By: Kate S.
A deep dive into Villa Academy’s very own Allison Hill, better known to most around Villa as Chef Allison. Chef Allison has been the mastermind behind all of Villa's meals since 2012. Not all heroes wear capes! Her love for cooking is evident in the way she meticulously prepares the meals each day, taking every child's needs into careful consideration.
She experimented with many different careers before she came to Villa. Her cooking skills were passed down through generations, starting with her Hungarian grandmother. “She made all sorts of different, delicious dishes,” according to Allison. Her mom also possessed a similar talent for cooking. Chef Allison and her sister pushed their mother to start her own restaurant, although this never happened. Luckily, her sister was able to open up a restaurant—not just one, but two. They were called Vif and Petite Soif. The two restaurants were extremely popular but unfortunately closed during the pandemic. Her family helped form Chef Allison's love for cooking, but she didn’t realize her passion until her late thirties, when she started considering cooking professionally. When she was younger, she dreamed of being an artist. Her first job was as a picture framer, and she worked in art galleries. During this period, Chef Allison realized she had a passion for projects with beginnings, middles, and ends. She thrived in a job where she would be on her feet all day. After working at the art galleries, she went to work in health food stores. More specifically, she managed the herb and spice collections. While working with herb and spice collections, she learned how different foods and spices can affect health conditions. She received many training sessions with the company representatives, who taught her about the connections between vitamins, spices, and herbs with health conditions such as ADHD or anxiety. She even received a nifty booklet on many of the plants that help with the medical problems, as you can see below. While helping shoppers find the right
items to buy for their conditions, she realized that people would spend a lot of money on spices but didn’t know how to cook and incorporate them into healthy dishes. During that time, she realized her passion for cooking and went to a culinary school in Austin, Texas, for macrobiotic cooking. In short, macrobiotic cooking means an approach to eating that is mainly vegetarian and all about cooking methods with fresh ingredients. When creating the Villa lunch menu, she tries to incorporate this teaching into making the Villa lunches very balanced. Chef Allison said, “There is a little bit of everything on each tray. If students were to choose every option, it would be a nice balance between not being too sweet or salty and not having too much heavy protein.” Chef Alison firmly believes that “we are what we eat.”
It was difficult transitioning from Taos, New Mexico, to Villa and, after only one year, becoming head chef. After living in Taos, New Mexico, for a while, she moved to Seattle in 2012. During her time in Taos, she worked as a caterer and taught yoga. The summer that she moved here, she saw an ad on Craigslist for the assistant chef position at Villa. The next thing she knew, she was an assistant chef to Chef Don (Villa's previous chef). However, at the end of Chef Alison's first year, Chef Don retired, and she became the head chef. It was a rather large leap for her to go from being an assistant to the head chef job. Though it was challenging, she claims, “It was challenging in a good way. It kept me on my toes a lot, and I got to find new solutions to problems each day. I love to have different things happen each day and see what makes people happy, along with seeing what foods people like.” It is obvious that she has found her passion here at Villa and that she cares deeply about the students' feelings, interests, and health! Speaking of seeing what food people like, it turns out that the most popular dish at Villa happens to be the curly, buttery noodles. It resonates with younger children because of its homey familiarity. I mean, who doesn't like some good old-fashioned noodles? Although cooking such a meal for the whole school calls for relatively long hours, with her day starting at 8:30, it takes a full 3+ hours to cook for the whole school, and she continues to cook non-stop throughout the day. Of course, these numbers vary depending on the number of people helping. This year, she has three helpers working behind the scenes with her: Andrew (as the lead cook), Oscar (dishwasher duty), and Dan, who does a little bit of everything. It is evident that she loves Villa greatly, although when asked what her dream job would be if she couldn’t cook, she said, “I would like to teach yoga and meditation, do some sort of craft or make art and put it out there, for example, maybe creating my own food product and take it to market. As long as I can share what I have learned.”
Chef Allison has had some exciting experiences and offers some tips for beginning cooks! She warns new cooks that they will get some burns along the way, metaphorically and literally. When cooking, you will inevitably get some burns, but as the years go by, they become less and less frequent (practice makes perfect). Once you start practicing the art of cooking, you will get good and bad results, but cooking brings people closer together! An exhilarating experience that Chef Allison had while cooking was one summer while she was cooking for a yoga retreat in the mountains of New Mexico. There were many forest fires, and she had to evacuate the camp. She was cooking for around 100 people. All of the food was up on the mountain; she couldn’t bring it all down, so she had to look in the pantry and quickly decide which items she was going to save and bring down with her to use for the next couple of days. While waiting for someone else to bring the rest of the supplies down, her menu for the week was thrown out the window. She had to improvise the recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not only did she have to think quickly to feed all 100 people, but she also had to share a tiny kitchen with two other groups. There were a lot of last-minute changes. This situation demanded flexibility and calmness. At the end of the week, the rain came and the power went off in the kitchen the very last night because of thunder and lightning. It was an adventure to remember. She learned that she could sustain herself and persevere through any circumstance.
Speaking on behalf of Villa’s students and teachers, we appreciate everything you have done for us every day of the week! Chef Allison has been working at Villa for 11 years, and we hope there are many more to come! In Chef Allison's words, she loves to cook because “it's delicious, and it's the creative act of taking something beautiful that nature has made and changing it with creativity, tools, experience, and then making it into something that people will enjoy and bring a smile onto people's faces. Knowing that it will nurture them, become part of them, and bring them sustenance and happiness.”