Joy Parham: Back to the chopping board after ‘Hell’s Kitchen’

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” — J.R.R. Tolkien

Well, I can provide the cheer and the song, but I defer to this week’s profile, Joy Parham, to handle the food part. Parham is the owner of Urban Country Culinary Concepts, a catering company located in Philadelphia, and was a contestant on season 12 of the Fox hit series “Hell’s Kitchen.”

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PGN: I understand you’ve been cooking since you were a kid. JP: Yes, I think my first episode in the kitchen was when I was 4. I used to watch the cooking shows that they ran on PBS and saw — I think it was Julia Child but I’m not sure — cooking pasta. I decided to make pasta one afternoon and my mom — you would think we lived in a mansion — told me that she had been calling for me and looking for me forever until she finally found me in the kitchen. Now, we lived in a two-bedroom apartment so it couldn’t have been that hard, but at any rate she found me in the middle of the kitchen floor with flour and water and eggs, trying to make my own pasta.

PGN: You were trying to make it from scratch? JP: Yes, it didn’t really work out. I am much better now at making pasta! But I remember that first hands-on experience in the kitchen. And I would always watch my great-grandmother in the kitchen. She didn’t cook too much because when I hit the scene it was 1987 and she was already 87 years old, but she liked to bake and made a lot of pies and cookies and stuff. I would watch her and learn. My mom was a holiday chef; she didn’t cook every night or anything extravagant, but when the holidays came around she would really get into it and I would observe.

PGN: So was that first attempt at pasta successful? JP: No. I didn’t get far before my mother put a halt to it. She shut that down and told me I needed to get out of her kitchen. But I did go back and learn to make pasta at a fairly young age. I think it was at a summer camp of sorts.

PGN: I’m such a bad cook, I still have to call home to ask how to boil spaghetti! JP: Believe it or not, the best instructions are on Barilla pasta, though I don’t like to promote them since they don’t like us.

PGN: True. I’ll snap a picture of their instructions and buy from another company that isn’t as homophobic! So what other interests did you have as a kid? JP: I was somewhat of a loner, very introverted. I spent about half of my life as an only child and then was put in the foster-care system and bounced from placement to placement, so I had a lot of siblings and new family, group homes for displaced youth and shelters, XYZ. Before, I didn’t have any siblings or cousins my age and my mom wasn’t one of those moms to tell me to go outside and play. Once I got into the system, I got to associate with other kids and I started doing things like shooting basketball. I played on the team at Our Lady of the Rosary elementary school. But most of my hobbies were more scholastic. I went to about 13 different schools. When I was at Overbrook High School I was studying health and nutrition, and my grades were good enough for me to get an internship at Temple, which was nice. I’ll never be a doctor, I’ll never be a surgeon, but it was interesting to see operations being performed and the cadavers and all that, but in the end it’s not for me. I learned how to draw blood but I didn’t like it very much. I don’t like things that are gory [laughs], which is funny because I do like to butcher meat. But I think I’m OK with that because it’s dead already.

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PGN: Would you ever hunt? JP: I think so. I love to go to the gun range, I love to shoot paintball guns, I love obstacle courses and things like that, so I would love running around in the woods. But on the other hand, I think I would feel bad actually being the one to kill something. I also learned things at Temple that I can use now. For instance, I can make my own pill capsules, which now I fill with spices and insert them right into the food.

PGN: Cool! So when did you start cooking for real? JP: I think my first time cooking professionally was at 16. I started doing catering events with a company and that’s how I got my foot in the door. I eventually went to culinary school.

PGN: Backtracking a little, why were you taken out of your home? JP: I think my mother was overwhelmed; trying to raise me as a single mother and working at the same time was difficult. She also didn’t have any family support here, all her family was out of town. I’m actually her only blood relative in the city of Philadelphia. Now that I’m an adult, I can look at it from a more mature space, but of course at the time it was like, why, why, why? I’m blessed in that I eventually found a foster family that took me in and made me one of their own. So I do have siblings now and nieces and nephews and extended family. It was one of those bittersweet things because being in the system, you go in as an only child and then it’s confusing when you suddenly have a large family that you’re part of. But it all worked out in the end.

PGN: Where did you go to college? JP: Indiana University of Pennsylvania. It’s about 45 minutes south of Pittsburgh and it’s a great university in a very small town. I ended up there because I’d been lollygagging my last year of high school. I didn’t quite understand the application process. My counselor, Miss D., had attended IUP and showed me materials from them. I’d toured Kutztown, Millersville and Temple but none of them had a good culinary-arts program and none of them offered a bachelor’s, so I ended up at IUP. Especially after I got offered a scholarship.

PGN: Was the biggest culture shock moving out to the boonies? JP: The campus is in the middle of nowhere and the culinary school is about 30 minutes from that nowhere. It’s located in Punxsutawney, which is an experience in itself. When you first arrive, there are statues of groundhogs everywhere: There’s a McDonald’s groundhog, a groundhog at the supermarket, a bank groundhog … they’re everywhere. We even had a chef groundhog! It’s really eerie. Also, as a person of color, I wouldn’t exactly say I had many fans out there. The townies would throw stuff at us as they drove by and yell, “Go home nigger.” Even at the school, one of our classmates said to a very good friend of mine, “Why don’t you go back to the cotton fields where you came from?” I was appalled and the school didn’t know how to deal with it either. The grand master of the KKK lived right near the campus. [Laughs] It was a colorful town!

PGN: Yikes! JP: Fortunately, the culinary school itself was great and our teachers were great old-school chefs that taught you the basics. They were really hard on us and I hated it at the time, but now I appreciate it. They taught us that anyone can cook but it takes something special and a lot of hard work to become a chef. Any time I feel myself getting a little cocky, I remember those lessons and it brings me back down to earth.

