Tough love is the key ingredient in cooking for success

Laura McConnelly – Chef, FareStart, Seattle, Washington

Feature | 17 November 2020
Chef Laura provides rigorous and thorough training at FareStart in Seattle for people who want to transform their lives and succeed in the food service industry. ILO Photos/ John Isaac
“I go home happy. I go home reflective,” says Chef Laura McConnelly of FareStart Restaurant in Seattle, Washington. “That feeling of something missing isn't there. So that's how I know I'm still in the right place.”

For nearly thirty years, FareStart a Seattle based non-profit organization has been helping people transform their lives through food. The organization provides restaurant jobs skills training for many who are vulnerable, disadvantaged, and homeless.

The restaurant has received accolades not just for the quality of their food, but also for their social impact initiative. The aim of their initiative is to uplift their surrounding community by helping those who are impoverished, hungry, and homeless. The profits made from dining support the critical job training programs that are offered as part of the FareStart program.

A proud FareStart alumna herself, Chef Laura does not shy away from her own personal rebound story, a nod to the effectiveness of the program. “I have been here for about three years and I'm a former student,” Laura says. “I actually went to school here after kind of running in through some bad times. I found a sense of purpose and belonging again, and I found my passion at the same time.”

Having grown up cooking, Laura’s love for the culinary arts was nurtured long before her time at FareStart, but she had no idea that it would define her career path as both a chef and restaurant line instructor. “I grew up cooking and I didn't know that being a chef, let alone an instructor, was something that I could do,” says Laura.

When Laura was a student in the program, the people she met were all very inspirational to her and this helped ignite her purpose and passion in cooking. It was this personal positive experience of her own that made her want to invest herself and give back to her community.

“When I came through the program there were people here that inspired me and they didn't make me feel small. They made me feel like I was a person again and I wanted to pay it forward,” says Laura, highlighting the importance of giving back, and passing skills and training on to the next wave of culinary chefs and instructors.

As a graduate of the FareStart programme, Chef Laura knows the importance having the right skills as well as the right mind set for the highly competitive culinary world. ILO Photos/ John Isaac
Laura takes her role as an educator just as seriously if not more than her role as chef. Her dedication and unrelenting commitment to her students is clear in all that she says and does. After a hard day’s work Laura goes home and still thinks about how she can set her students up for success. “I go home and I reflect on my day and I think ok how did I do today? Did that student get it? Did they get what I was trying to teach them? Do they understand where I'm coming from? What do I need to do different to try to help them in their pursuit of this career?” Laura constantly asks herself.

As a former student who was empowered to find her purpose and belonging through FareStart, Laura’s penchant for self-improvement and constant learning is evident. “I go home and I've learnt something. Whether it's about me, whether it's about my co-workers, whether it's about cooking whether it's something about my students,” says Laura, “ I've gone home, I've learned something new and it's like, how can I apply that later?”

Like many recent graduates, Laura knows the pressures of finding a job one faces after completing the program, and this is why she uses tough love and pushes her students to aim high no matter what anyone else tells them.

“The reason I feel good about what I do is that every day I push the students,“ Laura says. While her students may not immediately appreciate her tough love, they almost always come back and show their gratitude to her. “ ‘I don't know about Chef Laura, she's really tough,’ some of my students will say, but those are the same students that come back - two weeks, three weeks, a month, six months to a year from now and go ‘you know what, I had a love-hate relationship with you, but I got what you were trying to teach me.’” Some students even telling her “I hear your voice when I'm doing something at my place of work.”

The Wall of Plates at the FareStart restaurant recognizes the top donors who support the invaluable work that is transforming people’s lives through food. ILO Photos/ John Isaac
Chef Laura’s pride in her work and students shines through in her students and herself. Her commitment and “pay it forward” attitude comes down to a simple verbal contract known to all who enter the kitchen. “When you say ‘Yes Chef!’ it’s a contract and your word is your bond,” says Laura.

It is clear that for Chef Laura, her word is not just her bond but a testament to her character, her personal story, her hard work ethic, values, and the tough love she gives her students as she gets them cooking for success.

In terms of her word being her bond Laura says “It doesn’t speak to what you can do, but it says a whole lot about who you are.” For Chef Laura the secret ingredient of tough love will be a standard in all her future recipes she passes on to her students.

********

Editor’s Note: Since our interview with Laura McConnelly, due to COVID-19, FareStart has paused its job training programs until they can safely bring students back into their buildings and provide meaningful learning opportunities. We encourage readers to visit their website and see what you can do to help support this incredibly valuable culinary skills training program.