Samantha Greenwood does the heavy lifting at Chez Panisse.
What do kettlebell lifting and working as a big-deal gourmet chef have in common? For Berkeley’s Samantha Greenwood, special events chef at Chez Panisse and a gold medalist at the 2010 World Kettlebell Championships, mastering the rhythmic lifting of kettlebell weights has sharpened her focus in the kitchen. It’s also given her a wicked Kung Fu grip. Greenwood took up the sport, which centers around bowling ball–shaped weights attached to a handle, after observing the Ice Chamber Kettlebell Girls team work out at the Ice Chamber gym in Richmond three years ago. Popular in Russia, where it started, and other Eastern European countries, kettlebell lifting is not only starting to take off stateside, it’s becoming a hip women’s sport. I tracked down Greenwood recently to talk big bells, Chez Panisse, and other seemingly disparate topics.
Paul Kilduff: What do you think is going to make kettlebell lifting a household phenomenon in this country? Should the Ice Chamber Kettlebell Girls perform a routine at the Super Bowl?
Samantha Greenwood: A couple of years ago the girls went to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Fitness Classic.
PK: They’re hanging out with Ahr-nuld?
SG: They’re hanging out with Arnold, yeah exactly.
PK: Wow, Did he try to pick up on them?
SG: I think he stood back. When you swing those bells, people don’t stand close to you.
PK: You’ve got this death grip because of kettlebell lifting.
SG: It’s not really about can you lift the bell. It’s can you lift 5,000 pounds in 10 minutes. I mean that’s what I did in competition.
PK: So it’s when you add up all the times you lifted?
SG: Right, and so by the time you get to minute seven, your brain starts to like just go in all different ways, once you start getting tired, so it’s really about being able to keep mental strength in the middle of kind of a stressful situation. And that’s really served me because I do big events. I’m making a four-course dinner for 400 people and I have 80 cooks all working at the same time and I have to keep it together, you know?
PK: Yeah, I know.
SG: So I’m actually not sure which served the other. I don’t know if cooking for 25 years has shot my nerves or I have a strong mental ability with kettlebell or if the kettlebell is helping balance out the cooking. But somehow, they’re serving each other. There is a parallel. But the grip strength is really a funny thing because everybody wants you to open the jar, or if I get mad at my kids and I pinch them in the arm, they’re like “Ow!” It really hurts. If we’re at Chez Panisse and a truck drives up and there’s five goats that need to be moved in, I go out to the truck and bring the animals in.
PK: Wow, I’m staying clear of you. It sounds like you guys over there in Richmond at the Ice Chamber are breaking ground for women in this sport.
SG: Definitely.
PK: Is there a reaction that you have to overcome from the old-timers when you show up at tournaments?
SG: I haven’t gone to Europe but the other girls have. The desire is to make the sport more popular internationally. The Russians are much more open but it’s all through the whole Eastern bloc, Latvia and Russia, and then they’ve gone to Croatia.
PK: Your real life, aside from swinging this weight around all over the place, is that you are in some respects Alice Waters’s right-hand woman, is that correct?
SG: Very close. I’m the special events chef for Chez Panisse so that means that I travel with Alice. I cook with her. I work at her house and make dinners with her when she has special meals. I cook for Alice when she gets hungry and she’s too tired to cook. And I’m a 25-year veteran of the restaurant so I get the privilege of catering the staff parties at Chez Panisse.
PK: Right, you’re cooking for the boss who is one of the most world-renowned foodies there is.
SG: Right.
PK: Is that a little intimidating?
SG: It’s been so long, I’m really used to it. We’re like family. Alice loves food. It’s great to cook for her and it’s very simple what she likes to eat.
PK: What’s Alice Waters’s favorite snack?
SG: Well, you know, she really likes hippie food at home. I make a lot of raita and flatbreads and lots of delicious local brown rice and I’m always sautéing greens and making chicken soup. That’s one thing she really loves to have. So it’s very simple. I mean, the produce we get are the most beautiful living things you have ever seen on the planet so you don’t have to do much to it. You cut it up with a little salt, just squeeze a lime and that’s lunch.
PK: I’m not exactly sure what hippie food is.
SG: Well, I guess I mean it’s not really formalized. It’s not like at her house, we’re cooking restaurant-style food. It’s just regular home cooking.
PK: How does she like her eggs?
SG: Yesterday we made what we call green eggs. It’s funny because I’m Sam and we had some ham that was just sent to us by this amazing slow food heritage farmer in Kentucky and then I just cooked, got a cast iron pan, threw in the beautiful farm eggs. And then like a ton of chopped herbs from the garden on top, and just turned it off and covered it for a minute, and then put in a little red wine vinegar and served it on this thin whole wheat garlic toast.
PK: Wow.
SG: Which had that delicious fried egg on there. So we eat a lot of eggs.
PK: So she’s into the egg thing.
SG: Yeah, because we get the most amazing farm eggs and they’re delicious. That’s what’s for dinner.
PK: How did you hook up with Alice Waters?
SG: The summer I got out of high school, they were opening Café Fanny and they had job openings. So I was 16 and I went down to get a job making sandwiches and Alice interviewed me and I got a job.
PK: I don’t think I would open a retail anything in this world today except for maybe a successful food operation, because that’s the one thing you can’t duplicate on the Internet, right?
SG: Yeah.
PK: You can’t go to Chez Panisse and say, “Yeah, you know, maybe I’ll get that soufflé on the Internet. I’m going home and order it online.” You can’t do that.
SG: Exactly.
PK: Right? So we’re going to keep eating.
SG: Exactly.
PK: It’s sort of a recession-proof business. Does Alice Waters ever talk about that?
SG: Well, our desire is to just have more and more people have the experience. And so much of the work of the restaurant right now in its 40th year is about the legacy of Chez Panisse and making the Edible Schoolyard a national project. We have seven Edible Schoolyards now across the country and we’re transitioning to making it a real nationalized program that’s more acceptable to everyone and also has curriculum supporting it.
PK: Yeah, I know.
SG: So that’s what we’re out there doing, talking the talk. I mean, when we’re cooking, it’s fundraising for the foundation or Alice is speaking internationally and that’s our work right now, to try to get everyone—all the kids—eating a good lunch.
PK: The 40th anniversary of Chez Panisse is coming up.
SG: We’re doing simultaneous dinners all around the country that are fundraisers to support edible schoolyards. We’re also doing a number of events [with] food artists, a big installation and living museum of food at the Berkeley Art Museum [on Aug. 28].
PK: Is Alice Waters going to have one of these events at her house? Any big names that are going to be hosting one of these dinners that you could mention?
SG: I can’t tell you yet.
PK: Okay, can I get a free ticket?
SG: It’s a fundraiser. You should come cook.
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Age: 44
Birthplace: Berkeley.
Astrological sign: Cancer
What I want to be when I grow up: A renegade rare fruit tree grafter. I’ll go around grafting rare fruit tree limbs onto all the public fruit trees. [Since brother Andy is a Berkeley police captain, she might not get arrested.]
American Idol: Esther Cook, the cooking teacher at the Edible Schoolyard kitchen, for bringing so much heart and grace to the people she serves.
