a certain kind of everything. And that's what I feel like brought me to a kitchen. And so I'm protective of that space. And I think that's where it gets complicated, right? Because it's like family. You don't wanna, this is why this feels so nice because if I'm gonna talk about my abuse of dad, I wanna do it with my siblings, right? I wanna do it with the people that also know what that means in every single layer. What do you think the Me Too, I mean, what's your take on the Me Too movement? And I know you're not of the restaurant culture. And so you're kind of like our... I do like to eat a lot though. Yeah, and that counts. You're sort of our adopted brother, so we can talk about dad with you. But tell me, what's your take on the Me Too movement? You know, I was kind of listening to Trish talk and it reminded me of this quote by Mirio Ruchizer and she said that what happens when a woman tells the truth about her lives and she said the world cracks open and I think the Me Too movement is the embodiment of that, right? That the world has cracked open and we wanna close that back so quickly instead of actually wrestling with what does it mean, right? And I think that what we're talking about is that historically men have been able to dictate what's appropriate and inappropriate behavior in all walks of life. And what the Me Too movement is saying is actually know that women now get to have a say in that also. And that is what's causing the friction, right? Is that I as a man can no longer say me touching you in the small of your back, smiling in your face, that's just, you know, that's okay. And for you to be able to say actually that's not okay, it's not a space where I as a man am comfortable in. And I think that the Me Too movement is also a movement that is not about, that is not for survivors and victims of sexual assault. It is for the rest of us who actually don't know what's going on, right? Like any movement historically well of a civil rights movement was not about black people. It was for white people. The gender equality movement was not about women, it was about men, right? So the movement is about educating the rest of us who are bystanders, who are complicit, who just sit by and not actually take the risk that Trish took, right? To actually make the world a better place. Yeah, it's it. Yeah, right. And it's also so generational we talked about this. And in my reporting, I would talk to women who were in maybe their 70s or 80s and they would be like, well, those young ladies should have just put their pants on and gotten right out of there. And then there's women like of my generation and we kind of learned to sort of navigate the waters and go, yeah, I gotta get tough skin and just kind of find some words to kind of like diffuse it. And then there's all these brilliant young women who are like, oh, hell no. I'm not, why should I leave my job because I'm getting sexual harassed, you know? Like he's got, you know, I should be able to be as drunk as I want, laying on the floor and not get raped. Like it's a, it's a, you know, it's like a shift, right? Which I find fascinating. So I think there's some generational shifts that are happening. But I also think that there was a place we were in that was sort of a scorched earth place. So who's the next defender? And people would call me up and be like, who's next? Who's coming down next? You know, like it was, and there certainly was a feeling at that moment because I was like, oh my God, you know, once you start seeing it and you start reporting it, it goes. But I think now we're sort of moving into a place that, you know, like how do we move forward out of scorched earth? So is there forgiveness? Is there reconciliation? Is it about like how do the people who perpetrated this come back into the folder? Is that not the discussion to have it all? And I'll ask you both that same question. I mean, I think when a question like that gets asked, I go into three categories very quickly, which is, you know, for someone to have an act of contrition, to do their penance, to do whatever you want to call it, to find their way back into the fold. If it's one of these accused people or whatever, it's frankly none of my business, right? Like I don't know why the follow-up to anything happening in San Francisco is about who goes to the farmer's market. I want to know what about, how about follow that story up a different way? Why allow the perpetrator to continue to control the narrative? I think is my question that happens when I see those stories get unfolded. I understand that as a journalist, follow-up stories need to happen. I don't understand why that's the follow-up. And I feel like the second part of that transitions pretty quickly to, I see a lot of people doing a lot of really good shit. A lot of really, really actively engaged people who are pushing everything forward. And that creates a very, very, very distinctly forward focus. And I just feel like that shit's gotta just stay behind. If it's not in this visor, I don't know why we're talking about it. If it's not actively engaging us in that actionable, hopeful future, I don't really know why it's a part of the conversation. However, I think there's something useful there because back to that generational divide, I think that there are some conversations being had right now where women seem, not all women, and not a lot of the women that I think we all engage in these conversations, but I think there are extreme cases where some people are attributing the conversation to using words like bloodlust, right? That's damaging. That's a really damaging stance to take because what you're doing is you're undermining the entire movement of us trying to have a conversation that perpetuates forward. Let me bring people up to do with two things you referenced for this conversation. So the first thing we were talking about is there was a chef in the Bay Area named Charlie Hallowell who, a colleague of mine in San Francisco Chronicle wrote about many people came forward who used quite very pretty brutal sexually, was sexually harassing his staff. And when you say it sounds so nice, sexually harassing, it's kind of a, but like he was a pregnant, telling a pregnant, asking a pregnant staffer the last time she had sex and how it would feel to have his organ in her. He would instruct people on how to make pizza dough by saying it should feel, it should feel the consistency of a fat woman's breast. That's like to an employee, always teaching them how you want it. So, and those are sort of mild examples wrote about it. He was sort of ousted. He wanted very much to have reconciliation and do