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