Q&A: Pastry Chef Jennifer Lyne
Pastry Chef Jennifer Lyne is tough as nails. She has navigated the pressure-cooker conditions of New York City’s elite kitchens, meeting their high standards of excellence and achieving a culinary prowess that can compete with the best in the industry. Her desserts are triumphant feats of creativity and gastronomical excellence that evoke both child-like delight and grown-up bafflement. We sat down with Jen to talk about her early years, cutting her culinary teeth in New York City, and starting a new adventure in Alabama.
Where are you originally from and what was your childhood like?
I'm from a small town in New York called Grand Island, which is between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. I grew up with two older brothers. My mom was a French teacher. My dad runs his own auto mechanic shop. My mom would cook dinner every night for us.
Is that your earliest memory of the kitchen?
Well, I remember my mom would have me and my middle brother in the kitchen standing at these little step stools—we were only 17 months apart—so I remember being in the kitchen with my brother, helping her peel vegetables and doing that kind of stuff. I don't know how old I was—4, maybe. I was always helping her out in the kitchen, and once I got older, that's when I started really getting into it, cooking for my family. Over the weekend, I would go through the recipe books and plan a grocery list with my mom. And we would go grocery shopping, and I'd have all the meals planned out for the whole week, every week.
Then I started baking on the weekends, and that got really crazy, because I would come downstairs to the kitchen every Saturday morning at eight o'clock and just start baking right away. And I’d have the whole dining-room table filled with all kinds of baked goods. And if something got messed up, I’d be like, “Ah, throw this away; it’s garbage!” And my mom and brothers would say, “No, we’ll eat it! It’s still good!” And I said, “You can’t eat this. It’s not right; it’s not perfect.”
So did they always know that you were going to end up being a chef?
I mean, we didn't really talk about it until my senior year of high school, when I talked to my guidance counselor about how I was interested in cooking school. And she's the one that found the Culinary Institute of America for me. So, I don't think it really got serious until I was a senior.
What was it like at the CIA?
I had a great time. I had two really awesome roommates and an awesome group of classmates. It was hard, but it was fun, obviously, being away from home and you can kind of do whatever you want to do. And, you know, I met Tyler, so it was good.
How did y'all meet?
After he graduated from the CIA, he was a teaching assistant at one of the restaurants on campus. And I was going through as one of the students. And I was playing hard to get; he was playing hard to get. I was going back and forth to one of my friends in class, saying, “I don’t know; should I ask him out?” And finally, my friend wrote down my number on a piece of paper and shoved it into Tyler’s pocket, and he said, “Will you just call her? She wants to go out with you.” [Laughs] So he finally called me. And we went out on a date, and it just kind of just went on from there!
So what was it like leaving that beautiful campus bubble of the culinary school and then going to the real-world food scene in New York City?
It’s definitely a shock. I mean, they do prepare you [at culinary school], but not for New York City-level restaurants and what you're going to experience in terms of the harshness of the chefs, what they expect of you, the long hours. Those chefs don't care if you're sick or if a family member dies—they want you to be there, six days a week for 12 to 14 hours a day. It was hard.
Tell me about the transition from savory cooking to pastry?
Even before culinary school, I knew I loved baking, but I also liked cooking. And I think we just kind of came to a decision to go to culinary school to be more well-rounded. And you do a small baking class in the culinary program, so the idea was that after I graduated, I could decide which way I wanted to go.
So when I started at Bar Boulud, it was really hard, and I was around 20 years old and,felt like, Oh my God, maybe I don't know what I'm doing?! But I worked my way up. I worked two or three stations on the hotline, but all the while I was kind of dreading going to work every day; I just wasn't as passionate about it and it just wasn't really that fun to me.
So I asked their corporate pastry chef if there was any chance I could try to switch to pastry. And he was all for it, because he did the same thing, switched from savory to pastry. So he was great. He helped to find a position for me in the company. He had originally found a position for me at db Bistro Moderne which is a bistro-style place, kind of casual for a pastry cook, which was going to be the perfect place to learn, but then the girl that was supposed to leave didn’t end up leaving. So then he said “Well you can go to Restaurant DANIEL,” which is the 3-Michelin-starred restaurant. [Laughs]
That’s where you started as a pastry chef?
Yeah, it was intense, to put it mildly. But I only worked there for a couple weeks, because the girl finally left db Bistro, so I started working there. And that was an amazing experience. The pastry chef was super awesome and sweet, and I learned a lot.
Was it hard to leave the exciting elite culinary world in New York City and take the Lyne family to Alabama?
I’ve actually been out of the culinary world of NYC for a while, because I never went back after having our son, TJ. And we were in Jersey City when TJ was born, so it was a nicer area and a slower pace than Manhattan. I had some nice ‘mom friends’ there. But I just didn't want to work for someone else anymore; I just wanted to do something of our own.
So now you guys are doing something of your own! You’re helming the Tasting TBL supper club. What do you like most about it?
What I like most about it is that it's in our home. TJ is still here with us and we’re not working crazy hours at a restaurant right now. So we both get to spend a lot of time with him. It's just nice always being together and being home with the family, being able to have dinner during the week together, which most chefs don’t often get to enjoy. It's kind of fun and relaxing—I mean it is stressful on Fridays and Saturdays when we’re getting down to the wire. At the end of the day, it is an awesome gig, though, and we're so thankful that we have something to do during the pandemic.
What is it like when you're running a restaurant six or seven days a week? Does it feel “down to the wire” every day?
No, a restaurant is different, because right now it's just me, Tyler, and Micah. At one point I asked Tyler, “Why is this so hard? Why are we so exhausted on Sundays? Are we rusty?” And he pointed out that we’re doing everything ourselves—the cooking, the cleaning, the front-of-house duties, figuring out the wine. We don't have a full team. So, I think once we get the restaurant up and running and we have a sous chefs and cooks, management, front-of-house team—a restaurant is different because you have an infrastructure.
What does dinner in the Lyne house look like?
Well Sundays and Mondays usually incorporate leftover ingredients that we need to use up from the dinner on Saturday. And then the rest of the week, we try to eat healthy as much as we can—a lot of roasted chicken, some kind of grain or quinoa salad, super-simple stuff. I mean, we don’t eat crazy-fancy. We do a lot of soups—we love soups and stews.
Pet peeves in the kitchen?
Especially when we're working in New York City, I hated when people didn't consolidate; they just left a sauce or a compote in a huge container, when instead of being in an 8-quart Cambro, it could be condensed to a 4-quart Cambro. I like to stay organized and keep everything clean.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Take everything with a grain of salt. Criticism makes you improve. I’m still working on this one.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
Clean.
What do you like to do for fun, when not working?
I like to watch movies and shows on Netflix.
Guilty pleasures?
Buffalo chicken wings, burgers, pizza ... I love anything chocolate—chocolate and peanut butter.
What is your idea of joy?
I love family. I love spending holidays with family and celebrating birthdays. I love making birthday cakes for people. That makes me happy.