restorative justice. And he was a very, you know, he did a lot of good. He did a lot of social good for the community, but he also had this other behavior. So recently he tried to go back to the Berkeley Farmers Market, which is in Berkeley, California. And if you're in San Francisco, you know, all of humanity, all of life gets played out at the Berkeley Farmers Market. It's that important. So it was sort of like the cathedral of life in California. So he tried, he was a big customer there, also sexually harassed people there back in the time, tried to go back and women like drove from all over the Bay Area to demand that he not be at the Berkeley Farmers Market, which you know, it's a good news story, right? So anyway, and they followed up and wrote about that. So when she's referencing like, is that a story? Is that a follow up? And then the other piece that you referenced was bloodlust. So we wrote about Ken Freeman and April Bloomfield at the spotted pig. Ken went away for a little while and Gabriel Hamilton, you'll have heard of Gabriel Hamilton. So she's a chef, so she came to take it over. And I think in talking about why she was partnering with Ken to take over, talked about this sort of scorched dirt, this sort of like never again stance women took and called it bloodlust, right? Bloodlust, which is I think the word that you were referring to. So this idea of how do we not discount people like Trisha's experience? How do we not sweep it under the rug, which is what I've heard from a lot of victims. Why aren't you staying on this? We can't forget what it's really like. We can't just say, oh, that'll happen, let's go on. But then it balances against your notion that we need to move forward, right? Right, and I think, I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not necessarily like a joiner. And so when I get attached to like a movement, I start to get a little cagey and I start to feel like, oh no, because I'm like, I don't agree on this and I do agree on this and I have very distinct ideas about how I see things potentially changing for me within my capacity to change things. And that's how I want to continue to move forward. And I think what ends up happening is especially in like Twitter land, you know, you get these, not that Gabrielle's on Twitter, but there are people that take these very opposing sides and it causes people like me who are actively doing work to just tune it out, to tune the conversation at large out. Because it's not helping. Jumping in feels dangerous. Well, and it shouldn't, right? So you've got these two extremes where you've got women saying it's bloodlust for us to even be talking about this or to not allow somebody who hasn't quite come around to even understanding maybe what he's even done wrong. And I think that's part of the problem is, having a conversation where you're ready to do some different work other than just make money off of this industry. And then the other side of that, or some women that are just really super content and stand in front of the building and scream about how it's on fire but not actually pick up a fucking bucket, right? Like, and I think that those two extremes, especially for female chefs who've been working really hard in this industry, we don't want to align ourselves with either one of those. So we just kind of put our heads down and do what we've always done, which makes the conversation hard to have, right? Because we're kind of engaged and it's not because we're scared to have the conversation, we just, for me anyway, like that doesn't make sense to me and that sure shit doesn't make sense to me. So I'm just gonna be right here in the middle trying to make sense of it myself. And this is, you know, outside of that article, which was, you know, an essay I wrote from a place of rage because of a chef that I know personally, I saw some pretty shitty things coming from a community that I'm very close to and I typed it and I sent it and I sent it to close friends and it ended up getting out of my close friends range and this is out of, I'm a fish out of water in some ways because I'm very, I am of, I'm the tail end of your generation where, you know, I'm not one of these young women that knows how to say I don't want to be identified, not that anybody does, but I certainly have protected myself for years to not be identified by my weaknesses or by my traumas. I sure as shit didn't want to win a James Beard award for yelling rape and abortion, right? I'm honored that I did. I'm glad it made an impact. I'm so incredibly happy to be here to speak on it, but when do I get to fucking get back to work? Is the thing I keep thinking to myself, right? I know there's work to do and I'm here, I'm in it, but I think a lot of women are feeling like, okay, do you want, are you calling me because you want to talk about what I'm working on? I've got phone calls about other men still. When am I going to stop getting asked about the male narrative? Well, let's talk about that for a second and this is where you come in, right? Thank you. So first of all, what, I mean, to this point, at some point like the women have to fix this too, like it's a little exhausting. And then also what advice would you give to somebody who's, you know, trying to wake up to their sexist behavior that they maybe didn't quite even understand? I think there's a lot of men who are just frankly baffled, like all I did was say that she looked really cute in those shorts. Why is that a problem? You know, we are people working from there to also people who are like, you know, really doing egregious behavior. So what are men's roles in this? And then what advice would you give to somebody like a Charlie Hollowell or a Ken Friedman? Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that, so I do a lot of coaching with men and, you know, I get phone calls from PR people from men who have done really awful things and can you work with this person? And, you know, let me say this, one thing I'm disinterested in doing is telling women what they should think or how they should feel or how they should act. So you will never hear me say that. I think that what we're really talking about here is that we are deeply interested in ending this conversation because we want to get back to, you know, life as normal but we also want to think of ourselves as good people. And we're fucking not, you know, like, like none of us in here are good people. Like, we're just women beings. Like, as long as we want to see ourselves deeply as good people, we will never own our complicity in these actions, right? Like, none of us are good, none of us are bad, we're just humans. Like, we are just human beings for a perfectly flaw. And if we can rest in that uncomfortableness of saying that I've done some really amazing stuff in this world, but I've also been a jerk too, right? So when you tell a woman you have some really cute shorts on, think about it. Would I tell a man that, right? So am I saying this because I actually want a different type of reaction from this woman than I would if I told a man that, right? So... What's the motivation? Yes, like, what's the intent that is behind the actual action is what that we have to interrogate? And the truth is, I said earlier, we as men have never been forced to have to do that. And we're deeply uncomfortable now about being forced to wrestle with how we comport ourselves, how we show up in the workplace. And that is an uncomfortable space. And so what I tell men to do one is, stop saying I'm here to just listen. Like, I'm here to just listen. No, read first. Like, read a book. You know what I mean? Like, there's a canon of literature out there that women have written about the interior of their lives so that we can actually can know about it, you know? When you talk to men in America, what they'll tell you is that they learn about five women in middle school and high school. Betsy Ross, Susan B. Anthe, Herod Tubman, and Rosa Parks. And that's it, right? So we have not been groomed to believe that women have made the world a better place. And that informs how we show up and how we think women can be leaders, right? So that's one, right? We have to read. Thank you. Two, we have to own our bullshit. We have to own that we are sexist. I'm a feminist and I'm sexist, right? Like, I have to constantly reckon with that, with the idea that I have sexist thoughts. And when I can own that, then I can start to do some real work. And then two, how do I start to speak up? When my male friends say something that sexist, I have to be courageous enough to call them in and not call them out and say, hey, like, what you just said, let's really talk about that. Like, let's wrestle with like what's behind your actions. And then I think as parents, we have to understand that your children learn sexism before they learn anything else. If you're a heterosexual parents, your kids are watching the way that you interact with each other. And they learn that this is what women do and this is what men do. And that informs their lives as they go forward. So you have to be very conscious of that. Okay, so, and thank you for that. That's really, I appreciate it. And I wanna, when I do a really quick follow up because I think the conversation about complicity and how we're all, every single person in this room is complicit to the lives that we're all trying to change right now helps with the, like how do we restore our place? Well, we're all trying to do it. And I think unless you are being, you know, and I think showing up and saying, I'm ready to do some work for this is how you get to show up and do some work for this, right? Like we've, I think we're all acknowledging that we have been engaged in a culture that we don't want to continue to perpetuate. So I think that answers the first question of like, how do you reconcile this? How do you have, you know, the permission? You do, you show up. If, you know, Charlie Hollowell's a different story, the man's got some work to do. Right. Serious work to do. And if he happens to show up in the viewfinder of what we're all trying to do, I don't know that anyone's going to be like, fuck you, man, get, you know, we're going to be like, all right, come on. Like, I think so. I think if someone is, I'm a hopeful person. I don't want to go through this life thinking that everyone's awash, right? Like if he shows up where we can all see at some point that he's done some work and he's ready to do more. And I don't know what that work is. I'm trying to figure it out right now, you know? I don't know when that is. I sure should know it's not yesterday and it's not tomorrow, you know? And it's not, I don't want to go open a restaurant with him. You know? I mean, so I think there's, some people have way more work to do than others to be able to be allowed to do the work we're all trying to do. Right. So is it effective to do things like, to, you know, throw away your Mario cookbooks to not show up at the spotted pig because Gabrielle took it over or is Gabrielle taking over a reason to go? Would you go to an April Bloomfield restaurant given? I mean, people are making that decision. They're saying, I'm not, I'm gonna vote with my dollar and not spend it at people, at places where there was sexual harassment. Do you think that's a reasonable response? So I don't think we can throw anybody away, right? There is real power in the ability for redemption, right? So what I coach men to do often is, can you articulate the journey that you have gone on since what was said about you up until the point where you're ready to come out? Can you articulate not just who you harmed but the impact that you've harmed them for the rest of their lives? There will never be a point where Tricia won't have to reckon with what was done to her. So if you as a man can honor that and can speak to that and then also talk about the work that you're going to do on self going forward, like that this a journey that never ends, like learning to undo sexism, racism, homophobia never ends, like it is constant work. And then to be able to say, here's what I'm going to do to reconcile the community going forward also. But if you can articulate that with a certain level of clarity, honesty and vulnerability, then you shouldn't be allowed to come back in until you have met certain types of requirements. And that typically means you should probably go away for a couple of years, right? And say, hey, like this is the work that I've done. You know, like it's not enough to just say I'm sorry, you know. And no one cares why. People want to know what and how. I agree. I think Trish, I mean, Lisa. Sorry, I was thinking about Trish. I'm honored just to be. Or Lisa. Yeah. What he said. I mean, I'm thinking about a very specific case of someone that's doing work that the visual's great right now. The visual's great for what he's doing and he's dotting all his eyes and crossing all of his T's and making sure that his visuals are just front and center and it's everywhere in his brand, right? I'm waiting for him to say, yeah, I fuckin' did some shit. Really? Or, you know what? I kind of showed up and capitalized on a thing. And I wasn't. Do we know who this person is? You know, I'm not. He's the brightest man in the world. I know who this person