An outpouring of love for Fatima Ali — “It’s harder being miserable than it is to be happy”

In the article, Ali credits her upbringing in Pakistan with her introduction to foods and flavors. “I grew up in Pakistan, where food is a really integral part of the culture,” she wrote. “I started cooking with my grandmother when I was six or seven, and she would teach me how to make little bread bears. They had peppercorn eyes and cloves for buttons, and I remember thinking it was such an amazing thing, that I could actually make something with my own hands.”

“Every time I'd go back to visit my family in Pakistan, I would cook,” Fatima wrote about pursuing her passion for food in New York while her family still lived in Pakistan. “Watching me evolve gave my mom comfort, and helped her understand that this was absolutely my calling. So she finally let go, and said, ‘Look, just promise me that you’ll do your absolute best. And I'll be happy with that.’ And I said, ‘Okay. That's a promise.'”

In the article, she tells us about the cooking world. “My first job was at an Indian-Latin restaurant in New York. I was a floor manager and the sous chef at the same time, weirdly enough. So I spent three days in the front, and four days in the back. I was doing seven-day weeks, 14-hour days. I did that for nine months,” she says. “Later, at another job, my executive chef quit suddenly, as they often do. I was just a 21-year-old junior sous chef, but suddenly in charge of the whole place.”

“One time several cooks called out and then the person who was transporting the catering trays dropped them all onto the pedestrian walk at 45th St. and Lexington Ave. In the middle of lunch rush. We had to remake everything, with all the cooks missing,” she wrote.

But the article looks back on those days with humor and affection, “But you know what? It was amazing. Managing to get through a day like thatand not only living to tell about it, but doing it again and againI think it really makes you understand what a human is capable of. We're so resilient. If I had to do it all again, I wouldn't change anything.”

Fatima wrote that sharing her dreams with the world was totally intentional and explains why she did it, “I'm using cancer as the excuse I needed to actually go and get things done, and the more people I share those thoughts with, the more I hold myself to them. If I write this intention down, if I have it printed somewhere like I do here, I have to hold myself responsible, because I have people counting on me.”

 

 

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