Eating as I Go: Scenes from America and Abroad

PERFECTIONIST

202 March฀2004 “It all started when I was five years old,” Tracey wrote in her in-class essay “A Memorable Meal.” She remembers her grandmother cooking for the family and welcoming homeless people to her table. “I admired my grandmother for that. Watching her help people that couldn’t or wouldn’t help themselves made me feel good inside and blessed. I started to stick around in the kitchen and help her.” As a teenager, Tracey began honing her skills. “I am the cook of my family. When there is a gathering with friends or family, they call on me. I am a perfectionist . I strive to put smiles on people’s faces when they eat my food.” Driven to satisfy all of her guests, Tracey goes all-out. On Thanksgiving, for example, in addition to “stuffed turkey, pot roast, ham, lamb, veggies, and salads,” she made “pound cake, banana pudding, brownies, sweet potato pie, peach cobbler, pineapple coconut cake, upside down pineapple cake, and yellow cake with chocolate frosting.” Thirty-eight-year-old Tracey, a divorced mother of two, loads up on culinary “Oscars” at the March 2004 Food Service Academy Awards. In the midsemester ethnic food competition, Tracey and her partner translate a German assignment into “New German Pride.” With Tracey’s savvy and ambition driving the team, they win medals for the best entrée (stuffed lamb roast) and best dessert (baked stuffed pecans), the cleanest work, and the coveted “best in show,” for presentation and culinary quality.When I congratulate her at the end of the ceremony, she falls into my arms, sobbing. “Cooking is my passion,”Tracey says as the tears flow. Several weeks later, at graduation, she clowns before an appreciative audience while accepting awards for leadership and academic excellence. The Monday following graduationTracey starts working at Magnolias, where southern cuisine is served on soft pink linens and “proper attire” is required. In welcoming Tracey into their “family,” the owners exult: their new hire, an ambitious cook, is an upbeat woman with a lovely face, organizational skills, and a polished telephone manner. No wonder they promise her a long-term, hands-on tutorial in all facets of the restaurant’s operation. Four days later, however, all is not so rosy. “Imagine,”Tracey tells me over the PERFECTIONIST฀ PERFECTIONIST 203 phone, “a line cook dropped a chicken breast on the kitchen floor and the chef said, ‘Throw it back on the grill.’ I couldn’t do that,” Tracey continues. “It’s unsanitary and wrong.” The chef told her she just didn’t know how real restaurants functioned. ButTracey wasn’t buying that. When she began working in the kitchen , she asked about hairnets (not used) and plastic gloves (also not used). She spotted supplies lying in cartons on the basement floor even though the law, she knew, requires that foodstuffs be stored at least six inches above the ground. Magnolias is shoddily run, Tracey has decided. “I couldn’t bring my children or my friends there,” Tracey says, explaining her decision to quit. ...