Interview of Jatoma Gavin

Johanna Fleischman
June 2012

In the world of frozen dinners, take-out menus and demanding five-year-olds, having a culinary expert at home can be quite the blessing. But any trained chef will tell us that running a functional kitchen means more than just producing good food. According to Jatoma Gavin, the Food Service Manager for Lovin' Life Ministries, cooking skills have to come hand-in-hand with creativity, patience, efficient management, and most of all, ministry.

Question: What is the most difficult part about being a chef?

I think one of the most difficult parts is training my team to prepare the food as I would. It seems that being a chef is a balance between managing and creating. I make the layouts and menus, broken down by meal, but I can't cook every meal, so I need to turn around and train the cooks to prepare the menu. Sometimes it's hard to facilitate that.

Question: When did you decide to pursue a career in the culinary field?

Food brought my family together: my mom cooked every meal and my grandma and cousins would come over every Sunday for a big family dinner. While participating in the Special Task Force (STF, now called Generation Peace Academy) volunteer program with the Unification Church in Europe, I always found myself in the kitchen.

I was happy to cook at workshops and serve in that way. It came naturally to me. After my time in Europe, I knew I wanted to work with people and ministry and, if I did, my work might take me all over the world. So, I chose a career in the food industry, because I knew I could get a job anywhere, no matter where God called me to go.

Question: Where were you trained?

I grew up around food, so my training actually began with my mom and my grandmother, but I was formally trained at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

Question: How has your family supported your culinary career goals?

In 2005, when I went to culinary school, my wife and I were looking at different options. There was a community college, which was cheap, but didn't have such a big culinary program. The other option was the big program in San Francisco. My wife told me I should be around the best. She pushed me to go to the better school, even though it was more expensive. My wife has always supported my education. As for the rest of my family, they like me to cook for them.

Question: What was your first job in the cooking field?

My first job was in San Francisco, during my time in culinary school. I took a temp job with a staffing agency and had the chance to work with a variety of high-end caterers. I had a second job during that time, as well, doing espresso machine demonstrations at Sur la Table.

When I moved to Long Island, NY, I was hired as a line cook and garde manger for a hotel and had the chance to cook for a lot of weddings and corporate conferences. I was gearing up for a promotion when I switched gears and began working in ministry.

Question: How did you come to work for Lovin' Life Ministries?

While working as a cook on Long Island, I went to a witnessing summit. It was a gathering of older and younger Unificationists to have an honest conversation about the future of our church. I was really moved by everybody there, and my wife and I had just had our son and were concerned about the future. There was an opportunity to go out to California to be part of a pilot project to test some new ideas for ways we could develop the Church, and I volunteered to be part of it. The three weeks there had a big impact on me and I decided to stay. My family and I moved to Los Angeles and lived there for three years, supporting the witnessing effort and the beginning of Lovin' Life Ministries. In January 2011, I stepped down from that role. It was then that Reverend In Jin Moon invited me to cook at the Lovin' Life Learning Center. I saw it as a perfect mix of my experience over the years and I accepted.

Question: What have you gained from working for Lovin' Life Ministries?

I've gained a lot already. Being the chef and running my own kitchen is great, but it's also a headache, so I'm learning a lot about leadership and working with volunteers. Right now, the Learning Center is being remodeled, including the kitchen. So, I'm also learning a lot about patience. What is great right now is that I get to start from scratch. I get to learn on the job as well as create a great food service, not just for those at the Learning Center, but also those who come in from out of town. I'll gain even more experience as the café in the building opens and our team expands.

Question: How do you plan to develop your vision in the future?

Our Senior Pastor (In Jin Moon) talks about simple elegance. I see my career in food service along similar lines; I like simple food, done really well. Fresh ingredients and attention to detail make a big difference in a meal, so I can see my career being marked by that kind of approach. I can also see how our community could expand food service to become a strong part of our ministry. During my time in Los Angeles, I saw how much food helped people open up to each other. I remember one "rock and rolls" party we did, rolling sushi while listening to live music. Everyone had a great time and I had many people ask me about our church while we rolled sushi together. There are so many ways to naturally witness through food. The kitchen is also a great place to learn about teamwork, hard work and the heart of service. My mom served True Parents and took care of the New Yorker when it first opened and I can see myself inheriting the kind of heart for service that she had. There are many possibilities for building the culinary arts in our community and supporting the events we always have in a way that can teach others and be a channel for God.

Question: What is your most embarrassing cooking experience?

You try to bury those. When I first came home from culinary school for Thanksgiving, of course my family wanted me to cook for them. So my grandma said, "Just make the mashed potatoes tonight," so I was like, yeah, no problem! So I started doing mashed potatoes, and she had this special hand blender that's supposed to blend it up real good. I don't know what I did to this stuff but I didn't make mashed potatoes, it was more mashed paste, thick like cement. All my family was there, all my cousins. It was like, "Oh, here's Jatoma, he came back from culinary school and this is what he can do." They still mention that. That was six years ago.

Question: What advice would you give to others considering a career in the culinary or hospitality field?

Try working in some area of the industry before you commit to culinary school. It isn't your typical nine to five job -- you work nights, weekends and holidays. It does give you flexibility, though, and if you're a morning or night person you can do well with a chef's schedule. It is hard to invest 50 or 60 thousand dollars a year into cooking school unless you are sure you want to pursue a career in the industry, so getting some experience first helps you make that choice.