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It's All About the Veggies—and Her Team A manda Cohen started changing diners' perceptions when she opened her original Dirt Candy restaurant in New York's East Village in 2008, with an approach to cooking with vegetables that was well ahead of the current center-plate trend. In 2012, she took her innovative approach even further when she wrote Dirt Candy: A Cookbook: Flavor-Forward Food from the Upstart New York City Vegetarian Restaurant, which was written as a graphic novel with recipes. The book details her experiences, both good and bad, of running her restaurant. Last year, Cohen moved the tiny 18-seat spot to a more spacious setting on the Lower East Side and, at the same time, abolished tipping and instead opted to add a 20-per- cent service charge to pay her staff more consistent and sustainable salaries. For Cohen, being a trendsetter was never the main objective for these two big initiatives. "They're two separate issues but they both have to do with how I see the world," she explains. "I like vegetables. I want people to eat more vegetables. I want them to eat in my restaurant. That was more about my personal view of food and what we could do with it." She adds, "We don't eat enough vegetables as a nation. I think people get intimidated when they hear that chefs go to the greenmarket every day for their vegetables. But a carrot is a carrot. If you can't find the absolute best carrot, eat the best one that's available to you." When it comes to doing away with tipping, she echoes a similar sentiment. "I love this industry—I've been in it for 20-plus years—but it doesn't seem sustain- able," Cohen laments. "I see the industry lose cooks and servers on a regular basis. We're not the best employers. We don't have a lot of benefits, and we don't make a lot of money to offer those benefits. I want to leave this industry better than I found it, and one of the first steps to do that is with tipping." Being a good employer and a good teacher is as important as the level of thought and effort Cohen puts into her food. "You are responsible for your cooks. You have to be a good mentor and a good role model. I think of my kitchen as a teach- ing kitchen—I want to make sure my staff walks away having learned something good." Cohen also isn't afraid to talk about issues that matter to her. While she thinks today's restaurant industry is in a better place than it was when she first started in it, she says, "We have a long way to go." She brings up gender inequality, for example: "Sick days, maternity leave, benefits, a guar- anteed salary—all of those are issues that really affect women. Conversations are pop- ping up all over the place about this, but we're nowhere near where we need to be." Back in 2013, Cohen wasn't afraid to speak up when Time published a cover story titled the "The Gods of Food," with no female chefs included. She wrote a pointed and persuasive critique of the article, published on eater.com, denounc- ing the concept that the restaurant world is "a boy's club" and that "the female chef is a relatively recent phenomenon." Cohen says, three years later, that things are better now, but there's still work to be done. "My issue was that the press doesn't often cover female chefs. There's still an old guard, but you do see the press covering women a little bit more. It's still a male-dominated— especially Caucasian-male dominated— industry. We have some ways to go." While Cohen doesn't necessarily see herself as having had an effect on the greater industry, she sees her greatest accomplish- ments in the faces of her fellow chefs and staff. "On the micro level, I see that I've had a lot of people stay with me, and some leave to do their own things. Whether or not I feel like I really left my mark, it's sort of an amazing thing to watch them grow—to know that I had a part in that. That's been quite humbling." And she hopes people will remember her most "for trying to take away the seri- ousness of food." "I love this industry— I've been in it for 20-plus years—but it doesn't seem sustainable," Amanda Cohen laments. "I see the industry lose cooks and servers on a regular basis. We're not the best employers." R NDS R AMANDA H PHOTO: AMANDA COHEN SPRING 2016 21