Again, Issues of leadership—respect and recognition—and passing oneself as someone she’s not. Especially when major media and institutions bestow on her titles that most of her staff do not think she deserves. And the fact she sits on the awards committee and nominated for best chef. Wow. It’s becoming pretty apparant that people who work for her do not respect/like her once they get to know her. Ouch.
This maybe reaching but maybe not, someone more eloquent help me connect the dots and draw parallels on how all this media reckoning of the systemic issues at BA and other institutions–who they choose to annoint and uplift, show on the camera etc. is related to Koslow and issues at Sqirl (apart from the mold issues of course). thinking about sohla, not paid and arguable more experience and knowledgeable vs. the onscreen hosts
It seems ridiculous to claim that Koslow can’t cook. Maybe she can’t cook everything on her menu, or work the line, but selling her jams at farmers markets led to Sqirl, and her palate and taste made Sqirl a hit, very much like Alice Waters made Chez Panisse. Both restaurants evolved into something quite different from and bigger than their founders’ original concepts.
Most food media make their money from ad sales, so they cover whatever they think will attract advertisers or readers.
Koslow’s talkative, articulate, media-savvy (she was a producer for American Idol), and was a trend-setter. If you wonder how she became a celebrity, look at how coverage of her evolved.
i don’t disagree with any of your points actually. For sure she’s worked hard and its her concept and as owner, she should be getting the majority of the acclaim for it’s successes…but when your staff don’t respect you and think you don’t deserve it (because you’ve not credited them or erased them–those links contains recipes from her CDC, not hers according to them), you have to wonder how she treated (or mistreated) them to get to where she became a multiple James Beard nominated best chef, prior to this mold scandal becoming public.
Exactly this. Stipulating the usual caveats, it seems like she was terrible to work for.
This mirrors Sqirl’s relationship with Virgil Village. Giving some shine to the local businesses, Osi Market for example, would have made a difference and wouldn’t have been tough.
Marketing, visions, and having a good palette have nothing to do with being able to cook.
Having a vision is great but one of the problem that a former CDC said was Koslow taking credit and not acknowledging their contributions. Take Sqirl’s famous toast, Koslow claimed to have come up with the idea herself drawing on childhood inspiration while the former CDCs alleged that one of them came up with it as snacks. This seems to epitomize why they feel that it’s a slap in their face when she couldn’t even, again allegedly, cook to begin with.
Contrast all this taking of credit / appropriation from Jessica Koslow with someone like Chef Michael Cimarusti (Providence), (who can really cook - we’ve been to Michelin 2 Star Providence since the early days), who’s always been gracious and humble in all our times dining with him and his staff.
His interview in Forbes is nice:
"Yet, with all his accomplishments, Cimarusti remains down to earth. He eschews the jet-setting life, preferring to go fishing or exploring San Gabriel Valley’s food scene with his family instead. And when it comes to the source of his success, he gives much of the credit to his talented crew of chefs. We recently caught up with the champion of the sea to find out his favorite new restaurant in L.A., what to order at Providence, his most memorable fine-dining experience and more.
What or who inspires your creativity in the kitchen?
The team at Providence constantly inspires me. Specifically, I’m inspired by chef de cuisine Tristan Aitchison and sous chefs Amy Wolf and Leo Dalbert. All of the dishes that we serve here are created through a process of collaboration, testing [and] tasting and informed by availability and seasonality.
To be fair, this allegation came from CDCs that were there a long time ago but I’m not sure when Wendy Mattick worked there. For all we know, Koslow could be as good as cook as any by now.
The only thing we know for sure is that her former and/or current employee don’t seem to like JK as an owner, chef, visionary or whatever. I’ve yet to see anybody come out in defense of her cooking ability, leadership or how she treated the staff.
She had the jam business first, and Sqirl started as an extension of that. How could she not have had toast? Somebody claiming credit for that seems like total bullshit. Did she even have employees at the beginning?
Koslow, a former television producer, has become well-known in the last couple of years for her exquisite, expensive, small-batch jams, made from local fruit and sold in handsome hand-labeled jars. You seek out Koslow at the Altadena farmers market because you never quite know when her blueberry jam with thyme is going to be sold out for the year or whether the Warren pear butter will have just come in. She’s pretty masterful at capturing the specific nuances of fruit, sweetness and dust (what winemakers call terroir), but the unpredictability of supply is part of the fun.
I feel like the “is/isn’t a chef” and “who came up with the toast/grain bowl recipe” (as much as I do adore the toast and the grain bowls) conversation takes away from the more important issues, which are the alleged mistreatment of workers and accepting the benefits of the location without doing much work to integrate with the community
She was the first chef, but was she there from day one (mid-2011?), before the coffee guys did the pop-up? I get the impression that it started primarily as a production kitchen for the jam business.
I think I have a pretty decent palate. Can’t cook worth sht (well, can’t cook worth sht compared to a good home cook).