is. And I like, it's not like a, I just, I don't want to make my work. I don't want to make my work about a person. Like I want my work to be about how I continue to be in this industry. Right. And, you know, but that's a perfect instance of, for me, I don't know that that guy's ever gonna be in my field division as an ally or someone that I want to rely on or work with or team up with or do a project with because I kind of think he's just, you know, faking it and that you can smell that a mile away. And so, I don't know. I think showing up and being really sincere and honest and, you know, not just obfuscating what you're scared someone might know about you, but just fuckin' showing up and owning it. Right? We, do we have our microphones getting ready? I just think about questions. Where, if you could have the microphones over here and over here and while you guys are thinking of your questions, I just wanna ask if, can you practically give us some language? Say I'm working on the line for people here or in the kitchen or in the front of the house and somebody says something about women or says something that seems sexist. What's some good language? How do you make that so you're not calling it? Like you say, calling a man and not calling him out. Can you maybe give us an example of what you might say to somebody who's, you know, says something practically? I think a simple way. So if someone says something that's not egregious, right? So saying that the dough should feel like breast is pretty egregious and like, I don't know how to be gentle with that, right? But if someone says something around someone's clothing, right, that's somewhat innocuous. Like so-and-so is a little hot. Yeah, you can say, tell me more about, you know, about what's underneath that comment about this woman, right, to approach it with a certain level of curiosity, right, and to ask a question because then you force that person to think about what their action just was, right? And to also do it hopefully in a way where that person can hear it silently, right? So there's, I mean, just amongst you two. But also don't forget to check on the person who the actual words were said about, right? It's just not enough for me to think that can I coddle you for saying something sexist? Also, there was a person who actually has to, has received probably not that comment just once, but probably their entire lives, right? So, you know, I know for a fact that every woman in here by the time that she was 16 knew what to expect from men, right, probably by the time that they were 12, to be honest, right? And I have to understand that. And I have to know that when a male friend of mine or even a colleague of mine says something to a woman that she knows exactly what that's about. And I have to now reckon with you to hopefully get you to have a certain level of awareness so that you don't say that again. And I have to risk losing your friendship over that too. Like I need to be okay with the fact that you may never talk to me again because I called you in about something that you just said. And then is it appropriate for you to go to that woman and say, hey, I heard that, I think that's cool, how do you feel? Or is that over making it work for women? I think it's gonna depend on your relationship with that individual, right? Because you also don't want someone else to feel like that they aren't capable of self-care and self-management. But to figure out a way to check in, right? That honors this person's humanity. Not writing it on your horse to sort of dance. Exactly, exactly, right? But to also, like, to let that person know that you're never gonna be a bystander or complicit in the fact that something just happened there that you weren't okay with. Okay, so when we do questions and comments, let's try not to, like, do long monologues since there may be a lot of people who wanna talk or say something. I only say that because, you know, and I know our microphone. Is there anybody up there? There's a mic here. Is anybody here or have something they wanna say or a comment or a question, don't be shy? There's a gentleman right up here. Of course, he's up here. And there's a woman in the back up there. And there's, let's see, there's a woman up here in the back. So maybe the second mic could go up here and the first mic could come down here. There he is. Run right up there. I think we have it, huh? Right. Yeah. Is there? Yeah. Oh, you have a mic up there? Should I start? Yeah, go up there to her. Oh, there we go. The mic is getting past and then you can. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. You're right next, right up there, okay? So go ahead, please. Well, now it's working. I just, for us people not living in New York City on a daily basis, could you please update us? What, actually, because I'm a journalist, I wrote my version for my paper of your work on my battalion and the spotted pic. So, but could you update us? What is the situation right now? Did it hurt their businesses? Are they still in business? Are they working in the restaurants? Just a small update because it's, you're referring to it all the time and it's- Oh, sure. They do hang an effigy of Mario Batali every morning in Washington Square and then people come and throw stones at it. Which we enjoy quite a bit. No, I'm kidding. So, there are some, there's a criminal investigation around Mario Batali right now. There's been no charges. I need to say very fairly about that. Last Thursday or Friday, the Attorney General in New York served some subpoenas on Ken Friedman and his business around sexual harassment. There's criminal charges that could happen around sexual harassment and abuse. And then there's a sexual harassment law that it's a civil proceeding in which they investigate and they're investigating the Harvey Weinstein company similarly. So, there's an active investigation around sexual harassment at the spotted pic and his properties. That's happening in New York. In terms of hurting their business right now, they're at the very tail end of dividing up the Bastianich Batali Empire that was supposed to be done already. It's gotten complicated partially by some Attorney General action, but Joe Bastianich and his partners and I think Nancy Silverton, who's not here, that organization is trying to revamp. They've put a lot of money into human resource policies and redoing their business. And they're sort of dividing up what the payout to Mario will be. I think in the last, I knew that there was maybe one or two restaurants, but I think now that I think all the restaurants are off the table and I don't know what their settlement's gonna