Women are reluctant to enter the culinary world because they believe (and this is not unjustified) that a cooking career is incompatible with raising children, which leaves those of us who want to hire, promote, and mentor women with a slimmer field to choose from than we'd like. And to an extent, they're right: The bottom line is our society does not yet provide women in the workplace with the type of social supports, like high-quality subsidized child care or extended parental leave, that allows them to fully go for it, and the impact this has on the scope and depth of a career is profound. Right or wrong, men plunge into their careers without much thought about how they'll navigate the work/family balance. They assume someone -- spouse, parent, paid caregiver -- will materialize to take care of it (and usually someone does.) This one assumption opens up an entire world of possibility to a young person in a way that can't be overstated. Ask yourself how many female Ferran Adrias, Thomas Kellers, or Joel Robuchons have chosen a different path -- say, catering or opening a bakeshop -- because it seems more family friendly?

No Larry Summers in Chef Colicchio.

Personal aside, my name dropping moment, I knew Colicchio a little bit through a friend of mine, many years ago -- before Gramercy Tavern, when he was up and coming. He was the chef at a restaurant on 58th (somewhere around there) off of Fifth. Already a rising star. I went to the Belmont Stakes with him and a group of people. Nice enough fellow then.