The Road to Shanghai

Last October, a young resident of San Gabriel, California boarded a plane for the adventure of a lifetime, an adventure she earned by doing exactly what she loves best—cooking. Bonnie Jiang, recent graduate of the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, is easy to spot across the room for our morning interview; she’s the one with her feet firmly planted on the ground and her eyes firmly fixed on the future. Even her handshake communicates that she’s in control of her destiny and ready to take the culinary world by storm.

Apparently a panel of judges in a prestigious scholarship competition recognized those same dynamic qualities last fall when they singled out Jiang for national recognition.

The competition,” she tells me, “was brought to my attention by one of my instructors, Chef Lisi-MacReady. The woman for whom the memorial scholarship was named, Barbara Tropp, was one of the first pioneers to bring authentic Chinese cuisine into mainstream fine dining in America. Although she wasn’t Chinese herself,” Jiang explains, “she spoke the language fluently and opened China Moon in San Francisco. She was also one of the co-founders of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs and encouraged women everywhere to succeed in the culinary industry.” Upon her death from cancer a few years ago, Jiang continues, Tropp’s husband and WCR wanted to assist up-and-coming female chefs in realizing their dreams.

The application process called for candidates to submit an essay, a portfolio and recommendations from professional chefs and instructors. “My essay was about my connection to Chinese food and history and my desire to expand my culinary education.” Jiang’s award was an invitation to study for a week in Shanghai, a city that she describes as “the most happening place in all of China! The food scene and the culture scene are so amazing that there’s no way you could absorb all of the intricacies in just one trip.”

Jiang, who originally hails from China, artfully paints with words a vivid picture of how Shanghai is a city of tremendous contrasts. “You have the very old Shanghai on the west side of the Huangpu and long rows of colonial buildings, banks and hotels that have been around for over a century. On the east side of the river, you have modern skyscrapers with lots of world-class restaurants, financial trade centers, and modern shopping malls.”

Whampoa Club, a Shanghainese restaurant chosen for Jiang’s externship, is located at the recently renovated Three on the Bund and was launched by Jereme Leung, one of the most prominent chefs in the world. “He’s taken Chinese cuisine to a whole new level,” Jiang says in unabashed admiration. Situated on the river’s edge, this multi-story Bund complex was converted from a deteriorating older structure to a gleaming new one that now showcases upscale shopping venues, four floors of restaurants, and a breathtaking view of the city.

Learning how to modernize traditional Asian dishes and giving them “a flair without being superficial” stands out in Jiang’s mind as one of the most exciting things she learned in the Whampoa Club kitchen. “The shopping for fresh ingredients—vegetables, fish, poultry—that was incredible, too. As modern a city as Shanghai is, there are still outdoor market places where the vendors come and set up their stalls with their specialties. Unlike the farmers’ markets here, though,” she points out, “they do this every day.”

She recaptures her amazement in describing a scene where there was an entire street of wholesale vendors selling nothing but seafood. “Seafood Heaven!” she declares with a laugh. “So many different kinds that I couldn’t even name all of them!” She adds in postscript, “With so many people everywhere you look selling snacks like lamb skewers, candy, sugar cane, and fresh vegetables, there’s no way you could ever go hungry while you were just walking around seeing the sights!”

Our conversation turns toward her early experiences in a kitchen. “Both of my parents worked long hours when I was in junior high and high school and so I was responsible for fixing the family meals.” Her older brother, she adds, loves to eat and appreciates good cooking. “But helping me out with the cooking? Not at all! But he’s great at doing dishes!”

Besides herself, I ask her who’s the best chef in her family. She laughs. “That would be hard to say. My mother and father both cook. And there’s my maternal grandmother—she’s wonderful at putting together homecooked meals. Although I never met my paternal grandfather, I’ve been told stories that he was the village chef. They didn’t have any restaurants where he lived and so whenever there was a big event like someone’s birthday, everyone in the village would gather at the ancestral building and he would prepare all of the food for them.”

