Examples of my cooking at Treatment Centers...
This blog is about how cooking became a step toward other ways of getting involved in the recovery of others.
Pan seared pork chops w Green Bean / Grits casserole and green Enchilada Sauce
Homemade Onion Rings
BBQ Ribs
I really wasn't all that surprised when some of the men at a treatment center where I cooked at began hanging around the kitchen; not to eat, but to talk to me about their problems.
There was one young man in particular who comes to mind, who began telling me about his rage and his problem with controlling his anger. He was only 25 years old and had just done 5 years in prison. He would lock himself in the bathroom just to be away from the other men in the center, who would annoy and easily irritate him. Everyone, including myself, just thought that he was in the bathroom getting high. And sometimes he was, but there was more to the story. There always is. He was actually very aware of his problem with anger and he slipped me a note during a group meeting that said, "I need help to stop using." I only responded, "You're in the right place for now." And next thing I knew, he was calling me his sponsor.
Did I earn his trust because of cooking? Did I demonstrate that in my own simple way, through the food that I made for the house, I cared and could be trusted?
Another guy at that same center came to my room and told me about his session with his therapist and in tears, told me about being raped as a boy and raped in prison.
The stories and problems were heavy. All I could do is listen and be someone who they could trust. It probably helped also that I shared very personal things about myself and talked as openly and honestly as I could.
Before rehab, in 2012, I did something different with my cooking skills and took them to a place in Mid City called Washington Terrace where I cooked for 20 disabled tenants. For the first time, after already have had experience in Pasadena in great places including Alexander's Steakhouse and Green Street Restaurant and El Portal where I was first hired as a Kitchen Manager, I cooked for poor and needy people in exchange for room and board and modest wages. It was fullfilling and special because I began to get to know the patient tenants and establish distant but sympathetic friendships. It became personal and for once I did not just care to develop and show off my skills, but I truly cared about my customers and began to see them like a kind of family . The people at Washington Terrace suffered both physical and mental disabilities.
I left Washington Terrace and it closed shortly afterwards, and it was in this time that I decided to move closer to downtown and to find a job in downtown . Before returning to LA, my hometown, I spent over 10 years in New York City, and really fit in better with NyC pace and style than LA's attitude. So downtown always appealed to me and I worked for 3 of what I considered to be the most stylish and trendy of restaurants. The Stocking Frame was a restaurant that I was very proud of cooking at. It still is very fashionable and the menu is out of the ordinary and very high quality. But my life was falling apart because of my alcoholism, so I decided to try rehab.
I called a place called Bimini that was at the top of an alphabetically organized list of rehabs. Bimini belongs with a small group of treatment centers that are managed by an organization called Social Model, .Inc., which is governed by the Department of Health. Social Model sent me to a different treatment center called Royal Palms, and after a couple of screenings and interviews, I was admitted into my first rehab.
In Royal Palms, I began to get along well with the main cook there and she almost made me her assistant. I learned how to cook at a rehab and what it meant to have a food program at a rehab, where teaching addicts in recovery to eat grown up healthy meals is part of the whole business of recovery. Most addicts, when active in their using on the streets, do not care about food. In these treatment centers food isn't just something the kitchen whips up, but a means to recover physically. Patients need to be re-taught to eat again and I would have loved to have become the Chef Betty's assistant, but the 60 or 70 residents there elected me Resident Council President, and I became involved in a lot of paperwork and extra duties that came with that job.
After that 90 day treatment, I went to my first sober living home called Beacon of Hope. It was there that I really began cooking for men in recovery. At that time, Beacon had a set menu that simply rotated and rotated every week. Spaghetti on Monday, Chilli Dogs on Tuesday, Fish and Fries on Friday, etc., was how it basically went. There the kitchen counted on volunteers to cook and I jumped in right away and began to help.
Every kitchen is different and I had worked with enough different chefs in restaurants to be able to let go of my ways of doing things and respect the way the kitchen at Beacon of Hope worked. I even learned some good tricks and interesting ways of preparing meals for a large group of men such as cooking food in the food warmers and taking canned and frozen foods and spicing them up - working with whatever I had to work with, which to me wasn't much compared to the pantries and refridgerators and freezers in the restaurants that I came from.
Everyone appreciated my cooking from the start. Just like at Washington Terrace, I began to get to know the men who I was cooking for personally and it was so different than cooking expensive food for strangers. It may have been a modest menu, but it gave me another sense of accomplishment. Cooking for those in need is definitely different than cooking for those who just seek pleasure and a fun night out on the town. I took it personally and the care and attention that I put into the food came through.
At first, I worked with this basic menu, but a few months later, Beacon of Hope began to receive many donations from Vons.Though at first, most of the donations were breads and pastries, soon there was much dairy and more random foods donated. So I began to get more creative with the menu wherever I could.
The bottom line was that I was only interested in feeding these men. That's all I was caring about. It really was an unexpected opportunity for me to be of service and to help these men who were already in a down and out situation, trying to get by, and doing what they had to do to at least handle their living situation.
I did two more treatments after Royal Palms and Beacon of Hope, and I cooked at both. I gained experience cooking for a group of about 50, and it was easy and practical to me.
The gratitude and appreciation that I received was definitely a lot more apparent at these places than at any trendy or expensive restaurant. Also, the sense of purpose and fullfillment that I felt was unlike any before. I understood these people who I cooked for, and felt like I could help in their recovery.
Around August of 2019 I began researching paid salary cooking opportunities at rehabs. I applied through Social Model Inc.'s website to a treatment center in El Monte called Omni that was looking for a Kitchen Manager.
At the same time I moved to a new Sober Living home in South Central called LATC. It turned out that LATC desperately needed a cook, and I was there at the perfect time.
They were a small group of men at LATC, but their problems were so much more evident and extreme. They were the most messed up men I had ever met. The kitchen was practically non-existent because of its disorder, and they had no real cook who cared or knew what he was doing.
Though it was another volunteer position, I took it. I stood up for something that way, and it felt so good to do that- what some may call a small gesture- for others.
I cooked as best as I could with the limited pantry and supplies and everything turned out tasty and healthy always. Again, I felt that appreciation from the group of men there, but mostly it was that sense of purpose and fullfillment again that kept me going.
Soon, men there began trusting me with more than cooking. One young man asked me to sponsor him. A few others trusted me with personal problems and stories, not unlike what a drug and alcohol counselor would expect to hear.
I always said that I could never be a drug and alcohol counselor, but now I'm interested in that position and more - perhaps in a career as a therapist.
So I'm returning to school in the fall of 2020, wrapping up my Bachelor's in Communication, and going for a Master's in Psychology where I will focus on drug and alcohol counselor certification, and fullfill credits to become a therapist.
All because of cooking at these special treatment places.