PGN: So what’s the difference between a cook and a chef? JP: Anyone who can read a recipe can be taught to cook but a chef goes far beyond that. As a chef, you need to really study, you need to travel and try different things to train your pallet. You have to immerse yourself in different food trends and food sciences. You have to have passion but you also need to have a thick skin, especially as a female chef. Some of us are built Ford tough, but I wasn’t like that. It took years of “seasoning” to build myself to the point where I would consider myself a chef.

PGN: I would imagine it entails a lot of creativity. JP: Oh yes, you have to have an understanding of art, texture and taste. The sciences play a great deal. There are foods that I’ve cooked that I’ve never tried but because I know the science of the meat, I know exactly how it needs to be prepared. It’s all about technique and attitude and experience. The title has to be earned, someone has to give it to you, you can’t claim it for yourself.

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PGN: Speaking of attitude, let’s talk about “Hell’s Kitchen.” How did you end up on the show? JP: I went with a friend who wanted to audition. I wasn’t really interested but I was off that day and it was something to do. My friend and I made it past the group auditions and took a food-knowledge test but eventually I moved forward and she didn’t. I got cast on the show but wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it. It was interesting, when I auditioned I was 24 and season 10 was on. There was a woman named Christina on the show who was an “out” lesbian woman. I had just transitioned from college back to Philly and it was an “Uh oh, where do I go from here?” moment. I had a boyfriend but I was just going through the motions. I was miserable. It was a good-look relationship and worked for me because he was over 12 hours away, so I never really had to see him. I was just doing it because my biological mom seemed more accepting of me with a boyfriend. He was a Marine who had just come back from fighting overseas. He was good-looking and had gentlemen tendencies, at least that’s what they thought. It looked good on paper but I was stressed out.

PGN: From being closeted? JP: Yeah, and I was getting these text messages and letters from other women he apparently was seeing. I was so hurt, it was like, I’ve been fighting my urges in order to stay faithful to you and you’re running around with all these women. I was mostly irritated with myself. It was like, Dag, if I hadn’t been faking it, I wouldn’t be mad right now anyway. I had a girlfriend before him, but she and I were both on the hush-hush and I gave it up for the relationship. Anyway, I’d heard about Christina and I really liked her; she was very laid-back and cool. It’s a man’s world in the kitchen and you feel like you have to go in there with your chest puffed out and your head held high, ready to talk trash. They don’t really like women, especially feminine women, in the kitchen. After watching her, I thought, I really should go. I wasn’t out of the closet but the questions were starting to come from my adopted mom. They’re cool, they’re really accepting, and I decided maybe the show would be the time for me to step forward. Plus, I lost my apartment three weeks earlier and the day they told me they wanted me on the show, my boss at the restaurant where I was working told us she was closing it down, so what else was I supposed to do? By the time I got to California, I was burned out. My biological mom was back to talking her trash, my student loans were starting to come in and I was running on fumes.

PGN: What was the best and worst part of being on the show? JP: The worst was probably my exit; I walked off the show. The best part was everything else. Unfortunately, I didn’t get perspective until afterwards when I watched it back. I didn’t know I was doing well; you have good moments there but you don’t see them. Looking at the show, I see the progress I made but while you’re in it, you don’t recognize that. I’m a perfectionist, especially when it comes to food, and I thought I was the worst person on the show. It breaks my heart if I think I’m letting someone down. Though I know when I got my black jacket, I really made Chef Ramsey proud. I made myself proud. And I won a spot in the 2015 calendar! I had a lot of great moments. It was really nice to work with Chef Ramsey and Chef Andi; she’s the real hardass!

PGN: Is he as mean as he seems? JP: Yes, but like a good-coach mean. Most good coaches aren’t there to hug and comfort and wipe the tears away when a player fumbles or misses a shot, they are there to let you know where you went wrong and how to fix it. I don’t mind a screamer. I like when the kitchen is active and gets hectic and you’re down in the weeds trying to dig yourself out. I would work for Chef Ramsey again. He’s actually very nice, he’s like that uncle who will show up at every game and cheer you on. His staff is awesome too. The show is tough because you never really get a break. You don’t get to go home and process and regroup. You get cabin fever. There are no windows anywhere to just look outside and gaze and get your thoughts together. After a while for me, it was just too much.

PGN: Did you have a chance to go back and speak to Chef Ramsey after your exit? JP: He called to see if I was OK but I was in the confession box or something. I did have a chance to apologize. At the end when it looked like I was yelling at him, I was actually yelling at one of the handlers, but with TV magic they cut it to make it look different. When I had a chance to talk to Chef Ramsey, all I could do was put my head down and say sorry for the way it blew up. But we are cool. These flare-ups happen all the time in the kitchen; it was just that mine was on television for all of America to see. People were like, “Are you OK, do you need a hug?” I was like, “If you want to hug me, we can hug, but I’m fine.” It’s all a part of growing up. I learned things about myself from being on the show that made me a better person.

PGN: And what are you doing now? JP: I was an emotional wreck for a minute after coming back from the show. They do tell you that it takes a while to de-program. [Laughs] For a while at my new job I was having flashbacks of being on the show. My girlfriend at the time helped convince me to open up my own business and that’s what I’m doing now. My company is called Urban Country Culinary Concepts and I do a lot of private dining for couples and some in-home cooking classes, etc. I’m actually doing an event with Philabundance in August, which I’m looking forward to.

PGN: Would you rather travel back in time or go to the future? JP: I’d rather go back in time. I don’t want to see what’s going to happen tomorrow. I just want to wake up and live for the day. I’d love to go back to the Victorian era though, I love the clothing from that period.

PGN: I bet the banquets would be pretty impressive too!

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Categories: Kitchens