chh@heraldsun.com; 419-6654
HILLSBOROUGH -- With tortilla shells sizzling on the frying pan and homemade cornbread baking in the oven, Nate McMullen whistles his way through the kitchen, a bouncing gait taking him out in the dining room to deliver bowls of rice to the tables of eagerly awaiting children.
Two weeks into the job, McMullen already has made a lasting impression on the kids -- who affectionately call him Chef Nate -- who attend the Little School's Waterstone campus in Hillsborough, said Jennifer Dock, co-director of the school.
"It's a huge part of the kids' day," she said. "And to give them something you feel good giving them, and you know where it's coming from, and you know it's nutritious -- it's such a nice feeling."
Aside from quesadillas and rice, McMullen also has dished out chicken dumpling soup, falafel, maple muffin bread pudding and crackers with hummus -- all made from scratch. He even managed to whip up tomato bisque soup, complete with a multitude of pureed vegetables, at the request of Dock's son, Collin, 5, who attends the school.
"He's finding the things that kids like the most and working them in," Dock said.
Dock and Christa Niven, the school's other co-founder, have always been concerned about serving high quality, healthy food to the children of the Little School. In the past, the school has had the capacity for catered services only.
But when the school added a new campus in the Waterstone neighborhood, Dock and Niven began thinking big.
"This is the fruition of the goal," Niven said. "We dreamed about this for so long."
And Chef Nate has lived up to expectations, Niven said. With his favorite answer at the tip of his tongue -- absolutely -- McMullen seems excited to try everything.
"He's really too good to be true," Dock said. "He's so exciting; he's so fun. He's just so full of positive energy."
Of course, cooking for preschoolers hasn't always been McMullen's pastime. With 13 years in the field, the chef has worked all across the country in various restaurants. The most recent was the Fearrington House Restaurant in Pittsboro, a certified green restaurant and North Carolina's only AAA Five Diamond Restaurant.
"The other chefs around him were like, 'Are you kidding?' They thought he was basically giving up his career," Niven said. "For him, it's the beginning of his career."
Though working at the Little School presents a slightly different working environment than the Fearrington, McMullen said the transition proved to be fairly smooth, particularly since work in a restaurant's kitchen doesn't cater much to raising a family. McMullen said that last year he would see his wife sometimes as little as an hour a day and went three days in a row without seeing his son.
"It's the family," he said. "That's what's important to me now."
In his new position, McMullen has nights, weekends and holidays free to spend time at home, and he sees his son, Kellan, age 4, every day at the school.
"In the mornings I drop snacks off," McMullen said. "He comes running up: 'That's my daddy.' The first time I broke down in tears."
And though McMullen said he sometimes missed the adrenaline rush and camaraderie of working in a kitchen bristling with other chefs, seeing the kids' reactions to his cooking makes up for it. Every day as the separate classes leave the dining room, the kids huddle around the kitchen door, yelling thanks to Chef Nate and exchanging high fives.
"In the dining room, how the kids react -- you couldn't go out in the dining room of the Fearrington like that," McMullen said.
And though the kids all sang the praises of the quesadillas, McMullen said they don't always take to the food. Last week, he made lentils as an experiment, and while every child tried the new food, not everyone liked it.
"Kids are brutally honest, which can be both good and bad," McMullen said. "It's very refreshing, in a sense."
But even with such straightforward critics, McMullen said he loves working at the Little School. Niven said one day she walked into the kitchen to see Chef Nate smiling to himself. She asked what was wrong.
"He said, 'I just feel like I've found my thing,'" Niven said. "His wife said she hadn't seen him smile like this in a very long time."
