A Lot Can Happen in 10 Years
[Music]
[Applause]
a lot can happen in 10 years
what are you going to do with yours
yes that is me on the screen there young
could barely grow facial hair i was
doing a lot of things 10 years ago
i was trying to act i was cooking
and i had a rap career and i sometimes i
did them all at the same time
wrapping and then cooking in between
sets
and free food really gets people out
there and that’s one of the reasons why
i did that
but i had a lot of
optimism at that time i knew that the
journey would be the reward
i didn’t know how i was going to get to
where i wanted to go but i knew that if
i kept trying to be better
every single day than i was the day
before
then i was on the right path so a little
back story
my family comes from a long line of
chefs back
in the 50s you know during jim crow
black people didn’t really have the
opportunities to go out and eat at
restaurants even when they said it was
legal
so they formulated juke joints in the
back of their houses
convenience stores restaurants and my
family was
always the ones that were entertaining
and had the restaurant so when my mother
moved to the bronx
and she saw babysitters raising us
she wanted to figure out a way how to
spend more time with us so she started a
catering company from the house and very
much against the law
i became her first employee at five
years old i
couldn’t go out on events though i was
too young
so my sister would go out with her and i
was stuck
at the house messing with all the
ingredients
kind of like mad scientisting my way
into dishes
and that’s where i got my knack for
creativity with cooking
but i started to veer off on the wrong
path i started to stay out late when i
was supposed to come home
and this is at a very young age still so
my mother didn’t want to see me in a
body bag
or a jail cell so she told me i was
going on a two-week vacation to nigeria
i was very excited to go
i quickly realized that it was not a
two-week vacation this is actually me
when she told me it was going to be two
years
for me to learn respect and while i was
out there i picked up a bunch of things
mainly to appreciate the things that i
have here running water
electricity uh access to food
we had to cultivate our own vegetables
we had to raise our own livestock
if we wanted a 10-piece chicken wing
bucket we had to
raise five chickens and that took about
four months so i learned a really
important lesson
on the access to food and how we cannot
take that for granted
so i came back to america with a new
appreciation for life
but i quickly got into the same things
that led me out there
and i got into deeper things i started
to join a gang i started to sell
drugs and it wasn’t until i saw
this man walk across the stage and i
thought of my mother
and i thought of my grandparents
operating restaurants where we couldn’t
even sit in the same places
because the color of our skin i realized
that this person has gotten to the
highest office in the world
and that i can’t throw my life away and
i can also achieve anything i put my
mind to
so i flushed everything down the toilet
i’ll admit i smoked all the weed
and i moved to louisiana and i started
cooking started doing the only thing i
really knew how to do
and i remember i was working a job and i
would only see this person
once every three weeks and i asked him
where where are you like
what’s going on and he was like oh i
work for the bp oil spill
you know the oil spill in the gulf of
mexico that’s pumping out millions of
gallons of oil
i was like yeah he was like yeah i mean
you know i’m out there they pay 2100
a week we have to cook for about 30
people
you get to create your own menu and i
was like
how much did you say you get paid a week
and he was like 2100
sign me up because if i go out there for
three weeks i can’t lose i went in this
situation
and i didn’t have much experience
cooking on my own
but i went out there and it was my first
time in charge
i actually became the executive chef of
the boat within the three weeks i was
there
and it was my turn to lead the charge it
was the first time i was creating the
menus i was ordering
i was creating the meal plans and i was
also expressing myself through my
cuisine
i loved it so after the oil spill
was cleaned up i or the summer ran out
i moved back to new york city and i
started cooking
and working at more fluent restaurants
but i kind of miss
that knack for creativity
but one day i was walking through soho
and
i walked past a store just like this and
i walked in
just struck up a conversation with the
store clerk and she told me she happened
to be the owner of the store
and they were getting ready for their
launch party
and i was like you’re excited she was
like yes i’m very excited but you know
the only thing i don’t have is a caterer
i was like man you never asked me what i
did and she said you’re a caterer and
i’m like yes she said
how old are you i was like that is
irrelevant i’m a caterer it seems like
you’re in a bind do you need services or
not
she was like yes i really want these
miniature cheesecakes
do you know how to make cheesecakes i
said
i’m a chef i just told you that like yes
i can make cheesecakes
i’ll see you at 11 o’clock in the
morning tomorrow i go home and
i’m freaking out because i’ve never made
cheesecakes in my entire life
but i get a recipe from my sister very
similar to this
just a list of ingredients the
temperature to put it in now for those
of you
who know how to make cheesecakes it
takes about an hour it’s very simple
cream sugar
lemon zest maybe some some milk
vanilla beans after you set it in a
water bath and a graham cracker crust
and that takes about an hour
you have to let it cool for another hour
get it wrong one time
it’s okay you know get it wrong two
times you’re starting to sweat a little
bit
get it wrong three times and you’re
screwed now it’s
my fourth time doing this i’m freaking
out it’s nine o’clock in the morning i
got to be there at 11
but at that point in time i realize i
realize
many things i can hear the hustle and
bustle of the city coming alive
but i can also look back at that moment
and see that i had found my passion
if i was able to stay up for nine hours
doing one thing and one thing only
with no music no tv no talking to
anybody i was just so focused on getting
this one thing right
that i knew that i can do that for the
rest of my life
so i did the tasting knocked it out of
the park
i became the official caterer for the
store
which is amazing but i still didn’t
