Nancy, a cook at Irvington’s cafeteria for over 20 years, starts her day at 5:30 AM, preparing, panning, and cooking hundreds of meals every day.

“I start out by making food for the elementary schools,” she says. “I make around 1200 meals every day, just for the elementary schools, and for high schools, I make about 300 other meals, so about 1500 meals come out of this kitchen every day.”

In addition to making hundreds of school lunches for Irvington students, Nancy and her fellow cafeteria ladies are also in charge of cooking meals for five local elementary schools and another high school. What’s truly remarkable is that by the time the bell rings at 8 AM, Nancy has cooked, parceled, and sent meals to Hirsch, Weibel, Harvey Green, Warm Springs, and Robertson. Although she is in charge of cooking all of the school lunches, all of the lunch ladies help out to ensure all the meals arrive to each school on time, packaging each meal, sorting the lunches onto trays, or loading completed trays of lunches into warmers. 

In Irvington’s cafeteria, food is neatly prepared in pans a day in advance, making it efficient and easy for meals to be cooked the day they are served. To keep operations in the kitchen working smoothly, Nancy uses a color-coded journal to stay organized and keep track of all the different recipes. Using her trusted recipe binder containing state-issued measurements,  directions, and serving sizes for hundreds of recipes, Nancy is able to efficiently make breakfast and lunch items for both elementary and high school menus, keeping each serving uniform and consistent. Meals, foods, and beverages sold or served at school must meet state and federal requirements based on the USDA Dietary Guidelines, and Nancy tries to be as creative as possible with the meals she prepares while remaining within the guidelines. 

Depending on the day, anywhere from 280 to 300 people buy a school lunch from either the cafeteria or the snack bar. The busiest time of the day for the cafeteria ladies is when the bell rings for lunch and the cafeteria is swarmed with students, like a rush hour of sorts. When asked what the highlight of her day is, Nancy says that she looks forward to lunchtime, when she can interact with a variety of different students and gain the satisfaction of providing them with a healthy and wholesome lunch. 

“My favorite part of doing my job is probably being out there with the kids,” she says. “I love to be with kids, I love to joke around with kids, it’s just my favorite part of the day.” 

The cafeteria offers a variety of different lunches to cater to students’ tastes and dietary restrictions. Students have several options, like chicken tenders on a bed of rice, spicy hamburgers, or bean and cheese burritos. Nancy’s favorite meal to prepare is spaghetti and meatballs, made in enormous quantities in large boiling vats. Preparing lunch each day is arduous work because every meal is prepared in huge serving sizes. Whether it is beating eight cups of eggs for freshly baked cookies—a student favorite here at Irvington—or boiling over 40 pounds of pasta for macaroni, all measurements are in bulk.

After over 20 years of service, Nancy’s time at Irvington is coming to a close, and she is retiring in a couple of months. 

“It’s bittersweet that I’m going to be leaving,” she says. “We have such a good group of students.”