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When a young chef tries to save teen lives through food, his students prove his toughest critics.

By Tim McGinnis

Add Comment | Comments: 10 | Posted Apr. 30, 2008

Illustrations by Matt Rota

Everybody deserves a second chance.

I got one. I barely graduated from high school and narrowly avoided jail time as a youth. I felt vilified by teachers, and thought I had no hope of higher education. I retreated to the safety of restaurant work, and toiled away in the bowels of kitchens as my peers beer-bonged their way through college.

But it was there amid the long hours and stifling kitchen heat that I realized the value of hard work. I began to believe that with sweat and determination I could get somewhere. Cooking was something I was good at, and it would turn my life around. I went from dishwasher to graduate student, from two-bit teen criminal to supportive educator.

Cooking was good to me, and when it came time, I knew I needed to give back. I wanted to spark hope in students like me: the misunderstood, unrepresented and underserved.

But I never imagined how many societal roadblocks would stand in the way of progress, the roadblocks found in my students' neighborhoods, schools and family life.

"If you keep steppin' to me, there's gonna be murda' fo' real!"

I was teaching culinary arts at a juvenile placement day treatment center in Center City when these words were hurled at me--maybe not so surprising in a city teeming with the disenfranchised. But this kid had a knife.

"Yo Jamal, that's a terroristic threat!" warned Jose, a beacon of relative reason in my classroom. "That'll get you a solid year."

"Go have a cigarette or something, for Chrissakes," I said.

The two bounded up the stairs of the basement kitchen and into the dreary wet afternoon.

Jamal, a grimacing 16-year-old with thick shoulders and cold yellow eyes, and Jose, a friendly 17-year-old Puerto Rican with braided hair and of short stature, had been sent to me as a last-ditch effort by the city and Catholic social services to straighten them out before it was too late. I was to teach them a trade, to instill a work ethic, to give them knives and tell them what to do.

The latter is exactly what I was doing when Jamal threatened me.

I'd just gotten a shipment of fresh zucchini and eggplant from New Jersey, and was teaching them a provincial French dish I hoped would inspire them to put down their bags of Cheetos and Funyuns and pick up an occasional vegetable. But Jamal saw the piles of foreign objects next to his cutting station only as work, and would just as well put that knife in me than slice anything called squash.

"What the fuck is a skawaash anyway?"

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COMMENTS

Comments 1 - 10 of 10

1. Tony said... on Aug 10, 2008 at 04:13PM

“One more thing... I am not knocking your efforts and hope that it does not read that way. I just think they should be taught to cook for themselves and their families, so they have someone to say, "thats some good shit". A confidence builder, as opposed to them going straight to work and have everything they thought they were doing well, destroyed.”

2. Tony said... on Aug 10, 2008 at 04:04PM

“Great story, I read the whole thing. Let me throw an idea at ya- I see where you had them making steak sandwiches. Maybe you should keep it very simple for them, such as that. Stuff they could do at the house... Maybe simple Tin-Foil dinners with chicken and fish. Chicken and Pork in a canned "cream of soup", baked. Omelettes, pies with pre-made crusts, simple soups- Blah Blah Blah. Simple stuff to feed them and their families, as opposed to something to get them a job cooking. Then get them jobs washing dishes, more then likely that would turn them onto cooking and get them interested in prepping and they can develop their skills from there.”

3. Great article said... on May 12, 2008 at 04:14PM

“What an inspiring story, I want to tell Mr. McGinnis that people like him, get me back on the road. Last week I was in Philadelphia visiting, and I took the Philadelphia Weekly. It's such a coincidence that today I read his great article and after that I recieved a letter from the Ivy Tech Community College here in Indianapolis, Indiana, in which they told me that i can't be considered as an State Student, and because of that and my migration Status, and i'm supposed to pay as an international student, I was trying to be considered as an State Student, because due to my low earnings it makes impossible for me to pay my career in the Culinary Arts. (I wish I have found the same support that McGinnis gave to his students) But I know that there will be a chance for me and then I will follow the steps of people like Tim McGinnis and I will help people who have that spirit of improvement”

4. reader said... on May 5, 2008 at 08:12AM

“What an enlightening story--you truly conveyed a whole different world (raw and real) to the restaurant industry.”

5. reader said... on Apr 30, 2008 at 11:10AM

“Tim keep up the positive attitude & the contribution you provide to society!”

6. Virginia Jennings said... on May 1, 2008 at 07:04AM

“Great Story”

7. kilteddude said... on May 1, 2008 at 12:29PM

“Great story, and keep it up, if you can reach just one kid then you have done more than most.”

8. msatten18 said... on May 1, 2008 at 01:24PM

“great watercolors”

9. Jennifer Kim said... on May 5, 2008 at 09:12AM

“What an enlightening story--you truly conveyed a whole different world (raw and real) to the restaurant industry. ”