BoroMag_0517_p21

BM052017

MAY 2 0 1 7 I BOROMAG.COM 21 Falling in Love She brings an old-world sensibility to her creations that she got from her mother and grandmother, but transmutes it into more modern cuisine. “Growing up in a Cypriot family, my mother and my grandmother — they carried on their views. So even though they were in a foreign country, they thought they were still in Cyprus,” she recalled. “A traditional Cypriot woman needs to teach her daughter how to cook. So by the time I was 11, I knew how to cook — I just didn’t like it. I didn’t want to play the traditional female role: the housewife and all of that.” But that all changed when she went traveling around the world, armed only with $900 and a pack on her back. She went to a great many places, including Southeast Asia and Europe. She especially loved Vietnam. She traveled for about a year, working various jobs along the way. “I needed to see the world,” she said. And something else momentous was happening. She was falling in love — with cooking and with what she could do with her imagination and her instincts. “It wasn’t just the cooking,” Charalambous, now 34, recalled. “It was the creating using my palate. People used to say to me, ‘How do you eat this raw, and this cooked?’ I didn’t know what I was doing. It was instinct — a gut feeling.” After her travels, she worked for a variety of eateries in Australia. But while she loved her life and career Down Under, New York beckoned. “Everybody told me you have to come and work in New York at least once in your life,” Charalambous said. She came to Astoria by way of Brooklyn. “A Jamaican woman was opening up a great concept in Brooklyn, right on Malcolm X Boulevard,” she said. “It was supposed to be called The Khemistry Bar where people could meet and they create chemistry.” But unfortunately it didn’t last long, and Charalambous wondered if it was time to go home. But she told herself, “I came here for a reason. New York is considered one of the food capitals of the world. I’m here anyways — let me do it for a year.” She came across an ad for a job at mussels ‘N sausages, which is owned by Francis Staub, who also owns Le Coq Rico in Manhattan. It was for a role as a sous chef. But she walked out with an even better job: executive chef. And she has invented every dish on the menu. Charalambous said she loves being part of the Astoria food scene: “It’s definitely growing,” she said. “I see all kinds of fusions and flavors happening. It’s not just traditional Greek food anymore.” ‘An Explosion of Beautifulness’ Charalambous is always trying to dream up new dishes at mussels ‘N sausages. The ingredients, she said, speak to her. Often she will come into the Astoria restaurant early, way before her shift begins. “I don’t open up. I don’t cook anything,” she said. “I just look at them and think of the flavors that I like now. And then I go home and I do my thing. But it’s all cooking in the back of my mind. By the morning I wake up — and voila! I just wake up with the recipe and write it all down.” Most recently, she invented a dish called Portugese Sausages. What she really hopes is that when you walk out after eating her food and having had a completely unique experience. “I want there to be an explosion of beautifulness in your mouth,” she said.


BM052017
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