Good food at Syracuse

[hoosier]

Who's Cooking?
By Lisa Garber



Syracuse University greeks wake each morning to the smells of homemade meals cooking. Each evening, they return home cold and tired but treated to hot, fresh food. No dining halls needed. No Kimmel. Just one of the greatest perks of living in-house: three professionally prepared meals a day.

The men and women who cook for those living in chapter houses, however, come from a variety of backgrounds and approach their culinary responsibilities differently -- just ask Kappa Alpha Theta's "Crazy Uncle Albert."

Crazy Uncle Albert, a welcoming man who's real name is Albert MacKool, is making low-fat raspberry muffins in Kappa Alpha Theta's kitchen for his more than 30 "nieces."

His male friends tell him he's working the world's greatest job. But this enthusiastic chef likes to keep a friendly distance, from the sorority singles.

"That's not what I am here for," he said, ingredients in hand.

He cooks a variety of dishes in his impeccably clean kitchen, from the house favorite, chicken parmigiana, to shrimp caesar salad.

Before MacKool arrived at Kappa Alpha Theta last year, he traveled extensively, working several cooking jobs in Florida, Arizona and St. Croix.

MacKool said he's cooked everything and there's nothing he won't cook again.

Except conch.

"Have you ever seen raw conch," he asked, grimacing. "It is really the grossest stuff I've ever seen."

Though he enjoys his job, MacKool always looks forward to his time off, using vacations to travel.

"In the past, I had to quit my job and find a new one wherever I went," he said. "But now I'm free to travel all summer and at Christmas-time."

Family Affair
Mary Dwyer began cooking at Alpha Epsilon Phi eight years ago, taking the job from her mother who retired after a knee replacement surgery.

"She asked me to take her place for a month or so," Dwyer said. "But at the end of the month, she decided to retire and I took over."

What she assumed were responsibilities outside of the kitchen. Dwyer doubles as the house therapist and nurse. And for some sisters, a mother.

"When I first got here, the girls would say, 'You're like a mom to us'," she said. "I would say, 'I'm not old enough to be your mother.' But now I am old enough."

The close relationship with the Alpha Epsilon Phi sisters, however, sometimes puts a cramp in her cooking style. Though Dwyer said she loves being involved in the students' lives, she sometimes has to "shoo them out of the kitchen" so she can prepare her popular tuna salad.

"Honestly," Dwyer said, "I do not know what it is about the tuna that they love so much."

Food En Masse
Alpha Xi Delta's chef Brenda Bader is one of eight children.

"I came from a really large family, so cooking for 28-plus isn't too different," Bader said.

Bader stands happily surrounded by a group of sisters in a warm, cozy kitchen. Though she has worked in the house for just a month, Bader is settling into the job easily.

She previously worked at Delta Tau Delta but has little to say about her time with the fraternity. Sorority life suits her better, she said, as she makes birthday cakes for the sisters and boasts of her chicken parmigiana.

She also tries to cook healthy, low-fat meals, admitting that "I kid around and tell them to eat their vegetables. I say, eat them or I'll call your mothers."

Healthy Helping
Sigma Nu's chef, Mary Morabito, makes the same threat, but to no avail.

She puts a plate of vegetables out during dinner each night. She then clears that same plate, mostly untouched, at the end of each meal.

"They ask me why I do it," she said. "I tell them I do it in the hope that someone will eat them." Another failed cuisine was tofu.

Otherwise the brothers are "guys," she shrugs, "and they'll eat pretty much anything I put out for them."

But for Morabito, personal respect is more important than what's eaten at the dinner table.

She's worked at Sigma Nu for five years and demands kitchen courtesy from each brother.

They are expected to keep the kitchen and dining room clean.

Occasionally she encounters a troublemaker, but if she mentions it to the house president, "the rest of the guys squash the problem."

All Ears
Do chefs ever hear too much information?

Morabito said so.

"I try not to be too nosy," she said. "When I hear some things I just turn around and walk away."

Morabito doesn't like to get too involved in the affairs of the brothers, though sometimes she has little choice.

"When the phone rings and it's a parent, they're usually calling to say, Have you seen my son? I haven't heard from him in a week."

But for some, that involvement proves too burdensome.

Sue Maule worked for the former Sigma Chi and said her job there hardly matched its description.

"I loved that house," Maule said. "But there was so much stress involved in the job.

"I was feeding up to 80 people every day, and dealing with fraternity mess."

Sigma Chi lost university and national recognition at SU in 1998 after a recruit was hospitalized with alcohol poisoning.

Maule recalls taking her young son to the former Sigma Chi house "to play with the boys."

"He'd come down screaming about how they hung himout the window by his ankles," she said.

Despite the headaches, Maule remains sentimental about her time at the fraternity.

"I can remember the first time it hit me that one of my boys was leaving," she said. "It was near graduation and a guy from California came downstairs and showed me a big bag of SU clothing his family had given him, and I started crying. I realized that it might be the last time I saw him."

Dwyer fears the experience. The worst part of her job? Graduation day.