When we spoke with Kristen, she was prepping for a busy Saturday dinner service. Kristen has worked at Corner Kitchen for two years and recently moved to night service. The kitchen here is akin to a bee hive. It is a small space with a lot of bodies moving in what appears to be chaos at first but when you look closer, each person acts in a very deliberate manner with a clear objective. Each chef is preparing one piece of a larger dish.
Kristen learned the ropes at Del Vecchios’ Italian Restaurant as their daytime cold side before coming to the Corner Kitchen. Cold side requires a lot of attention to detail. Kristen quickly progressed to expediter, then hot side.
Kristen originally studied English and Creative Writing and thought she would become a writer. Kristen has become a true student in the art of food and its preparation. Although her favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut and she loves a great sci-fi novel, currently she finds herself reading The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. The work is described as, “a book for people who want to learn the hows and the whys of cooking” by the author. Kristen is that kind of chef; she does not want to only learn to make a dish, she wants to know the why and how that goes into each step of the progression.
