When the Kitchen Isn’t Safe for Women

New York Times
October 30, 2017

In 2010, I took a job at a New York City Applebee’s. I said I was considering culinary school and wanted to get some experience in a real kitchen, but I was actually there to write about the experience for a book. I had grand plans to take a genre steeped in machismo and tell a woman’s story instead.

I got what I was after, though not in the way I had hoped. My kitchen stint included sexual harassment so common that it became background noise, and a sexual assault, which did not.

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Semi-Rant RE: Race, Gender and the Problem with “Undercover” Reporting

via Twitter • May 2, 2017

  1. Thrilled to have been in conversation w/ @UCBerkeleyIRP @Shane_Bauer @sukisworld @ailsachang @jamesjonestv at #LoganSymposium2017. But…
  2. Also wish we dug deeper about complexities re: race/gender w/ @UCBerkeleyIRP. Tagging some thoughts with #LoganSymposium2017.
    • Typically, “undercover” = swashbuckling white dude (SWD) doing something dangerous. Is there a role for this kind of work? Sure.
    • But SWD-as-default makes it seem like SWD=“authentic” truthteller. Both “white” and “dude” parts are crucial.

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Undercover Reporter at Applebee’s Recounts Horrific Sexual Assault

Jezebel • March 3, 2012

Applebee’s may be great place to wash down your cheese-infused dinner with an Oreo milkshake (they still have those, yes?), but, according to an undercover reporter who spent time on the prep line at one of the popular restaurant chains, its male-dominated kitchens simmer with sexual aggression.

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Anthony Bourdain and Top Chef Have It Wrong: the Boys’ Club Is No Fun

The Daily Beast • March 2, 2012

I’ve always wanted to be a tomboy, the kind of girl who could keep up with the boys—and do them one better. So when I landed in the kitchen of an Applebee’s, reporting undercover for my book, The American Way of Eating, I felt like I was getting my chance to be a downmarket, female version of Anthony Bourdain. My workplace was a perfect setting for it.

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