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industries, there’s a boys’ club,” Francis says. “That exists in the Toronto food scene a bit. Our partnership allows us to take on different responsibilities.”
Brushes with “boys’ clubs” occur in and out of the kitchen. Though most of the clients that Gallay engages with are women, she estimates that around five percent are “men buying cakes for their girlfriends.” Interactions with these clients are occasionally tinged with an undermining attitude. “The times that I have felt less-than are when men are sent to pick up cakes,” she explains. “They have no understanding of what the concept is or how big the operation is.” Some
of this, she says, can be attributed to her youthful appearance. “They think they’re coming to pick up this cake from a teenager’s home and they begin to ask, ‘Oh, you do this full time? That’s possible? You make enough money from this?’” While
this response isn’t always the case, she finds it frustrating when it does occur. “Those types of interactions make
me so uncomfortable,” she adds. “Just because it’s baking, which is what the homemaker does, [they feel it is] less-than compared to working at a bank or being in consulting.”
In the early days of Spice Girl, Pereira also felt the weight of breaking into the city’s male-dominated food industry. “At first, when I was doing the food pop-up, there were a couple of men who were doing similar cooking. I hate to say it, but quite a lot of chefs have an ego,” she admits. “There was just a bit of feeling
that I wasn’t respected.” Instead of being
discouraged by this, she used it as fuel. “It just makes me want to be better and more successful so that I can be like, ‘See? I told you I could do it.’”
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Photo courtesy of Spice Girl Chai.
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