be. We're sort of waiting to hear what that division will be. There's some other lawsuits and some legal issues that are going on. April Bloomfield is separated from Ken Friedman and they've divvied up their restaurants a little bit. I know White Gold Butchers, which was one of the restaurants in New York is closed now. And as far as we know, Ashley and Gabrielle Hamilton and her wife Ashley are taking over or becoming partners with Ken. I don't know how active that'll be. So that's the New York scene in San Francisco. There's a whole another business arrangement that's kind of being divvied up with Charlie Hallowell and he's still partner, still owns some of his businesses. So it's kind of a slow process and I don't think we know exactly how all that looks really. So I don't hope that answers your question. Right, thank you. Okay, and yes. Hi, so this doesn't exactly directly go to you because I love some of the points and advice that you've given on this panel. But with the Me Too movement in general, I feel as though there's a lot of talk, a lot, a lot of talk about what we're doing about it. There's a few success stories that get a lot of attention, but there's so much, there's not enough action being done to a really, really high extent. For example, I work in the food industry, I supply ingredients to restaurants and there are some, for one example, there's one chef who's really successful, does tons of charity work, is loved by so many people. The stuff he's done to me and other women is horrific, but I'm not in a position to sort of voice out because I'm still growing my business. I supply my ingredients to Whole Foods through a distributor who has said shockingly obnoxious stuff and is really supported and endorsed by people that are really influential, who I admire in the industry, that bring him into talks and things and my team are desperately begging me not to say anything. And I'm someone who rarely bites my tongue. I don't normally get myself in these situations of frustration, so I feel even worse for people that aren't in my position. So I just feel like there's just so much sort of, there's totally just hardly any integrity in this industry because there's so much ego and greed and everyone's sucking up to everyone. So how do we kind of tackle that and get more action and make a safer space to kind of bring up these things? And I think that anybody else who wants to talk, please raise your hands for the microphone, people can find you. But it is a toxic, I feel like we were all swimming in this toxic water and now suddenly we all realize how toxic it is. So it's, we see this everywhere, right? And also to your point, Sieverson at nytimes.com, but we can talk about that later. But what do you do? Do you call out? Like do you see it all around you? Is it up to you to stand up and go up to that, to this person? I mean, obviously your business depends on him and say, you know, this is really uncool, knock it off. I mean, do we all just need to start calling this out? It can be dangerous for people who could financially get hurt. Yeah, so my advice would be, are there other people who you can reach out to who are allies, right? Who you can either go with or actually have them potentially tell your story for you, right? And it's hard, right? As Bell Hook said, we all have to stand in a circumstance of risk, right? So at some point you may have to stand in a circumstance of risk and risk your safety, your livelihood for the good of others, right? But how can you find other allies so that you can do that with because there's strength in numbers so that the backlash doesn't fall squarely on you? So that would be my advice is, can you find other women or even other men who can stand in solidarity with you? Because if you come out in a collective, it's gonna be very hard for all of you to now be taken down. Lee Sam, any advice you wanna jump in there, you good? I mean, I think that's it. And I think we're in a phase of, I think this conversation where finding the way to do it is the answer. I understand the discomfort and the fear and what you have on the line. I think part of this process is learning how to manage it, and that means deal with it, right? Like I think we have to. I think we have to start doing the really uncomfortable, risky work. And it's easier said than done, obviously, right? Sure, yeah. Well, but yeah. Saying that if you have a, I'm just speaking so it's, that she feels like she cannot take the risk because she's got a team and she's gotta pay them and that she would suffer financially too much. I would see who you could find, you know. Who could? Who could? No, I'm not saying that it's easy also. I don't think we're saying it's easy. We're not saying that it's easy, but I'm just trying to give you some other options. Right, and I think this just, this experience shows that this is still bubbling everywhere, you know. This isn't like, oh, we all realized we have a problem, now we're all gonna, you know, I mean this is a very real day-to-day problem, I think, for women in the business. So let's, who else had a question or a comment? Right here's one, and where are we? Oh, and right here, and then we'll go right here to you. Okay, can we get a microphone right down here? We'll go here and then here. Well, I had a question. So, first off, I just wanna thank all the incredible women who have come forward in this movement, but it's time for men to step up, and be the ones to come forward, not in a negative way, but in a positive way. Men, we don't really, we're not in touch with our emotional side. We need positive male role figures, especially in this industry. It shouldn't be a problem to speak out, but until we have leadership from conscious men who are willing to stand up and talk about their emotions, and I mean it's just, men still dominate, like we're all in the leadership positions, like, so until we have an example of how to lead consciously, I just don't, it shouldn't be up to women to be courageous and be bold and share these stories. Like, we can have that over and over again, but until men, like, we're just saying to tighten that, we're not gonna rip it wide open, until we face the fact that men don't know how to be emotional and to be open with some really tough topics, because men, the culture, we're just told to suck it up. We're told, you know, this type of mentality, I'd just be curious if Wade, with your experiences within this movement, I mean, it just seems like this is a topic that is not addressed enough in terms of men actually being raw. Like, we're told we can't do that still. Thank you, Wade, do you wanna? So, you know, thank