Chef changes attitudes, actions at Children's Services campus
Jared Leone, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, January 9, 2009
Jerome Jackson takes delight in a rosemary stalk that grows in the garden behind the cafeteria at the Hillsborough Department of Children’s Services’ Lake Magdalene campus. Jackson, who runs the school’s kitchen, was a gourmet cook with the Hyatt hotel chain for 12 years.
Quietly, the new student at the campus for kids from broken homes walks through the food line. He grabs some oatmeal, a juice box and a carton of milk.
When he gets to the register, a tall bald man dressed in a chef-style frock is standing there.
Timidly, he tells the man his name.
The man asks if he wants brown sugar on his oatmeal, then says with a smile:
"My name is Chef Jerome. I'll tell you my rules later."
• • •
Jerome Jackson, 45, has been running the kitchen at Hillsborough County's Department of Children's Services' Lake Magdalene campus since 2006. Firm and soft-spoken, Jackson creates more than delicious dishes, co-workers and students say. His no-nonsense methods in the kitchen have spilled over to curb bad behavior at the school, where students age 6 to 17 come from all over the county. Some live on the campus.
Tom Papin, director of the center, sees a difference in the nearly 300 students since Jackson started.
"I notice eating in the cafeteria that the noise level is down, the behavior is more positive," Papin said. "We see a difference in the way children and adults are brought together over a positive dining experience."
Jackson knows his way around a kitchen. After all, he has worked in them for more than 20 years. For 12 of those he plied his trade as a gourmet cook with the Hyatt hotel chain.
He faced a crossroads three years ago. He had applied for a job to move up within the hotel chain. Around the same time, a friend called and told him about the Children's Services job.
Jackson liked the prospect of working with kids again. For a short time he had worked at the Children's Home, a place for adoptable kids in Tampa.
Papin liked Jackson from the start. And soon Jackson was working at the campus.
• • •
Jackson orders food, gets some donated and grows the rest.
A small patch of dirt behind the cafeteria was once an unsightly mess of rubble. Working with another teacher, Jackson turned the area into a garden. Some of the students help care for the different types of lettuce, basil, rosemary and other herbs and plants that grow. Jackson uses the ingredients in various recipes and as garnishes.
Basil for the jerk chicken. Rosemary for potatoes and chicken. Basil and oregano for made-from-scratch spaghetti sauce.
Jackson started a family-style dining program for students who live on campus. A special golf cart equipped with a carrier hauls hot meals to on-campus housing. The kids then sit together and eat — a change from before, when dining together with housemates was not a priority.
Jackson also has helped expand the culinary arts program at the school. Students help in the kitchen, learning meal planning and preparation.
Kids used to complain about not getting enough to eat and about leftovers. That does not happen anymore.
"The only complaint now I hear is they (the kids) are getting fat," Jackson said.
• • •
His first two months on the job, Jackson prepared hundreds of servings a day using two ovens and some microwaves in the home economics classroom while the kitchen was renovated.
The equipment in the old kitchen was spartan: a hotplate to heat food and not much else. Jackson brought in a gas-fired range, a huge slow cooker to make chili, soups and sauces. He also brought better coolers to keep milk and juice chilled and to make it easy for students to grab drinks. He added vats and pots and fryers, enabling him to make a bigger variety of foods. He made sure the back storeroom was filled with boxes of bananas, cans of apples and pears.
Soon more changes will come.
As part of a $9-million construction project at the campus, Jackson will have a new state-of-the-art cafeteria and kitchen. Ground has already been broken on the 38,000-square-foot facility, which is scheduled for completion in 2010. The school receives federal and local funding for its food service program.
Jackson began enforcing rules in the cafeteria and made the students accountable. Many students, he said, now call him Dad.
No profanity. No wearing hats. No loud talking. No fighting. No throwing food. No disrespecting any adult.
Students sit in the cafeteria talking and quietly eating as Jackson takes care of the line. Just outside, bulldozers knock down an old building as part of construction of the new facility.
Jackson is like a proud papa when he talks about the transformation in the students and the food service program.
"We built something out of nothing," he said.
Jared Leone can be reached at (813) 269-5314 or jleone@sptimes.com.
TO LEARN MORE
Catch the cook
To watch a video of chef Jerome Jackson in action, go to links.tampabay.com.
News
