Elizabeth Falkner is a celebrated chef, author, artist, TV food consultant, and the president of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs (WCR). Falkner is also a member of City Harvest’s Food Council, a group of top chefs and culinary experts who are dedicated to spreading awareness of the organization’s mission.
Elizabeth Falkner will be hosting the popular Front Burner Competition on Monday, June 24 at 5:00 p.m. at the upcoming Summer Fancy Food Show at the Jacob Javits Center. She is appearing in conjunction with her year-round work with City Harvest, New York City’s largest food rescue organization and the partner charity for the Specialty Food Foundation’s post-Show food rescue.
Total Food Service’s Joyce Appelman asked Elizabeth Falkner about the Front Burner Competition, her projects, and what the future holds for her.
Can you please share your background with our readers.
I grew up in suburban Los Angeles. Between LA and Ventura. My mom always cooked as did her parents, so that’s what sparked my interest.
Did you go to culinary school or are you self-taught?
When I moved to San Francisco to finish college, I fell in love with the food revolution all around me and started cooking.
Walk us through your career path.
I started cooking at a little French Bistro in downtown San Francisco and moved into fine dining a year later. Then I worded with Traci Des Jardins for 4 years before opening the first Citizen Cake. I had it for fifteen years and opened Orson during that time and a little cafe called Citizen Cupcake. I moved to New York seven years ago and opened a couple restaurants for other people. Now I do recipe development and consulting.
Who were some of the mentors that had an impact on your career?
There have been a number of special people including Mary Cech, the great pastry chef. Traci Des Jardins. Nancy Silverton, Barbara Tropp, Emily Luchetti, Cindy Pawlcyn, Loretta Keller, among many who have had an impact on my development.
How and why did you get involved with the WCR?
I got involved with WCR which was founded by Barbara Tropp and Joyce Goldstein. I received an award 10 years later from WCR and then I joined the board about 5 years after that. I became the president in 2014 and then had to step off the board for a couple years and now I am back on it for a couple more years. WCR advances the voice of women across the culinary industry through education, promotion, connection and inspiration.
What is on your agenda as you serve as the organization’s president this year?
We are now operating as a non-profit organization and not a trade organization so we are working on that transformation. I would also like to see WCR help get the badass women of our business in front of real estate developers and hotel groups and help them land more contracts for more restaurant and retail operations.
A year or so ago, we went through a #metoo movement that shed an ugly light on our industry.
It absolutely needed to surface as it is threaded into our society and men and women used to accept it as normal. We are finally seeing that it is not normal and hopefully we can continue to dismantle this and see more equality and balance out equity.
We need to consistently speak up and not wait to be asked.
You have also built a successful career as an author.
I have written a couple of cookbooks and I would like to see this memoir I have been working on for 5 years get published in the next year or so. Then I want to do the Citizen Cake Cookbook and have a few others I would like to do.
Do you look at books as part of building the “EF” brand or what role do they play in who you are and what you do?
I don’t really like the idea of myself as a brand but I suppose I need to. I am just doing what I see that needs to be challenged or looked at and studied and possibly shaped as I like to see things.
You have also built your reputation for the service that you give back to your community with groups like City Harvest?
I have always done a lot of charity events and I figured out after I stopped working in restaurants full time-I really needed a break after 26 years of the daily restaurant management-and I love cooking for events and charitable groups because I get to cook and because chefs can’t usually write the big checks, but others will because we cook for them. I like this kind of power to make change. City Harvest is a great organization that is helping a broken system by changing it and getting good food to people who need it and cutting back food waste at the same time.
For many years, the “Fancy Food” show has looked at foodservice as a secondary marketplace, can we get you thoughts?
For a couple of decades, the media has focused food attention on hip restaurants and chefs and now I think that everyone is looking at other ways to do food and other business models or ways to shape what we are doing with food. I think foodservice is evolving.
It seems with events like the Front Burner Foodservice Pitch Competition that you will be hosting demonstrations that the show is changing how it looks at the potential of the foodservice marketplace.
There is a lot of room for creativity and progress in foodservice, so this should be exciting to everyone. I hope to see some talent and good ideas and ask lots of questions. Restaurateurs and commercial chefs should join us because it will be fun and inventive.
Crystal ball, what’s upcoming for you?
Stay tuned, maybe next year I will come back as a Front Burner Pitch competitor.
To learn more about Elizabeth Falkner, visit her website.
