ABOUT KIRK

After completing an M.A. in teaching, Kirk Conrad decided the high school classroom wasn’t for him after all. He enrolled in culinary school and became a chef — never imagining his new career would one day take him right back to school. But after working at Boston’s stylish Top of the Hub and as a private chef for corporate events, his ongoing concern for young people and the news of a new nutrition program in the Boston Public Schools brought Chef Conrad into the Boston school system. It’s a job fueled by a lifelong passion for food and for kids. “I want to make sure these kids, who may not have any other food in their day except what we’re providing in school, have the absolute best we can give them.”

“Chef Kirk,” as the students call him, knows both anecdotally and from studies that many of the youngsters he feeds go home to empty refrigerators, and he says it breaks his heart. The meals and snacks served in the schools are sometimes the only calories they have in the day.

Chef Kirk thrives in his challenging, fast-paced career. “It’s said you’re only as good as your last meal and that has even more significance when working with young people.” He explains that high school students who have already formed their own tastes are the hardest to convince to try new things. But this resourceful young chef is doing everything he can to work around their resistance. “They won’t give up pizza, so we switched to a whole-grain crust, low-fat cheese with grilled vegetables on top.” A little subversive, he admits, but it works. Not all his ideas are as successful. He laughs as he recounts his attempt to sell homemade hummus to high school students. “They just weren’t going to have anything to do with chick peas!”