Bodega Egg and Cheese - Back to School with Leigh Cross
When I first met Leigh Cross, she was slinging drinks at Hillstone, an upscale-casual restaurant chain nationally beloved for its food & service (as well as, earlier this year, a head-scratching and indefensible anti-mask stance for their staff, which they've thankfully since repealed).
Years later in our friendship she's still my go-to cocktail neighbor, but now works as an eighth-grade American history teacher at Endeavor Middle School, part of the Achievement First network of charter schools, which just returned to a virtual classroom. I packed her a quart of ajiaco and a couple arepas, she made some campari sodas, and we talked on my stoop about the digital return to school, the food moments students are missing, and our IRL cafeteria favorites. -EH
Okay Leigh, this may be a weird question, but how is working at a charter school network like Achievement First (which operates 34 schools in NY, CT, and RI) similar to working at an upscale restaurant chain like Hillstone (which operates 48 restaurants in 15 states)?
Actually it is similar, because it’s a kind of top-down mentality, “we have all the answers” sort of place. You come into a very established system and your job is to execute that system to deliver consistent results. There are definitely clear standards for, and means of assessing, things like food and service at Hillstone, and for instruction and of course testing at Achievement First.
It’s interesting because I’ve been thinking, why is someone like me ending up in these kinds of systems repeatedly, when I know I’m putting myself in environments where I’m going to be inclined to be a disruptor. (laughs) I don’t think I knew the extent of the systems I was stepping into in each of these places, but…now I’m trying to work within this school system while also trying to change it. In a restaurant there are obviously improvisational moments within the structure of service, and in school that looks like trying to fit culturally responsive and individualized teaching into a strict educational structure.
What sort of dynamics and experiences around food that are different now versus in-school? I’m thinking of the cafeteria dynamics that are such a classic and nostalgic part of school as a kid…
Well honestly at Endeavor, they didn’t really have as much of that at school. It’s a very structured school day, and that was true for lunch too - not only did kids eat only within their grade, but they had to sit with their homerooms (of about 30 kids), so there wasn’t the kind of cross-group pollinating that might happen in other schools.
One way that kind of thing happened is before school. A big part of the culture of going to school in the city is going to the bodega first thing in the morning and getting your sandwich and your chips and your snacks. When I would get off the train when we were in-school, the kids were all in the bodega getting a sausage egg and cheese. And that’s something I would definitely do growing up as well! We would go off campus for lunch, so I remember just always having food in my backpack...
There’s also a big power/respect dynamic around food because students would be like, flexing a little bit through food, by walking in a few minutes late with their bodega sandwich, or snacking on chips, and food was a way of them testing power boundaries with teachers. And of course being able to go to the bodega isn’t something everyone can do. There’s financial reasons, but also if a kid isn’t part of the crew that’s hanging out at the bodega that morning they might not go in, or there might be an interaction there that changes that. There’s a lot of individual and group-building identity around those moments and that’s definitely something kids are missing out on right now, not creating relationships the ways they might have before.
Totally...what are kids missing from the lack of the bodega/cafeteria experiences, and the kind of less structured/more autonomous/messier moments and interactions that can happen in those settings?
Well the moments at the bodega or even after school before sports practice aren’t happening right now, which are early moments where kids test and develop their independence through the decisions they’re making around food. Food and style are kind of those first things where kids are testing their identities and both of those are kind of limited right now.
I also remember these “restaurant” days we’d have where we’d either take the kids out to a restaurant or order take-out into the classroom, and it was an amazing thing to see the kids, from all these different ethnic backgrounds, finding camaraderie over the different foods they wanted to get and, as Black and brown kids growing up in a white society, bonding over their love of different ethnic foods with their classmates.
On the flip side, I wouldn’t be surprised if kids are eating healthier at home now than they would when they were in school. So many of our kids clearly come from rich home cooking traditions and are now at home with their parents eating that food, instead of the bodega or fast food or cafeteria options.
* At this point we’re interrupted by David, a rabbi and my next-door neighbor who we’ve bonded with and shared food with this year. He’s dropping off a loaf of challah for Rosh Hashanah. We chat for a few minutes about his vegetarianism, my plan to sneak some of our brisket to his wife Barbara, and our love of pickled green tomatoes *
What were your favorite cafeteria/school foods growing up?
Oh all the good stuff, man: chicken tenders, pizza, pasta... that hot bar was banging! I would do the hot bar every day. Remember cafeteria tater tots? I think I’ve found cafeteria tater tots at like, two places as an adult. There’s a sports bar in Brooklyn...I can’t even remember the name. But yeah, nobody has achieved the consistency of a cafeteria tater tot. You can quote me on that.
I don’t really recall my early kind of “flexing” around food, I mean, except that I just loved to eat everything and would eat whatever I wanted, and I was lucky that I had a fast metabolism. I do remember around 11 or 12 starting to become cognizant of, “Oh I should eat a nutri-grain bar because, like, my body is changing and I need to lose weight…”, so that was a thing.
Was lunch something you’d share with other teachers before COVID? Is there any communal teacher situation set up now?
Well, there is a TRR (teacher’s lounge) at school that people would use to make copies and microwave and have coffee and people would kind of congregate there. Bonds would definitely form between teachers who happened to be “off” the same block who otherwise wouldn’t normally cross paths, and eating in that space really did create some real connections. There was a group of four teachers on my grade team that would consistently eat lunch together each day, and of course that kind of social moment, space to decompress and chat, is something we don’t have right now. I don’t even know when I’m supposed to eat lunch in this new setup yet.
What would your go-to schoolday breakfast and lunch be (as a teacher), and has that changed in this remote setting?
I would have a coffee, banana, and a Lara bar every day for breakfast, and bring some soup or a salad or something to have in the TRR for lunch.
I’m still on the banana & Lara bar morning routine, but now Brian (my boyfriend) makes me two eggs and chicken sausage every day for lunch! (laughs) He makes perfect eggs! Over easy, perfect, every day! He’s been in Manhattan the past two days and I don’t think I’ve eaten lunch.
What’s a great dish you’ve had recently?
Well I feel like we’re kind of in a very regular eating cycle so it’s kind of hard to remember what’s stood out… But I did find this recipe for spicy butter chicken that’s Whole 30 but doesn’t taste Whole 30 and is so easy and so good every time...I’ll send you the recipe.
Any recent recommended reading?
Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid (which TOC recommended!)
Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X Kendi