Observing behind the scenes of a kitchen
As the welcoming presence of a restaurant envelopes those within, the food served is cherished but those behind the kitchen are often forgotten. From restaurant kitchens to school cafeterias, chefs spend countless hours perfecting their food to meet the standards of a wide range of taste buds.
Growing up, Mackinnon Beaton, owner of Mack’s Meals, would look inside his refrigerator thinking it was impossible to make something, but then his mom would arrive home and put together something amazing. It was that magic of being able to create something out of nothing that truly inspired him to become a meal prep chef. “I cook, prepare, and plate everyone’s meals for the week so that way they have lunches and dinners ready to go; the second they take off that lid, they can microwave it and it’s ready to go for them,” Beaton said. “I take it upon myself to make sure that people are getting a decent amount of carbs, starches, vegetables and protein.”
A giant mob of hungry students is not a pleasant picture, but Lucir Schlickman, cafeteria manager at NPHS, faces those stomachs every weekday. “We serve 800 students in 20 to 25 minutes, so we have no time to talk to you. If you think we’re being mean, it’s not personal because when I say one word three kids have already passed in front of me. Our volume is so fast that we really don’t have time to communicate,” Schlickmann said.
Dane Germann, prior chef at Freda’s Kitchen, finds the ability to stay calm and multi-task extremely important when cooking. “If something is cooking you might need to be making a salad at the same time without forgetting about what you are cooking and it burning,” Germann said. In addition, communication with other chefs was another key strategy German focused on within the kitchen.
Before the school day starts, the cafeteria chefs start their day early in the kitchen prepping food. “I am very good at teaching [and] coaching [the chefs] and when they’re successful it’s very rewarding for me. If I don’t come to work one day, and they are very successful without me, it shows that I have done my job correctly training them,” Schlickmann said.
Through the journey of people’s lives, finding their biggest passion is often intimidating but once found, that passion can lead to everlasting happiness. “I was seventeen once, I’m thirty now, and I was in high school and I remember gabbling with the idea of ‘I just like to cook’ and there are so many blessings in my life because of cooking, because I just stuck with something I like doing,” Beaton said.
