Isabella Sanchez ’16: John Familetti Jr.’s thirty-five years of service to the EA community as Director of Dining Services continues to play a crucial role behind the scenes in the everyday lives of Episcopal students. A typical day for Familetti starts between 6-6:30 am with checking emails, confirming catering orders, and starting the extensive prep required for the day’s lunch. Around 7 am, the faculty lounge is equipped with the essentials: bagels, muffins and yogurt.
The six salads of the day are prepared fresh each morning beginning around 7:30 am. Familetti emphasizes his need for variety by saying, “We don’t want people to always have to eat the same thing everyday. Even though the basics for the salad bar stay the same, the main salads are rotated through.” This variety also calls for a diverse palette of dressings which are now being made in the cafeteria. Once Diane Fahy, dining staff member, enters the scene, she takes over all salad prep.
By 8 am the whole kitchen fills with the sweet aromas of different recipes and the diversity of that day’s meals. Luckily, technology has made the creative process easier than before. Familetti joked, “I used to have to use all these cookbooks, and now, it’s as simple as typing ‘chicken salad’ into Google. Now I have these thirty year old cookbooks that I never touch.” All these new recipes aren’t just archived in his head, however. “Now we have this binder with all the recipes that allows people to quickly come in and see what they need. We are constantly adding to it.”
At 9 am, the rest of the dining staff begins trickling into the cafeteria with big smiles spread across their faces and “good mornings” for everyone. They all start right away on their designated tasks, but as Diane Fahy says, “You are always busy but as soon as you’re done you go help someone else and everyone is always willing to work together.”
Prep begins for one of the day’s catering events at 9:30 am. There was a smaller meeting in the Sherrerd Alumni house, which is a less extensive job than some of the others the dining staff handles. Familetti put a three liter pot of coffee to brew, expecting to serve around 20 cups. While the smell of coffee filled the air, he set up a basket with sugars, creamers and scones.
The biggest chunk of preparation commences at 10 am. The day’s lunch processes can be extensive; between the hot meal, soups, deli and all the other great options presented to students and faculty on a daily basis, preparing the meal can be a lengthy process. For example, on chicken noodle soup day, it requires a ten-gallon pot to cook the base for the soup.
In the main kitchen, tortellini, one of the most popular lunch options, takes up Familetti’s attention. After a while the process becomes almost mechanical, yet still precise every time. By the end of the process, around 200 pounds of tortellini are sold. The process is repeated until all the Lower, Middle, and Upper school lunches have been served.
To accompany this popular option, Familetti chooses to try a new menu item, broccoli rabe and sausage on bowtie pasta. As part of the effort to maintain variety, this new option is a way to give everyone something aside from the traditional tortellini. Though the decision was that it would not become a regular item on the menu, Familetti was hopeful for future projects. “We always give everything a shot, and some just work better than others”
cookies each day for the Episcopal students.
Photo courtesy of Isabella Sanchez ’16
Even though there is a small number of students coming in throughout the day, the major influx starts at 11 am. At this time, it becomes organized chaos. Everyone is dealing with their duties in the kitchen, serving kids with a smile, and checking out.
Things start calming down around 1:30 pm. This is where major clean up takes place. Throughout the whole day cleanliness was strongly emphasized, “No one wants to go someplace sloppy…we take a lot of pride in the place.” Everyone routinely checks the whole cafeteria for little things and makes sure it stays presentable.
Around 2 pm, once all clean up from lunch has been finished, Patricia McAleer, also a part of the dining staff, starts on the important process of baking all the cookies for the next day. By the time the process is complete, a rack is filled with up to 480 cookies, the majority of which will be completely gone by that time the next day. There is anywhere between 5-8 sheets of chocolate chip, the most popular option, and 4 sheets of everything else. The variety piece translates here too, with new recipes and option presented regularly, like the new chocolate chip scones and the homemade banana bread.
As the day progressed, Familetti shared how he came to play the essential role that he does today. “It started out with wanting a part time job in college. I started out as a busboy and then was given the opportunity to cook.” He described it as a key moment in his life, stating, “From the time I started, I loved the lifestyle.” After several years of working in the fast paced restaurant environment, he came to know the former director of the dining staff at EA. “I wanted a change of pace, especially with the thoughts of starting a family. I wanted a regular schedule where I wasn’t tied down to working every weekend and holiday.” Even though his last full time restaurant job was in 1982, he continued part time during the first years of working at EA.
Family continues to have a heavy influence on the choices in his daily routine, as wife, Lisa Familetti, comes in every day to work out logistics and help serve the Lower School cafeteria. She has been at EA for thirty years now and is a key player in coordinating all aspects of the schedule while taking care of logistics as well. Familetti also has had six children come through EA with the last one, James, in the Class of 2019.
Familetti further explained that, besides the hours, the general feel of schools is much different from the restaurant business. “Here, we are always moving around the whole place. In restaurants, you are usually only handling one small area.” In this kitchen, it truly is much different; Familetti shifts around from the stoves, to his office, to the pantry, to the huge walk in freezer, then back around. He also mentioned the food choices are a lot different in an educational setting. “Here I get to do typical school lunch food but I also get the opportunity to try what I want as long as its good and costs are reasonable.” However, for Familetti and the rest of the dining staff, interactions are a big highlight of the job. “It is always a pleasure to come to work and see so many friendly faces.” At the end of the day the priority is “preparing good food, keeping clean and providing good service. We want to make people happy.”