Boston Ballet

I danced at Marin Ballet for a while.

I would go back to Boston Ballet in the summers and train with them.

I kind of liked that discipline and I found that the restaurant world kind of mimicked that.

Like it had a theatrical aspect, which I loved.

I've been friends with Michael since I think 2005.

We were in Boston Ballet together 100 years ago and we've remained very, very good friends for a long time.

So I've been on their podcast many times and you may have heard Michael on my podcast.

So yeah, I just talk about my retirement, the announcement, what I'm working on, and just how I feel about it all.

And so I wonder if you could kind of like talk us through a little bit of like your process, your thought process.

I mean, we all know it comes one day, but what does it look like? What did that process look like for you?

It wasn't difficult at all, actually, for me to make this decision because, you know, back in the day when I was in my 20s in Boston Ballet, my friend Leah Serio, who's still dancing as a principal in Boston Ballet, and I would always joke that we were going to retire at 30.

And at the time, we weren't joking.

Certainly.

And then the next day we went to see Boston Ballet's Fall Experience.

Yes.

Which

was interesting.

So it was usually, if you've never been to a Boston Ballet experience, usually it's like some combination of classical and contemporary because I think they kind of try to like Give something for everybody.

Yeah.

And this time was not only all contemporary, but also had a just, like, orchestral work with no dancing.

Natasha McCalla is an international culinary consultant, a pastry chef, cookbook author, and former professional ballerina.

During a 30-year performing career, she danced with the Joffrey Ballet and Boston Ballet, and appeared in the Broadway and Los Angeles productions of The Phantom of the Opera.

She later completed intensive culinary training at the Colorado Culinary Institute, graduating first in her class, and earned a culinary gold medal as an apprentice chef with USA Team California at the 1996 Culinary Olympics in Berlin.

Known as The Dancing Chef, Natasha is the author of Vanilla Table, Spice Health Heroes, and now The Apothecary Chef.

And he, you know, my mother and he would take me down to see the Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler when I was a kid.

And, you know, they'd take me to the Boston Ballet, and they...

Like, all different kinds of...

So it wasn't one thing or another.

And she said that if I wanted to continue on that I should go off Cape somewhere, like to keep going.

She recommended Boston Ballet.

So yeah, my mom drove me to Boston every day from Cape Cod, which was about two hours in one way and two hours the other way.

I'd have to leave school early.

And I really, really, really wanted it.

So that's kind of how it started.

I went to Boston Ballet for three years.

And then I took a summer course at the School of American Ballet.