Every day, the Bishop’s kitchen staff arrives on campus early to start preparing a variety of fresh dishes to serve for lunch, before many of us have even eaten breakfast. During lunch, we walk past an assortment of options, from the main meal of the day, to the salad bar, to plain pasta, and are able to choose what we want to eat. But what happens behind the scenes to get the food from raw ingredients to a portioned plate in front of you?
The staff arrives around 6:00 AM and works throughout the day to prepare and serve food. Food Services Assistant Ms. Ana Delgadillo, who has worked at Bishop’s for 24 years, said that her favorite part of her job is preparing salads, which are served every daily with different variations.
In addition to the daily preparations, the staff works together to create the weekly menu, usually by Friday. The staff tries to balance each week so that there are a variety of meals. Food Services Director Ms. Christine Rivera described their process for choosing the menu: “We like to cook food that we like to eat. We cook as if we were feeding our family.”
Ms. Rivera says that creating each day’s menu starts with the main dish. She explains, “From the main dish, we build the veggie dishes, and then we build the salad, so it all makes a cohesive meal.” For example, on October 19, the main dish was birria stew — containing marinated beef which was then cooked in a broth — served with corn tortillas. The self-serve bar offered spanish rice and beans. The salad bar displayed a variety of vegetables, including lettuce, corn, tomatoes, and beans. And, like every day, there was also the option of penne pasta, with tomato sauce, butter, and cheese as toppings. Another option available every day is bread with sunflower butter and jam.
After the menu is decided, Ms. Rivera orders the ingredients necessary for the following week, to ensure that everything arrives on time. Even on days when students and teachers have the day off, the kitchen staff comes in and experiments with different recipes, which they taste test to determine whether they should go on the menu at some point. In addition, Ms. Delagdillo says that on some days, she prepares coffee for special meetings and events.
A lot of time goes into preparing the food, but Ms. Rivera said that she finds that people don’t see everything the kitchen staff does behind the scenes. This was the motivation to increase the presence of the kitchen’s Instagram account, @thebishopsschool_kitchen. “I came from a restaurant that was huge on social media,” explained Ms. Rivera. She used to work at Sandpiper Wood Fired Grill & Oysters, a local restaurant located on Avenida De La Playa, whose Instagram promotes their fresh seafood dishes.
“For a restaurant, [social media] draws people in, right? It’s like, ‘Ooh, that looks good.’ I want to go to that restaurant.” She added, “I feel like it kind of gives everyone an insight of what really happens back here… And I just wanted to showcase, like, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing. If anybody’s interested we’re always open to welcome anyone in there.’” The kitchen’s Instagram page features the weekly menu, and pictures of various lunches, in addition to bright fresh produce, and pictures of the staff. Currently, their page has around 440 followers.
Ms. Rivera says that there she is constantly implementing new changes to make the feeding the school more efficient, and that more changes are to come. She said, “We’re hoping that everyone’s enjoying the food that we’re making and that you can feel the love behind everything that we make.”