When it was time to go to college, her original sights were actually set on the stars, not earthly delights like food. “When I was younger, my cousin Regina who works at JPL and her husband Eric took me to an open house at JPL.” She breaks into a broad grin in remembrance of the experience. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow!’ I want to get into aerospace and be a part of all this. Accordingly, she majored in engineering at U.C. Irvine and graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science. Her first job, and one which she held for 3 years, was with Northrop Grumman where she worked on military jets for the Air Force.

It was a blast,” she reflects, “but I realized I wanted to try some new things while I was still young.” Her next jump was to the position of project manager for a company that made X-Box components. “This let me see the business and consumer side of working for a corporation. By the time I left, I had started thinking that being in business for myself someday was what I really wanted.”

I ask what these high-tech jobs taught her that she could apply to a culinary career.

Without hesitation, she replies, “Everything! In fact, I think that 90% of everything you learn in life is transferable in some way. If you have the qualities to succeed in one field, chances are that you’ll be successful in whatever you go into next. Your organizational skills, your problem-solving skills, your abilities to be able to talk to people—if you decide you want to cook and open your own restaurant, you need to be able to plan things and to manage a staff well and to be able to get customers to come in the door and like what you have to offer.”

She cites that from her CSCA experience that she saw a lot of students who believe that “as soon as they graduate, they can just go be a chef. Not so easy as they think! There are opportunities and doors that are open to you in any school but you have to be able to show that you have what it takes and that you’re willing to work hard and learn what your instructors have to offer. Other than the skills I learned and took away from my classes, the best thing was the relationships and the support that’s there to prepare you for the realities of the business. ”

Jiang worked in the kitchens at Lucques in West Hollywood and the top rated A.O.C. at the Grove as part of CSCA’s externship program last year.

Though she wants to continue to keep her eyes open to new challenges, one of her goals is “to have a restaurant that’s small enough that I can have control of the quality of the food and be able to run things on my own terms.” In the next breath, she admits that it’s not a step she’s ready to take just yet, having just graduated from CSCA last November. “I want to be more prepared, more polished, and have enough money set aside to be able to get it off the ground successfully.” With a wisdom that belies her youth, Jiang is cognizant of today’s failure rate for fledgling restaurants and cafes and has resolved not to be one of the sobering statistics.

She also freely admits that she hasn’t decided what the cuisine would be. “The more I learn about different cultures and different foods, the more informed decisions I can make about putting them together on a menu.” She comments on the popular trend of “fusion” and how some of the combinations just don’t work. ”In order to have fusion, the chef must have a deep and profound understanding of the food he wishes to ‘fuse.’

Let’s say you have a plate of Italian and Japanese. Separately, they both might be very good dishes but the person eating it is going to think that putting them together simply for the sake of being different, then it probably won’t work.”

One of the beliefs that defines her own style is that if you have lots of fresh ingredients, you don’t have to do a lot to food to make it taste great. “Whether it’s just a plate of pasta or a plate of barbequed ribs, if you put your heart into it, it could be the best thing anyone has ever eaten and the thing they want to keep coming back for. It doesn’t matter if it’s simple or if it’s something everyone else is doing, I really think people can tell if you liked cooking it for them. If it’s too complicated and you didn’t have fun, they’re going to know that, too.”

What’s “fun” for Jiang?

Definitely barbeque! Basically, though, it’s anytime when my family and friends are gathered and enjoying my cooking. I do Asian chicken wings and barbequed ribs and like to have a lot of friends over.” She’s also currently a personal chef a few days a week and discovered, much to her surprise, that her clients love her salads. “Before I started school, I never used to order salads in a restaurant!” Spaghetti is a favorite on her list, too. “I like to make a big pot of it and eat it for three days!”

Her enjoyment of cooking is matched only by a sense of wanderlust to see as much of the world as she possibly can. Deep down, though, I sense a California girl at heart. “I pretty much did all my growing up here in Southern California. Of all the places I’ve seen,”—and the amount of globetrotting she has done thus far in her life is extensive—“this is the one I like the most!”

Let’s also hope it’s where Jiang’s first restaurant becomes a happy reality in the not so distant future.