have many influences from all these diverse cultures. Basically, it was like a window into the world of food, where there was just a lot of it. It wasn’t like just one type of food that we ate every day. There was a lot of variety. That did have a tremendous influence just on that alone and it helps if you have parents who really love food. Wong: And tell us about when you first started working with pastry. Migoya: I moved to New York City in 1998. I moved there to work in restaurants because at that moment, New York City was very important gastronomically. When I moved there, I started a job working in the restaurant. It was an absolutely awful experience that made me start looking for options. There was a position open for pastry cook at a restaurant that still exists, called the River Cafe. And from day one, I’ve been doing pastry. So, that’s how I started with pastry. Wong: And what came next? Migoya: I was a pastry chef at the French Laundry in California. My daughter was born during that time. After she was born, I realized I hadn’t really seen her because I was working sixteen to eighteen hours a day and when I got home she was sleeping. That is what I think is very dysfunctional about the restaurant industry is that you have to pick between family and work. For me, it was clear that I wanted to pick something where I was going to be able to be in my daughter’s life. So when the opportunity to teach at the Culinary Institute of America came to be, it was a bit of a godsend. And after eight years, I think I had reached the end of my desire to be a teacher, and so I opened a chocolate shop. Basically, in the morning, I would go to work, I would leave at two o’clock, and I would go straight to my chocolate shop, it was called Hudson chocolates, for twenty-hour days. I was getting close to turning forty and it’s just not
I’m in charge of developing all the recipes and content for the books that we publish. Our most recent published book was Modernist Bread, as you mentioned, and we have a book coming out next year, titled Modernist Pizza, which we’ve been working on for the last almost four years now. We’re winding that project down and we’re starting to work on one that I’m very excited about, which is pastry. We haven’t outlined it yet, but it’s going to take a few years. Wong: Let’s start in the beginning, early on in your life. You have a very interesting background. How did that impact your culinary preference and approach? Migoya: I was born in Mexico City. My father is from Spain and my mother is Italian American, and so at home, we
54
55
Powered by FlippingBook