Before Chris May really got into the kitchen or became a cook of any sort, ramen was on the menu on the weekends. It wasn’t until his service in the army that he began cooking. His days of barbecuing for his friends in the barracks turned into an interest in the kitchen.
After his service, Chris began attending the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts and ramen turned into stir fried noodles, his favorite dish to cook.
Though he had completed some of his extern hours at smaller restaurants, he decided to give the Food Bank a chance. It was not what he expected.
“I had no idea. I thought it was just a small food pantry that I was going to be working at,” Chris said. “I come into the building and it’s like the biggest kitchen I’ve ever been in with hundreds of people making sure this mission gets accomplished. It’s a nice surprise seeing it all and how it worked.”
As an extern volunteer, he helps prepare fresh hot and cold meals daily for the Food Bank’s children’s programs.
It all begins at 8 a.m. He starts his shift by washing dishes and then huddles with the kitchen staff to see what needs to be done for the day. Throughout out the day, he also helps lead volunteers on their projects.
He helps the kitchen team prepare about 600 meals a day for kids in Central Texas.
“It’s a good feeling. It gets me out of bed in the morning. I’m going to help feed some kids today,” Chris said. “It’s a nice feeling knowing that I’m making a difference in somebody’s life, like directly. I’m preparing the meal for them and they’re eating it that day, so it’s really nice. It’s a nice feeling.”
The mass food production is a new experience for the culinary student. While externing at restaurants, Chris saw how food production was more immediate. At the Food Bank, everything from the menu to preparing the food has to be planned ahead of time in order to be able to produce so many meals each day.
“Here, we’re making so much for so many people. We have to plan out a few days ahead. It’s just interesting seeing these large amounts of food, how it all comes together by all the planning we do during the week,” Chris said. “It’s interesting to see the results of it, everything on the trays going out to the drivers and the schools.”
With only a few weeks left to complete his training, Chris hopes to come back to the Food Bank as a seasonal kitchen team member to help with the production of more than 3,000 meals and snacks per day this summer. In the meantime, he’s saving up for equipment to create online cooking tutorials.
Thank you, Chris, for helping to ensure children’s meals are prepped and ready to go each day!
