June 7, 2013 • CEDAR STREET
Times • Page 17
My Woman of the Year Speech: And a Challenge Last weekend I was honored to be selected as Meals on Wheels of the Monterey Peninsula’s Woman of the Year. I was duly shocked and amazed at receiving this honor because I truly enjoy doing what I do for Meals on Wheels and never thought of receiving this honor. Part of being the WOTY ( woman of the year) requires me to write and deliver a speech to the 140 guests that were gathered at the Women Who Care luncheon that was held at the top of the Marriott Hotel in Monterey. Below is the transcript of my speech for your reading pleasure. I edited out some of the ‘family thank you stuff’ so it could fit into the newspaper. Good afternoon and thank you for coming! I always thought that any recognition I would receive would be posthumous, so I gotta say…I am REALLY happy to be here. I am very honored by this award and your warm reception. I am pleased that my mother was able to be here today as she was the one who instilled in me the values of ‘taking care of others’…even if that meant picking up a total stranger who was walking to the grocery store with a baby in a stroller….. ‘charity’ ( as in “ charity begins at home” ) and yes, ‘hospitality’ which by definition is “The friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors or strangers.” In short, she trained me (unknowingly) to be a restaurateur, a word that actually means “to restore.” Hopefully, after 35 years in the business, my fellow restaurauteurs in this room will be able “ to restore” my sanity because God knows that only the certifiably insane are in the restaurant business. It has been my pleasure to have worked with many of the people in this room. When I say your name, please indulge me by standing up to be recognized….Mr. David Bindel who was the owner of numerous eateries in the area including The Kings Cross Station, The
Dorothy Maras-Ildiz
Food for Thought Tinnery and most notably the Old Bath House Restaurant on Lovers Point for 32 years, who saw fit to put me in charge of his operations for nearly 16 years. My esteemed and good looking colleagues from Coastal Luxury Management are also in Da House! They are the producers of Pebble Beach Food & Wine, Los Angeles Food & Wine, owner/operators of Cannery Row Brewing Company and Restaurant 1833 – Anand Menon, James Velarde, Sarah Potter, Beth Lane, Exec. Chef Mark Ayers, Claudia Sawyer and of course, Tawnee Palmer. I’d like to thank them all for their humor and professionalism. They get my vote for “people I’d most likely follow into a battle without a gun. “Collectively, this small group of people have raised nearly a million dollars that have gone to local charities including CASA for Kids, Boys and Girls Club of Monterey and a half million dollars for St. Vincent Meals on Wheels in Los Angeles. Maybe we can sway them into working with Women Who Care and Save Our Breakfast today. I’d like to thank both Robert Weakley and David Bernahl for , as Robert often says, “Dreaming the dreams that become Dorothy’s nightmares.” Pebble Beach Food & Wine and Los Angeles Food & Wine have indeed given me my share of pleasure and yes…my share of nightmares involving brigades of men wearing white coats, chasing me with meat cleavers. Good times gentlemen, good times! Now that the Thank Yous are out of the way, I’d like to share with you my motivation for being involved with
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Meals on Wheels, The Culinary Classique d’Elegance and Women Who Care/ Save Our Breakfast. In a nutshell…I care. I care that people who need to eat, get to eat. I care that after witnessing copious amounts of food being thrown away night after night and day after day in the restaurant business, that those who truly need to have something to sustain them, should have it. I care about people I do not know, because someday…very, very soon, we will all be in the same situation. In this great nation….people are starving. WHY?? Because they grew old. Because they can’t drive to the grocery store. Because they cannot cook for themselves. Because they are alone. I was taught to respect my elders. I had no clue what the heck that meant when I was 5, but boy was it drilled into me and I wish the rest of the world had paid attention to their parents the way I did. Would everybody who is currently aging in this room, please raise your hand? Wow! Look at that…regardless of botox, face-lifts, wonder creams, retinol, those amazing peptides and juicers… we are all aging. Not only that, but we are going to live a long, long, long time. Longer than our parents, grandparents and great grandparents ever dreamed of. Still, we remain unprepared for unforeseen catastrophic healthcare costs, economic downturns and the constantly rising costs of living, assisted living, convalescent care and yes, even dying… is gonna cost you. Great civilizations are judged by how well they care for the children and the elderly. We are epically failing on both fronts. One in five children in this country do not know where their next meal is coming from. Our elderly population are having to make choices between keeping the heat on in their homes and feeding themselves all while The incarcerated get three square meals
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a day, a warm place to rest their heads, opportunities for job rehabilitation, education and medical care. And yet we cannot feed our children and elderly residents who are in desperate need. What is wrong with this picture?? Simply everything! Mother Theresa was one bright lady. I wish we could’ve had lunch together…. She said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.” Yep, it’s that simple…” if you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.” I CAN feed just one through my efforts and so can YOU. I don’t have a huge bank account to write checks from. I am just a working stiff like the rest of the world, but I CAN feed just one person. Now, I am going to ask you to do the same…it takes $1.00 per day to feed one person breakfast. $1.00 per day….your cup of coffee at Starbucks could feed five or six people a day. The change in your pocket can feed one person who may not eat otherwise. This one simple thing can keep them from having to be put into assisted care living situations. In closing, I’d like to share a quote from another of my favorite ladies, Chef Julia Child whom I grew up watching on our 19” black and white T.V. while our pet dinosaurs played in the back yard. Julia said, ‘Every woman should know how to use a blowtorch.” No, no, wait a second…that wasn’t the quote I was looking for….ummm, she also said, “The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It’s doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile.” I believe that what we do at Meals on Wheels is extremely worthwhile. Thank you for listening and thank you for this honor.
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