In listening to just a few of the dozens of chefs who populated this year’s Hawaii Food & Wine Festival, it quickly becomes apparent that what they all have in common — and what probably propelled their wild successes — is fearlessness and a killer work ethic.
Momofuku Milk Bar owner and chef Christina Tosi is no different. Her inventive dessert creations, sprung from re-imagining humble household food such as cereal and milk, earned her the 2012 James Beard Rising Star Chef award.
Tosi found her gumption while working for Momofuku restaurant group owner David Chang, doing everything from "typing recipes and running payroll to unclogging toilets."
She had tired of working in the "fancy pastry world" and fulfilled her lifelong love of baking by bringing treats to work — until Chang gave her a challenge.
"He got sick of me doing office stuff and bringing in baked goods. One day he said, ‘I can’t stand this anymore. You need to make something for the restaurant. It doesn’t matter what, just something delicious,’" Tosi recalled during an informal gathering at CookSpace in Kakaako last week.
Her additions to his savory menu were foundations for the Milk Bar bakery she opened in 2008.
Since then Tosi has developed what she calls the hardbody: "A hardbody is a muscle body hidden in the guise of a young woman or man; it’s about passion. It’s a mind-over-matter mentality where you can’t even think of limitations."
Tosi says she assembled a great team of hardbodies. But as her career ascended into unknown territory, they all realized they needed to educate themselves, that they could no longer rely simply on what they had already learned.
"It’s about embodying the spirit of ‘We need a better boat,’" she said.
Sometimes moving ahead means putting your head down and going forward "and maybe not letting yourself realize how formidable the challenges are," she said.
Then there’s humility.
"The editing process is important. It’s about being strong-minded about certain things and knowing when to be incredibly humble about what’s not working. Being really picky about how delicious our desserts should be is hard, but it’s one of the secrets to our success."
At the end of the day, Tosi tries to put it all in proper perspective.
"I tell myself, ‘It’s a cookie. It’ll be OK.’"
