Doel Torres

Mr. Doel Torres is the sous chef at Parker, and he is very kind and passionate about his profession. When he walked into the room for the interview, he was so calm and joyful. Mr. Torres is a truly interesting man, and while he enjoys the art of cooking, he also has passions aside from that. Read the following article to find out more about this amazing person.

Mr. Torres was influenced by his grandparents to start cooking at a very young age. His mom also helped shape his culinary skills while she was pregnant and could not cook. Before Mr. Torres got his first job working at a fish restaurant in Panama, he asked his mother to test him to make sure that he had the correct and best skills for the job. Mr.Torres puts his skills to the test here at the cafeteria, preparing healthy and nutritious food for all the students.

Mr. Torres has a very busy schedule at Parker. He wakes up at 5:30 AM and turns on his favorite music. He listens to music as he wakes up, and he keeps it on until he goes to bed. Listening to music, he says, makes him feel relaxed and calm. His favorite kinds of music are remixes, Indian music, Sia, Country, Lady Gaga, or as he calls it, "A little bit of everything." At work, Mr. Torres shuffles the music according to what type of food is being served at the cafeteria, but he mentioned that sometimes the other chefs would change it to their liking. For Mr. Torres, a perfect day at work is when everyone is accounted for, when there are more people working with him. That makes his job a bit easier and more enjoyable for everyone. His favorite part of work is when, at the end of the day, everyone gets to go home and relax after preparing lots of food for the whole day. At the end of the day when he returns home, Mr. Torres usually goes to his favorite restaurants throughout the week, but sometimes he will cook for himself.

Mr. Torres didn’t always want to be a chef. In fact, he used to want to be a ballet dancer. He didn’t start dancing until he was eighteen and in college. Unfortunately, once he started working, he didn’t have as much time to dance. While Mr. Torres doesn’t have a set time during the week where he can dance, he likes to dance while at work. One time when he was dancing someone told him to stop, and he just laughed. Though it's hard for him to find time to dance these days, he still considers his dance teachers a sort of family.

Mr. Torres also shared many rules of working in the cafeteria, but also a story of his work. When talking about working in the cafeteria, he said that you have to be very careful about food allergies and cross contamination. He said that just cooking in the cafeteria helps him learn about how hard it is for students to live with allergies. Whenever the cafeteria workers get a new kind of produce, they have to be cautious about where it was made and packaged so that the students do not have any allergic reactions.

Now, onto some stories from within the kitchen. "One time," Mr. Torres said, "I had to cool down the oven from 500˚ to cook something new, and so I poured a bucket of cool water on it, but it ended up causing the smoke detectors in the kitchen to go off." He said that once everyone had been moved to the field he could hear people asking, "Is this a drill?" or "What happened?" Another story is when he was baking muffins, and a child and a mother had purchased one, but they had to return it because they said that it wasn't baked all the way through. Mr. Torres told them that they could have a replacement at no extra charge, and he tried to lighten the mood so that they wouldn't get upset. Mr. Torres still does this if somebody experiences problems with the food (which basically never happens) so that people don't get upset with each other. Speaking of the kitchen, Mr. Torres has never had an accident in the kitchen because he is always very careful with what he is working with. Mr. Torres also mentioned many tasks he does regularly in the kitchen on a daily basis. In his free time, Mr. Torres likes organizing his home, which explains why he is always so efficient cooking so many things at once.

Mr. Torres told us that when he is working in the kitchen, he is very cautious with everyone because they are all dealing with hot ovens and sharp tools. When you are cooking, you have to be careful to not burn the food that you are making. However, he says that whenever you do burn something you just drop it and move on. To him, producing healthy foods for the students is the most important thing, along with not getting hurt while in the kitchen. While preparing the food, he says that they usually prepare most of the foods for the next day on the same day that the staff serves the food prepared the day before. Mr. Torres told us multiple times that he loves his job and that if given the chance, he would not change anything about his job.

Mr. Torres has been interested in culinary arts for a long time, and his life before Parker is very interesting. His work has changed throughout his life. When he was a kid, he helped cook in the kitchen. His first job was at a fish restaurant in Panama. Even though he does not like fish, he continued to work there. His second job was on the coast of North Carolina at summer houses for people on vacation. His third job was temporary at Parker, but then he got a full time job here. When Mr. Torres "auditioned" for his job here, he was asked to cook a Puerto Rican dish that just happens to be one of his specialties. We had a good laugh about that with him. Mr. Torres mentors his nephews and nieces, four of whom are now interested in cooking.

We are very lucky to have interviewed Mr. Torres, and we now know much more about him. We learned a lot about the amount of work that goes into cooking great food every day for all the students. We are very much looking forward to seeing him dancing behind the cafeteria counter, now knowing more about him. Thank you so much, Mr. Torres!