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| On opposite coasts are two alumni who . . . well . . . deserted their original career plans for the most rarefied realms of the culinary arts. | ||
David Lebovitz '81 takes a simpler but no less exquisite approach. Never mind the degree in film; he's now a pastry chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, one of the country's premier restaurants and the trend-setting home of California cuisine. |
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They both make desserts, but the philosophies behind Wilson's and Lebovitz's work could hardly be more different. Lebovitz has made his mark at Chez Panisse by emphasizing simplicity --- "I like a bowl of berries or a wedge of intense chocolate cake, which can be very simple" --- rather than an elaborate appearance. In many restaurants, he says, "there's a trend toward making major presentations, with lots of different things on the plate, but it doesn't always taste very good."
Wilson started by making cakes for family and friends, and once made a bunny-shaped cake for a child's birthday. "People would tell me how good I was," she says. "I thought they were nuts --- I was using Duncan Hines." But she finally started listening. With the help of courses at the School of Confectionary Arts in New York, she graduated from cake mixes to more refined fare. She opened her own business in 1993, renting space in a commercial bakery. At first she made mostly birthday cakes, but after about a year she began specializing in three-dimensional cake sculptures and large, complex cakes for weddings and corporate events. Among her sculptures are a fountain pen, a high-heeled shoe in a shoe box (the client ate the box but saved the shoe), an attaché case full of distinctive antique watches, and an entire art deco billiards room. The cake business is a relatively recent part of Wilson's life. After graduating from Ithaca in 1978, she earned a dual master's degree at Boston College in special education and education of the blind and visually impaired. She taught in these areas for about six years at various schools, including the Perkins School for the Blind near Boston. Wilson then moved into an entirely different career. In 1984, while in a doc-toral program in instructional technology at Columbia University, she began to work with City Lights Productions of New York City as a producer of film and video. Along with commercials and industrial videos, the company also made the feature film Torn Apart, which was shown at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1990. She stayed with the company for seven years, then left to have more time with her family and her community synagogue. But family time didn't last long before Wilson launched Piece-a-Cake. Although she recently returned to teaching special education at a private school in Manhattan, she still focuses considerable energy on her cakes, constructing parts of them in her home workroom or, in the evenings, at a commercial bakery. Are there any drawbacks to the cake business? Wilson sees one that most of us wouldn't. "I hate chocolate," she says. "But I have to taste it before I deliver it. It has to be perfect inside and out." |
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David Lebovitz agrees that tasting is essential. At Chez Panisse, he says, the chefs frequently "do a taster." Everyone stops cooking and "we all stand around and taste everything." It's a practice, he says, that some restaurant managers consider too expensive, but without it, "how do you know what you're serving?"
While majoring in film at Ithaca, Lebovitz worked year-round at the Cabbagetown Café in Collegetown. He moved to California soon after graduating to look for a position in film or advertising, but jobs were scarce and his culinary experience came in handy. He took a job at Chez Panisse making salads, and after a year he moved on to desserts, learning his art on the job.
So after three years he went back to Chez Panisse, where he continues to put his creativity to work on exquisite desserts. He lives in a 1906 Edwardian house in San Francisco's Cole Valley, which he shares with toy designer Kip Turnquist. The two completely remodeled the house over a three-year period, and it was featured on the cover of Home magazine in 1994. Another big part of Lebovitz's life is the martial art called aikido. Although Lebovitz studied karate while in Ithaca, he has now been concentrating on aikido for eight years. There are no punches or kicks in aikido, he says. It's all about "working with your partner's energy to reach a neutral solution where no one gets hurt." He teaches classes in aikido, works out with weights, and does step aerobics to keep in shape despite all those tasters. Lebovitz's latest interest is in writing cookbooks. He has contributed recipes and chapters to other people's books and is now working on a cookbook of his own, which an agent is showing to publishers. And he has ideas for other books to come. With a high-pressure job as a pastry chef plus writing cookbooks in his spare time, does Lebovitz ever cook at home? "Only on rare occasions," he says. But like Tobi Wilson, when he does get in the kitchen, he comes out with a work of art. --- Liz Holmes |
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| Photos: Entrance to Chez Panisse, ©Clarissa Horowitz. Table setting, ©Eric Risberg. | ||
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For Tobi Phillips Wilson
'78, a sociology and anthropology major who worked in special education
and then in film production, the emphasis is on the "art": through
her custom cake business, Piece-a-Cake, in Great Neck, New York, she specializes
in cake sculptures like the baby grand piano shown below. 
For Wilson, presentation is everything. Some
of her one-of-a-kind cakes aren't even going to be eaten. (Would you eat
a cake that cost you between $200 and $2,000?) She spent about 75 hours
making the baby grand piano, which won an award at the Hotel and Restaurant
Show in New York City. It's constructed partly of pastiagge, a long-lasting
plaster made of glycerin, sugar, and water, which hardens so that it can
be filed and sanded. The keyboard is made of another edible concoction called
fondant, which can be rolled out and laid over a cake base to give a porcelain
finish. The strings are spaghetti coated with 14-karat edible gold.
Tasting is crucial because at Chez Panisse the
desserts don't stay the same. "We change everything all the time,"
says Lebovitz, for whom an evening may include making a base for soufflés,
dipping chocolates, and preparing several other desserts. The restaurant
serves 350 dinners a night (100 prix fixe meals in the downstairs restaurant
and 250 dinners in the café), and sometimes Lebovitz has to make
a hundred soufflés --- chocolate, banana, apricot --- in just two
hours.The work is "highly stressful. You don't get to sit down for
eight or nine hours." He pauses to reflect. "I've been working
evenings all my life since age 17. I haven't had much time for a social
life."
After six years at the restaurant, Lebovitz was ready
for a change, and he went to work for a company that owned a chain of restaurants.
He traveled extensively, spending a few months at each restaurant, "basically
fixing the dessert department," teaching the chefs and raising standards.
Lebovitz liked the exposure the job gave him to different cultures --- he
worked with many Vietnamese and Mexican people --- but the work began to
seem "not very creative --- more of a job."