Thomas Nsereko dishes on balancing life as a student chef

By Krista Spies spieskri@grinnell.edu

From learning to roll out roti when he was three years old to his first gig at a Michelin-starred restaurant in high school, Thomas Nsereko `26 now brings his love of cuisine to the Grinnell community. A cook in several gourmet restaurants, Nsereko spoke about his experience in professional culinary settings that many people may only see in movies.

“Being someone that’s very interested in people, finding that way to connect with people from anywhere around the world, just by sharing a meal, has been a moving force for me in my career as a cook,” says Nsereko.

His parents worked long hours after moving to Des Moines; his mother is from Scotland and his father is from Uganda. As such, a caretaker named Amudhu often looked after young Nsereko, and he helped her cook traditional Indian foods. He said that he became inspired simply by working on those small kitchen tasks, putting him in the direction he has followed his entire life thereafter.

After expressing her frustrations to residence life in an email, they asked her to seek out hotels in Grinnell, something Potter could not readily afford. It was not until several hours later when Perkins — who was not working that day — granted her access to her dorm and apologized for the situation in an email. After this, Potter was allowed to move into her dorm.

Potter, a QuestBridge student, says she is frustrated with the new winter break policy itself due to its inaccessibility for low-income students.

“It feels very inconsiderate for the College to put such a large fine on staying on campus when extenuating circumstances come up, explicitly when you tell them that you’re low-income,” she says.

Potter was not the only student who encountered difficulties while staying on campus over break. Sadie Weiner `24, a head lifeguard, was granted approval to stay in the dorms, with P-Card access, for a part of the break due to her employment status. However, if she and her coworkers wanted to keep the Russell K. Osgood Pool and Natatorium open for longer periods of time, they were expected to pay the $1000 fee. In previous years, Weiner said, the lifeguard team was able to keep the pool open for nearly the entire duration of winter break.

“It was frustrating, since the pool was closed for a lot more time,” she said in comparison to previous years.

Weiner and the other lifeguards were also temporarily denied access to buildings like their dorms and the natatorium due to an issue with the authorization of their P-Cards. Facilities management resolved this issue within 12 hours of arriving on campus. Weiner said that it “seemed like they weren’t ready for us yet.”

Meints, who reviews the Extenuating Circumstance Applications, said that the two primary reasons requests are denied is because they are unnecessary, or because their application does not provide enough information. For example, many students requested to stay on campus for only one or two additional days due to their flight schedules, something the College offered to cover for free as a grace period.

When speaking on the overall success of this policy change, Per-

Despite the issues that some students have encountered with the new policies, Perkins said that administration has no plans to change this fee moving forward. “Right now, we need to figure out, how do we know the folks who truly need to be here, and do we ask them to pay?

I think that’s what we’re figuring out right now.”

Perkins said that the residence life team is also open to feedback from the Grinnell community on how to improve their process moving forward. Meints said, “What we want to do is to help students have the best understanding of them [our policies] … and I’m happy to work with students to [achieve this].”

Nsereko said that for him, food crosses the boundaries of art, passion, work and necessity that highlight the beauty possible from connecting with others and their culture through this practice. He sees cooking, with respect to people, as “an opportunity to engage with their art and their tradi- tion in a way that hopefully will put a smile on your face and on theirs, as well as respecting the tradition and the love that goes into the dishes that they prepare for their family.”

Some cross-cultural dishes Nsereko makes include the Indian roti, Vietnamese pho, the American burger and Italian uovo ravioli. In addressing some of the different foods he listed as his favorites or important to his experience in some way, Nsereko brought up the intersection between knowledge and practice that comes from cuisines around the world.

Nsereko has worked in several gourmet restaurants from Des Moines to New York. Three of note in Des Moines include Harbinger, Aposto and Proof, where he was a chef de partie, or line cook, running a specific station to prep it, work, clean and break it down. This position includes service work, cooking, plating and serving.

In high school, Nsereko worked long hours after classes in professional settings. He says that he was balancing that stress with maturing in his teen years. “I was always the youngest in the kitchen,” he said.

“There is a distinction to make between loving something and obsessing,” he says of working those 40- to 50-hour shifts, while figuring out if he wanted to commit to the career long-term. “Obsession doesn’t have to be healthy, but when you have that love and respect for something, at the end of the day, no matter how stressful it is, there’s still some, ‘I want to be here.’”

As he continues to hone his craft between Grinnell’s campus and his home of Des Moines, Nsereko reflects on how coming to the College has influenced how he sees his cooking now. He highlights how he has been able to meet with people from around the world who bring recipes from their respective homes. “Something that’s been really awesome for me,” he said, “is being able to communicate in a way that makes me feel like I’m at home because I’m surrounded by people that care about food so much.”

When asked about his preferred setting for making dishes, Nsereko said, “I speak on behalf of a lot of cooks when I say this, but most of us really, really enjoy cooking for our family and our loved ones.” For Nsereko, that includes individuals at Grinnell College. He excitedly invites anyone interested in a recipe, in learning to cook or about food in general to contact him on @foiemas on Instagram.

As for the near future, Nsereko has been offered positions at a few high-end restaurants for the summer of 2023 and is deciding between the three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park, ranked first on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2017, and the one-Michelin-starred One White Street, both in New York City.