really have a catering company i was
talking out of my ass
so i needed capital and how was i going
to get that capital so i was coming home
one day on the train
from work and it was 11 o’clock at night
and this kid burst through the door and
he’s selling candy for a basketball team
on the subway
and i noticed a couple things one this
kid was out way past his bedtime
and two he just made like five dollars
in two minutes
i was like damn how about the eight-hour
shift of that
what if you did like six days a week of
that straight
so i quickly realized this kid was
making way more money than i was
tax-free
so i went into work the next day i thank
them so much for the opportunity
honestly i was very very honored to work
there
i went straight to costco and bought a
ton of candy
and got on the subway and started
selling
my own candy operation and that was
actually the box
that i put together that franken box i
wanted to make sure i had everything if
i walked past you
you were going to be craving something
and in two months i saved up
20 000 and coterie catering was born
this is actually my flyer and yes that
is the chicken and waffle that got me
kicked off of top chef but we’re not
here to talk about that okay
we’re here to talk about what are you
going to do with your 10 years
so i got a band together admittedly
people i went to high school with but a
band nonetheless
and we started culturally catering and
we did everything we did parent-teacher
conferences
we did soccer practices we did events
with matt damon
but i felt like i was hitting a glass
ceiling even though i was getting all of
this press
at 20 years old but i was like you know
what i’ll be fine
what could go wrong 11 11 11 came around
now it’s a cool succession of numbers
but it’s also my birthday so i was like
the world is ready for chef kwame this
is my time it’s a lucky number
like come on so i started an event i
rented out a
venue on 14th street in new york city
and i hired a pr company and
it was supposed to be for 50 or 60
people i was like i’ll knock this out
what could go wrong
everything really went wrong that night
honestly i
over produced the event so 200
highly demanding hungry new yorkers came
out to this event
i had no idea how to get food out of the
kitchen and
i failed miserably when i walked out
after everyone walked out
that were still hungry i went to the
hosa stand and my ipad was stolen
and then when i walked out of the venue
finally to go home
i looked up and my car was towed and at
that moment in time
i realized i had ambition i realized i
had passion
but i needed other things to formulate
the pieces of the puzzle and i needed to
take a step back in order to take a
giant leap forward
so i drove up to the culinary institute
of america
it’s regarded as the harvard of culinary
schools
and i enrolled i got in
and i started making friends quickly and
in trading war stories of how
we got into the school we talked about
the places that we worked beforehand and
when it got to me i told them about this
catering company
and they were just excited to come and
help me out on the weekends just to get
some hands-on experience in new york
city
that i was able to help pay my way
through culinary school
from their help and some of those
friends are still with me to this day
but my mother was the phone call that i
really made and i said ma i really want
to go to the school i don’t know how i’m
going to afford it
and she said to me son i want you to
have the life that i didn’t have
so i’m gonna give you my life savings
and hopefully
you can have a better outcome than i did
so she gave me every last penny she had
and we scraped together our money and we
took it one month at a time
i ended up speaking on behalf of all the
students throughout my
tenure there i ended up competing in a
hot dog eating championship
i did not win but it was a highlight of
my time there
but while i was there i got addicted
to the art of excellence i went to the
best school so i figured i had to work
for the best
and when working for the best i found
out about the michelin guide and the
james beard foundation and the world’s
50 best so i seeked out the top
restaurants in the world
and i went to work for them and then i
went to travel around the world
to start my own pop-ups to get my own
experience to find my voice to continue
pushing forward
and i ended up getting enough capital to
open up my own restaurant that you see
behind me
and that restaurant was the culmination
of my dreams it was my time and it was
my birthright
but we were unexperienced and we were
under funded
two hundred thousand dollars that went
into this turned into a cool
two million we opened our doors with
fanfare
it was beautiful chairs flown in from
europe
handmade tables from nashville globes of
lights that were hand blown
and boom closed in three weeks
it was the biggest failure at that point
of my life
i was smeared across every single
publication that you can imagine
i actually didn’t read them up until i
was creating these slides and some of
them were actually pretty good
but i realized i had determination
ambition passion
and those things plus a key ingredient
can lead you to success
at that moment i had failed miserably
and i could have stayed down and let
those people dictate the way that i live
or the way that i look at myself
and i’ll admit that i did believe them
for a second
but once that second was up i got right
back up and that
fear of failure is the key ingredient
no pun intended for the recipe for
success
and after that fear of failure was gone
three months later i opened up a fast
casual restaurant
and then i got a chance to open up a
restaurant that really told the story of
my ancestors
kith and kin and in two years we turned
it to one of the best restaurants in the
world
i never knew when i was selling candy
that i would make it to the james beard
foundation
i never knew when i failed miserably in
that club in new york city
that i would make it on the cover of
food and wine magazine
i’m not defined by my failures but my
failures are also the foundation that
pushed me forward
see you need to know where you came from
to know where you’re going
constantly looking back into your life
to find inspiration for the future
recently i left kitthinkin a couple days
ago
to forge my own path to control my own
narrative
you all are in control of your own
narrative it’s really up to you what you
do with it
a lot can happen in 10 years so what are
you going to do with yours
thank you