Early Years and Adversity
Pignolet has overcome adversity in his life. Going into hospital at the age of 5, he came out when he was eight, spending almost four years lying flat in a full-body cast because of a rare hip disease. Pignolet says the experience made him inward-looking and shy and couldn't play sport for years. "I was always the odd person out," he remembers. "I lived in a complete fantasy world." Pignolet found comfort in cooking and started out utilising Women's Weekly cookbooks but soon went to the local library and discovered the great chef, Escoffier.
In 1966 Pignolet began a four year course in catering and hotel management at William Angliss College. His career began in catering and led to teaching and the administration of a Melbourne cooking school. Pignolet worked in hospital and institutional cooking in Melbourne and in 1979 he moved to Sydney and made his name working in the restaurant Pavilion in the Park in the Domain. It was where, he met Josephine Carroll. Pignolet says of her "We just fell in love like that. Instantly. But she was an apprentice, I was the executive chef. We were just good friends. The next year, we changed that." Together they worked at Butlers then from 1981 he owned Claude's in Oxford Street in Woollahra and made it a 36-seat classically French restaurant; the restaurant received much acclaim.
On 21 December 1987, Pignolet was driving back from Canberra, with his wife Josephine, whom he had been married to for six and a half years, together with Chefs Anne Taylor and Ian McCullough. All three were asleep and, for a split second Pignolet fell asleep and struck head on with an oncoming car, killing its driver and Josephine and seriously injuring Taylor and McCullough. Pignolet suffered major jaw injuries which required a liquid diet for 12 weeks and damage to his hip needed surgery that kept him confined to home for three months.
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Famous quotes containing the words early, years and/or adversity:
“In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 23:10,11.
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)