First Impressions from a New Volunteer Corp

By Christine Carroll | April 20, 2007

March 23, 2007 -- It had been less than five months since I first visited New Orleans as a Share Our Strength-Henckels Cutting Edge Student.

Now here I was, face-to-face with my recruits (a group of sixteen cooks and culinary students from across the nation) who until that moment were only vaguely imagined persons substantiated by their eccentric e-mail nicknames (turns out gorillagirl was anything but). In the spartan dormitory that would be our temporary home, thirty-two kitchen-savvy eyes judged their fearless CulinaryCorps leader. For a fleeting second, I wanted to run and hide. Sixteen cooks, when gathered in one room, seemed overwhelmingly intimidating. But angled slightly differently (and after a deep breath), I realized it was also incredibly powerful. First impressions are sometimes only as good as your second.

With an over-enthusiasm characteristic of a tenderfoot trip leader, I welcomed these new faces into the fold of CulinaryCorps, an organization that they themselves would be building throughout the trip. After an introduction by Ashley Graham, recounting the city’s struggle to rebuild and the important role food and cooks are playing in these efforts, we loaded into the vans to get a first-hand look at what Katrina had unraveled in its wake. Riding through the lower ninth ward, the first impressions of the disaster were overpowering. There was silence and a pervasive sadness as we zig-zagged through the lingering devastation.

As the setting sun blushed the levee walls, the vans pulled into Jazzy Po’ Boys, a restaurant bolstered by the efforts of the Seedco Restaurant Recovery Initiative. We entered the unassuming one-story building to find streamers, red velvet cake thick with cream cheese icing and a piano player smiling at the keyboard. The owner, Kevin Parker, informed me that not one but two bands would be playing for us that night as his kitchen team presented three-foot po’boys of mind-blowing variations. In minutes, the CulinaryCorps team became sloppy with beef juices and hot sauce: talking, dancing and laughing. In the end, their second first impression would be the one that lingered: that what at first glance looked to be overwhelming devastation could prove to be powerful rebirth. The inaugural CulinaryCorps trip was officially underway.