you for your comments. So, what we men are socialized to believe that there's no value in us being vulnerable, right? That there's no social capital there. So, my work is working with senior men, like CEOs of companies, and get them to a point where they can actually be vulnerable, be authentic, be honest, own our insecurities and our fear, because the reason we treat other people the way that we do is because we're so fearful and we're so insecure, right? And what we don't also get is that we actually emasculate ourselves. No one else can emasculate you when you define your manhood for you, but we don't know how to do that because we've never been taught that, right? So, part of the work is to have more folks like Renee, who's opening up this space. Like, I'm so grateful that someone of his stature is taking a big risk by having this conversation. Like, I'm under no pretense to believe that him doing this is a risk to him. So, he's modeling what it means to be a man who has power, privilege, and access to stand in a circumstance of risk, knowing that you can help to crack the world even wider open and then do the real emotional labor of closing it back. All right, thank you, yes. Hey, so I think I had maybe a two-part question. So, Wade, you had said earlier that one of the reasons that we want to rush past some of the discomforting parts of these conversations is because we want to think that we're good people. And I just wonder if you feel like there's more to it than that because I hear vestiges of this. I mean, this is a cross-cultural problem in many areas. I see this when it comes to police brutality and black lives matter. We just want to skip over it. It's always the same people who are doing the complaining, the people who can be accountable, never want to be without being forced to. We see this in the trans community. I mean, there's just all kinds of spaces where it's always the people who are oppressed who have to do the hard labor. And the folks who have the spotlight shown on them always want to just say, well, what can we do to fix it? So I get really frustrated with that question sometimes because I feel like you haven't even fully engaged in what the issue is and how intergenerationally problematic that is. So I just wondered if maybe you could speak a bit more to that impulse for the people in power to just push forward. And then the brief second part was, you talk about saying to folks like, hey, read a book, do some self-education. I wondered if you had some favorite go-tos. You mentioned Bell Hooks. I don't think she's like first step reading for most people. But if you're trying to engage people in a conversation, what do you suggest they do? Great. So your question is to recap. So the idea is that it's always a people and this is with race and with like, so in racism, why people say, well, tell us what to do. We want to help. And again, it puts the onus on the minority or on the person, the victim. So it's like, you know, men saying, hey, you know, sisters tell us what to do and we'll do it. Where you're trying to talk about putting the power, putting the responsibility on the people who are in the position of privilege and power to go ahead and figure it out and do the work, right? Is that, am I hitting that right? I just want to make sure that we understand that. Yeah, but also he specifically cited that we have this general human inclination to want to be good. And that is part of why we want to skip over the messiness. I see. But I think there's maybe more to that. I mean, we see this like with the Catholic Church too, right? We just want to like, just hop on over, just skip over it. And it's like, no, we really need to be with what has happened here. And like, you know, but we're doing this in all areas of our lives. It's not just in restaurants. It's not just around, you know, violence and policing. It's not just, you know, in our religious spaces. So, you know, given that your work is so varied, I just wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that impulse so we can better understand. Yeah, I'll be quick. Yeah, yeah, so I'll be quick. So the reason I mentioned the idea of good people, right? So when I talk to parents and I say like, why haven't you talked to your son or your daughter about rape or sexual assault? They say, well, my kid's a good kid, right? No, actually, your kid is not a good kid. Your kid is human, right? But we're so deeply interested in seeing ourselves as good people, right? Because what the Me Too movement is, it's a mirror to our private lives. Like, we all think that we're so private. No, we know who the hell that we are, you know? Like, we see each other really, really clearly, but we don't want to, right? I think the other piece is that, and I wrote it down here. How do I say this cleanly? It's much easier to point the finger on the person who is surviving it, to have them do the actual work than for us to go inward and realize that these awful things that people are doing, we've thought about them too. Like, and that is the truth here, right? Like, we're not private people, right? You know, like, folks say that porn tells lies about women, but the truth about men. Exactly, right? Like, that's what it is, right? And we just have to own that, you know? And it's so hard for us to be honest about ourselves, you know, like, I have to own that I'm sexist. And if I can't own that I'm sexist, I can never do the work to unlearn it. Like, people have to own that you're racist. You know, like, you've grown up in a world that has intentionally told you lies about people all the time, lies about women, lies about folks of color, lies about trans folks, just nothing but lies. And the last thing that I'll say is that, that the people in power have never given people who are weak anything. They had to take it through time and through force. Like, that has always happened. Like, men just didn't give women the right to vote. This didn't happen. You know, like, you know, like, like white people just didn't give black people the right to vote, we had to take it. Like, all these movements are about having to take it back because no one is benevolent in this country. You know, men say things like, well, I had a daughter and I became a gender equality advocate. That's benevolent sexism. You forgot about every other woman you've known in your entire life, but this daughter now who you want to protect is still patriarchal in nature. So all these things, we still haven't learned, right? The last thing is some books are Read Anything by James Baldwin, Read Anything by Judith Butler, Read Anything by Michael Foucault, Read Anything by