Andrea E. McHugh
Newport Life
Executive Chef Jennifer Backman resembles an orchestra conductor as she oversees her culinary colleagues at the Mooring Seafood Kitchen & Bar in Newport. Most weekend days, her team harmoniously executes each component of the more than 1,000 dishes that leave her kitchen. Backman’s unrelenting drive and self-confessed type A perfectionism has pushed her to the top spot in the kitchen a position that is statistically dominated by men both nationwide and here in Newport County. But is the pendulum swinging in a different direction?
Chef Valeria Molinelli, the Culinary Department Chair at Johnson & Wales’ College of Food Innovation & Technology in Providence, says yes. When she first came to the university as a student in 1999, she remembers being one of very few women in the culinary program. “I don’t remember, for that matter, seeing a lot of Latin American students, either,” adds the chef, who was born and raised in Lima, Peru. “Now I