Meet Carleton’s Debra Swenson: Cooking Curries, Meeting Farmers, and Canning Her Own Food

Written by Vera Chang on April 30, 2012in Featured, Staff - 0 Comments

When we Fellows visit college campuses to host educational events, we love going behind the kitchen doors and meeting the hardworking people who make Bon Appétit Management Company great. Here, I’d like to introduce you to Debra Swenson, lead cook at East Hall at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. Debra has been with Bon Appétit since we opened Carleton four years ago, but she’s been working in food service at Carleton for 32 years.

How did you get into this business?

When I was 15 years old, I started working at a restaurant supper club doing dishes. I thought it was really fun to working with the chefs. Afterwards, I became a waitress and realized that I love to serve food — good food. I learned so much from the chefs that I didn’t want to leave the food service world.

What’s the best part of your work?

What I like most about being at Bon Appétit is that I feel like I’m always growing and learning about new, different foods and cooking techniques. It’s also just fun feeding people on such a large scale. I like getting to know the students as freshmen and then watching them grow a little bit every year. I love getting to cook different kinds of food every day. I also like the deadlines that come with being a cook. This makes me really organized.

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

Curry – green, red, all kinds. Even though I’ve been working in the restaurant and food service worlds for most of my life, I actually never tried curry before I started working with Bon Appétit.

Any other foods you’ve learned about while at Bon Appétit? Continue…

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