Roxane Gay, Read Anything by Janet Mock. Like, just read books that are written by women and about women and your world will be immensely different because we know nothing about the interior of your lives. All right, thank you. And subscribe to The New York Times, but anyway, so we had two questions up here. We had the fellow in the saucy chapeau and then there's another woman over here. Okay. So I work in New York restaurants and it's clear that we are the most fucked up restaurant industry in the world from this symposium so far. So I have worked with a former colleague of mine who has been fired from four or five jobs for harassment. He keeps popping up in different restaurants. He's actually increased now. No, I'm kidding. Sorry, that was a bad joke. So my question was, what is wrong in the system that is enabling people like that to keep getting jobs? Because I think the two things that I think about are one, that when people call to check a reference on someone, they're not able to ask certain questions. Like, have you sent dick pics to anyone at your former job? So the people who have fired that person are not able to reveal the things that were wrong with them. And the other thing is that the restaurants themselves seem not willing to report the behavior to the authorities because they don't want the bad press or they don't want the attention to shine a negative light on their restaurant. But I'm just curious to know what you think. And that may be something that has to change in order to see those people really disappear. Right. It's interesting. There's a lot of the women we talked to were afraid to come out and talk on the record in our stories because they were afraid they would get blacklisted. Or some had gotten blacklisted for speaking out. And that's one of the issues that is being investigated by the attorney generals, like blacklisting of people who spoke out. I wonder if that could ever flip. And there would be a blacklisting. The restaurant industry is pretty good at gossip and blacklisting people that they don't like. I wonder if the culture would ever change so that the blacklist would be for the dickpick guy. It's kind of an interesting flip on the thing. But what do you think in business? I think this is where, as chefs and cooks and dishwashers, it's not like we don't have intimate conversations with each other about our workplace all the time, right? So I understand that you might not always be in a position of power or authority to go to your boss and say, listen, but I think that's where we're at. I think that we have to say, I know you're not maybe on the front end of hiring. But I think we're in a place where we have to start trusting each other. And when we see something, we have to say, I'd like to have a talk, chef. And I know that's uncomfortable and no one wants to be a shit talker and no one wants to call anyone out. And I think that's a big hurdle for us, because we are very, we're pack animals, right? And I think we've suffered in the same ways that we've thrived in that. And I don't know what your relationship is in your restaurant or if this guy is even in your restaurant. But I think there's a burden of responsibility to be an active member of that conversation. And I know every kitchen is different. So I know there are complexities to how every single kitchen works. And I think I've seen people get blacklisted from restaurants for way less just for being a dick, right? Like just for being rude or just for not cleaning their station well enough. I mean, and I don't know that I'm even comfortable with the term blacklisted. I think that it's just being a productive part of your industry. And do you think hiring, like for people who are in positions of hiring and CEOs here or an executive chef, that culture has to be open at the top for that kind of conversation to happen and also the hiring and promotion of people, particularly of women, although it's not all women, but hiring and promotion of people who have that sensibility matters too, right? So that's how it changes is when you have people at the top who have this, who are kind of woke on this issue, I suppose. And we live in a culture where people aren't held accountable for crimes against women, right? Like only 25% of men who are convicted of rape spend a day in jail. Only 25%. Yes, who are convicted, exactly, right? So that just tells you how we actually value women. And I would just say to you, not that you're being silent about it, but like there are actions that you could take, right? Like Baldwin said, silence is not just criminal, but it's suicidal, right? So this also damages you when you're silent on it. Well, keep telling. Oh, so you... He got fired from that job after that happened. Sorry, what I said was that I told a friend who had interviewed with this person. She was like, hey, I met somebody that knows you. And I was like, you should know that this is the deal. She took the job and he got fired three or four months later for the same exact thing. So a follow-up to that would be if you know, do you show up at the other restaurant that you're not working at and like, narc them out? Yes. And I wouldn't view it as a narcan. I wouldn't view it as a narcan, I don't know. Because I think our industry, and I appreciate your answer, but I think our industry has this sort of like fucked-up-ass code that... Cultural violence. Yeah, well that's what I'm trying to address is the fact that we all have it. I know the feeling you have right now, trust me. But I think that if you take it apart, I mean, do you really have to storm into that restaurant and like, flip a table and be like, fuck that guy, get him out of here. Or can you go the back end and be like, listen up, I like you guys, I want you guys to just know, here's what I know, here's what I've seen, do with that what you want. And then, you know, that guy's fate is that guy's fate. He's made his bed, you know? I know where you're coming from, I've been there. We've all, every chef in this room probably has been there. I think if it's a nefarious enough person, I think those are conversations we just have to keep having, and we have to change the language for ourselves, right? Like blacklisting and narcing and all of these things where we take on some weird-ass burden that we're doing something wrong is a very deep part of what we're trying to untangle here. You know? The last thing I would say is, you're 100% right, that the language of narcing itself sounds like that what you're doing is negative. Like I would actually call it something very different, like a culture of care, or you know, just something different to