Impressive People: #1 Genevieve Maynard

This morning I awoke to strange reflections of my past, pondering the people who influenced me. Maybe it’s my age… maybe it’s this raging hangover, either way, I’ve decided to share with you a little about the people who impressed me – the people who made a difference, the people who ‘woke me up’ and the people who choked me up. So here it goes….

At the tender age of 15, I decided I wanted to become a chef. Being a strict vegetarian at the time (borderline pain-in-the-ass-vegan – no disrespect to my vegan friends), I decided the traditional chefing paths weren’t for me (too many animal bits), so I found myself working at Laurie’s Vegetarian Restaurant as a salad hand and cook’s assistant. I have many stories about my time there, but I’ll try to stick to the point of this post and tell you a little about how and why Genevieve Maynard impressed me.

It was a cold winter morning, around 5.43am and I just arrived at work to start my day – first up, bake the vegan muffins, then prep the vegetables for lunch. I did a lot of prep… mostly cutting bags full of partially rotting onions, mincing chili and (the worst job of all) shredding cheese with an antique electric grater that spewed flecks of cheese all over the kitchen and sat ominously waiting to munch on my chili stained fingers.

Now, you have to remember, I was 15 years old. Genevieve was (and no doubt still is) older, wiser and far cooler than I’ll ever be. She rode a bike, played base, had dreds, acted tough and commandeered the kitchen with style. In contrast, and much like most 15 year olds, I lacked respect for my elders, had an annoying high pitched voice (which hasn’t changed much over time), and I thought I knew everything about everything. So, I’m guessing I annoyed the shit out of Gen, and I’m surprised with all the knives in the kitchen that she managed to resist the urge to stab me (or at least scare me a little).

Anyway, I digress.

On this one particular morning, I was doing my usual prep. We were making lentil casserole, so I needed to chop up celery (amongst a range of other ingredients). I walked into the coolroom to grab the aformentioned celery.

Now, remember, it was a cold wintery morning, and coolrooms are, as you would expect, cold. I diligently scanned the coolroom alas the celery was nowhere to be seen (ie. I walked in, thought ‘fuck it’s cold’, then walked back out again). Upon exiting the coolroom, I said (in my squeaky 15 year old voice):

“Gen, where’s the celery?”

At this point, there was utter silence in the kitchen. Then Gen turned around, knife in hand, scowl faced and said:

“OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES!”

So I did. And I found the celery.

I don’t know if it was my impressionable age, or the murderous look on Gen’s face, but this gem really stuck with me. So much so, that to this day whenever I’m looking for something, an object, a solution to a problem, my house keys etc, I still hear Gen’s words of wisdom, which is why, Genevieve Maynard is #1 on my list of people who impressed me.

Sadly (for me, not for her), I don’t see Gen anymore, though I’m always pleased to see that her music career took off.

So, who’s impressed you lately?

Tip: See Gen’s advice above – and trust me, it really does help in so many ways.