FULL NAME: Emilia Bacovich
OCCUPATION: Sous-Chef at Atticus on East
AGE & D.O.B.: 30 & April 30 1991
RESIDENCE: Bougainvillea Park
ORIGINALLY FROM: Arlington, Virginia
HOW LONG THEY’VE BEEN IN TOWN: Two years
Arlington, Virginia is a county seemingly caught between the bustling cityscape of D.C. and the slow-as-molasses southern pace of the Commonwealth. The Bacovich family –– born Stepan and Ivana Bacović –– had moved there only a few months before the birth of their first and only daughter, Emilia Bacovich. European transplants who relied upon the generosity of their already established relatives to gain a foothold in the United States economy, it was their desire for Emilia to be as Americanized as possible; thus they spoke English in the household, and snipped away any loose threads that tethered them to their war-torn home. As an only child, Emilia was seemingly showered with love and attention. She remembers the early days of her childhood with supreme fondness–– but, even this utterly unconditional love could not cushion the blow of the divorce that cleaved her nuclear family in half when she was eight; like an atom that splits apart, the once close-knit trio seemingly imploded, and she was undeniably caught in their explosive crossfires.
Amid court-battles, squabbles over finances, property and custody, Emilia did her utmost to be the perfect child–– attempting to be the pawn of peace in her parents’ games. A well and truly misguided attempt to control an unstable environment manifested as anorexia at the age of twelve, and would continue, in various forms, for numerous years to come. Emilia’s mother remarried when she was sixteen, a point which saw Emilia the heaviest in her yet short life–– a direct result of the bingeing techniques she’d developed in a blatant ‘fuck you’ to her former self. But anxiety prevailed, and to compensate for overeating, she depended on less than healthy coping mechanisms to shed the pounds. School fell onto the back-burner, as did her societal obligations–– Emilia was smart, that was certain: her own wit could help her wiggle out of any lie or sticky situation, but she wasn’t book-smart. And though she failed out of nearly every math course from that point onward, she received high honours in English and social sciences.
By some stroke of luck, she managed to graduate high-school; but at eighteen, most of her life had been held hostage by fear and paranoia. Cozy in the familiar embrace of false virtue, her panicked ego clung to the disordered mindset and habits that had been her North Star since age twelve. Still, somewhere beneath sunken eyes, the girl who wanted nothing more than to impress her family remained, in small doses, and she began to attend classes at her local community college. Here, Emilia was able to seek help for her disorder, even accepting a therapist’s guiding hand, and she managed to land a job at a local pizza place–– it wasn’t a conscious choice to be around food all day, but it strengthened her resolve. And, it was almost like a high; being around food, and not giving in to the same temptations as before. She received her associate’s degree in two years and in that time, worked as a cook at a burger joint in Arlington to get by. She wouldn’t dare tell anyone, well on her way to getting a degree in business, but it made her happy. A year and a half later, though, she’d found herself finishing Culinary School at Keiser University in Naples, Florida, again working her way through school. For the next several years, she studied, practiced, and fine-tuned her craft under professional chefs in the Commonwealth area.
Although she’d moved back to Virginia after completing culinary training, Emilia still had various contacts in Florida and itched, more than anything else, to go back. Make a home there. New York might’ve been dubbed the Melting Pot of the States, but Florida was just the same comprised of various cultures; chockfull of Spanish, Cuban, French and Eastern European influences, it excited her to be able to craft food in the Tampa Bay region and so, she continuously kept tabs on job openings. In 2018, she applied for the position of sous chef at Atticus on East, a restaurant that took American fine dining to another level, located in Monleon, Florida. She moved bag and baggage to the sunny, comfortably snug town of Monleon faster than fast once accepted for the position under head chef Jacques Boulud.
Cooking, she’s learned, is all about passion. And she’s never felt more passionate about anything else. Whilst food ruled her life in a negative way for numerous years–– continuing to impact her, though she has outgrown the destructive habits associated with it–– she loves nothing more than turning the tides on her own history and watching her food make others happy. She’s a true foodie, and will feed anyone until they’re stuffed and blue in the face. Emilia loves playing with flavors, spices, and faraway cuisines, learning from those who came before her, those who will come after; she digests as much knowledge as she can on the matter, and truly seeks to be worldly in her cooking. It’s a future she can work toward–– becoming head chef, possibly opening up her own downtown eatery one day, taking a sabbatical to explore other countries and familiarising herself with their way of life and the fundamentals of their culinary arts. Cooking is more about learning from mistakes, but learning to have fun with them.
Nevertheless, Emilia is highly competitive. She is someone who, more than she will admit, feeds on the failure of others to rise to higher positions herself. She’s yet to outgrow the mindset of putting her needs before others, and shies from commitment to anything else but her own growth. Fiercely independent, she relies on a survivalist mentality to get by, and won’t let anyone–– or anything–– get in the way of her progress. Emilia is a self-professed wino, a lover of classical music, and an amateur photographer (or, at least, that’s what her Instagram account tries to emulate). But first and foremost, she strives to be her own woman. Not the daughter her parents expected, not the basket-case her peers shunned, but Emilia: a bad-ass sous chef who managed, above all, to get out of that stifling, slow-as-molasses town she’d come to despise.
EMILIA BACOVICH is portrayed by VICTORIA PEDRETTI and written by MOUSE.