reframe it. And that's why I wanted to talk about how protective chefs are, because I think we've been protecting the wrong way, we've been doing the best we can, but I think that we, for me, I think the move right now is to start having conversations that feel uncomfortable, but they're actually, it's like being a mother. Like there's a lot of stuff I don't wanna have to talk to my kids about and do, but I do, you know? I mean, I had to have this whole weird-ass conversation with my daughter. She's 13, she took the city bus. You know, some guy came, she had an awkward first experience with an adult man who got too close to her. And I had to give her directives that no one should say that they're 13-year-old daughter, but that's what we do, right? Like that's what we have to do. That feels like my job as a mother. And so I think I'm trying to look at it through those eyes of, I love this industry, I love it. I love the people. I don't know where else I would ever want to be. And so with that same love, I have to figure out how to have conversations and change my language because for so long, I internalized the problems I saw and how I needed to digest them and manage them to protect myself, I guess, or to protect the industry in some weird back-ass way. I don't know. So I think we have to really change the way we see protecting this industry. All right, let's go to our next, yes, go ahead. Yes, hi. Well, I have a comment and a question. The comment is, well, thank you for doing this. I've been, I'm a woman and not only in the industry, but in other aspects, I've been going through these problems all my life. Also, I come from Peru and the cultural difference, I think it's always very much involved in how these things evolve. I think this is really, really a start, even in the industry and the MeToo overall. And the more I read about it, the more I feel me myself as having all of these sexist beliefs myself so rooted in them. I'm also a mother and the way to think about how you have to deal with this right now and how we have to work on that is very important. So I think there has to be call outs, there has to be calling in's, there has to be a bit of everything so that this really works because some places need more aggressivity, otherwise people don't react. And this brings me a bit to the role that we all have to play and my question is about press because I feel that the press industry has a very, very big weight right now on all of this especially because we are so into social media and the impact MeToo has had is also because of social media, also because of press but I still feel when it comes to the industry, when I read about the press or when I go and see the 50 best or I think it's a monotema probably for everyone but my question to you is how do you feel about that? I'm sure you've had this conversation within colleagues of yours and how does this need to change because I feel that if that doesn't change there's also like it's all cyclical and it's difficult. What has to change the press? The way I feel like there's a lot of journalism but journalism towards showing the industry and this such like big macho still or all of this. So you're talking about like more emphasis on the bro culture and the best chefs being all men or that sort of like that food media. Like your opinion about in general how press is dealing with the MeToo movement in the restaurant. Well you know I again and thank you for that. I you know they're like in restaurants there's really shitty restaurants and there's really good restaurants right? So there's really shitty journalism and there's really good journalism and the media is people say blame the media but you know media is a lot of different things right and some of it's good and some of it isn't and you know I would encourage you to support the journalism you think is good whether if it's a newspaper or a food magazine or you know tell whatever you do like consume the media you think is good and that you trust and ignore the rest. I mean there's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of bad we're not a monolith and I think you know we're looking we're having a debate over what food criticism is in America right now and it's been white male perspective for a long long time and I think we're changing that. I think a lot of journalists they think we're in a big moment where we're trying to do better. We're always you know again we're human and always trying to do a better job and I think the more pressure we get from our readers and our viewers about what works and doesn't journalism has never been as responsive to readers as this time and I've never known a time in which readers can directly get to me and it's my responsibility to answer and be accountable so I think media's being held accountable is a lot more media so we have to be accountable so I think it's changing I guess is my answer to you. I think we have one more quick question. We don't have a lot of time but could we do one more? Take us out on a good one my friend, no pressure. I wanna finish this on a more positive note. I'm standing under a horrible angle for this conversation so I agree that harassment and workplace is a horrible thing needs to be addressed and this is a deeply cultural issue but I also wanna hear your thoughts on how to not get over paranoid because most of us are working very close together and I've been working for 13 years in the industry and I've been divorced twice and some of the more meaningful relationship I have been able to have work with employees so how do we not get over paranoid about sexual harassment issues and yet are able to have meaningful relationship and what do you think about employee relationships? You're not gonna like my answer. All right, real quick. No, you're not gonna like my answer because I don't think women are paranoid at all about this issue. I think men are paranoid about this issue and that's what you're really saying. We have to be honest and intentional with our language like women are not paranoid because this is their lives men are paranoid because it's changing our lives. The goalpost has moved. Yes, good. Stay uncomfortable. Don't try to change the conversation because it's not benefiting you. Like it's time for change to happen. That's all I was gonna say. You wanna jump in there, Lisa? Give us some last words of advice. That was I think a great ending there. Right, there you go. So right, it's if you know probably if you think you wanna ask her out it's probably just don't. That's like right now, probably a good idea. Anyway, I thank you all for this panel. Your honesty will be around. Thank you guys.