Spotlight on Michael Sconce

Brimmer’s Director of Food Services talks good food, kitchen camaraderie, and the secret to kids trying something new.

It’s lunch time at Brimmer and the Corkin Dining Commons is the bustling heart of the school as the Brimmer kitchen prepares to serve what amounts to nearly 600 meals for a hungry crowd ranging from age 3 through septuagenarians, all with a variety of favorite foods, dietary observations, and taste preferences. What might seem like a daunting task for most is all in a day’s work for the Brimmer kitchen team, led by Director of Food Services Michael Sconce. With a calm, soft-spoken demeanor paired perfectly with a wealth of experience, Sconce has all the essential ingredients for a recipe for success.

Sconce first took an interest in cooking as a young adult. “I enjoyed good food but I couldn’t afford to eat out at the time, so I learned to prepare it myself. My older brother learned to cook when he moved out of the house, and it seemed so sophisticated. I watched what he did, experimented by myself, and started buying cookbooks.”

He was surprised to find that behind his budding interest was a real aptitude for cooking. “It came naturally to me—one of the only things really,” he remembers. But securing a job in a kitchen with no experience would prove to be no easy feat. In fact, it would take more than 10 years of applying, during which Michael worked as both a bike mechanic and a ski patroller while living in Washington State. Around this time, he also took the opportunity to return to school. “I chose to pursue a degree in nutrition because I like the idea of alternative medicine, though I’d consider nutrition to be more preventative than alternative.” His studies would, in part, help open the door to his first kitchen job. “The chef I worked for went to the Culinary Institute of America, and while his job was food, his passion was nutrition. Meanwhile I was studying nutrition, but my passion was cooking, so we interacted well-together. Since then, all I’ve done is cook.”

Upon relocating to the East Coast, Sconce took a job as a Chef/Manager at Boston Medical Center where he oversaw a team of 40, preparing food for both catering services and patient meals. Among the many challenges of this role was observing firsthand some of the outcomes of poor nutrition and dietary habits in patients with chronic illness caused by obesity. Looking back, he sees a connection between his work at Brimmer and his previous position. “You can be a chef at a hospital which is a great use of your talents, or at a school which is arguably more useful,” he says. “If you can teach people to eat well early in life, they might continue to do so, and hopefully stay out of the hospital.”

With this insight in mind, Sconce landed at Brimmer four years ago in the role of Lead Cook and Assistant Kitchen Manager. “This job has been some of the best education I’ve ever had,” he explains. “It has been a tremendous opportunity for me.”

While the daily management of the kitchen and food services takes up much of his time, Sconce still finds ways to interact with the community outside of the Dining Commons. Through the curriculum-based activities happening in both the Outdoor Garden and the Library Tower Gardens, he has been able to build meaningful relationships with students and teachers around cultivating organic food. He also teaches an After-School Club called Mini-Cooks, where he has a chance to get to know Lower School students better by teaching them basic cooking techniques and showing them how to experiment with different foods.

In another effort to bring Brimmer’s cuisine closer to its curriculum, Sconce infuses global learning into lunch each month through his Traveler’s Table series. A concept that originated as a collaboration with the Creative Arts Department, it has given the kitchen an opportunity to explore new and different foods every month. Initially the program featured meals from countries and cultures in Africa, South America, and Asia, but recently Sconce and his team branched out to explore the cuisine of Europe. “People don’t realize how many meals we try having never tasted, cooked, or demoed them before,” he laughs. “For example, after eating the sauerbraten we made for our recent Germany Traveler’s Table, Virigina Beech assured me that it was authentic German quality, and she has lived in Germany!”

kids try new things, which they’re willing to do if they know you and they trust you,” he says. “If you can start by cooking the things they like, and you do a good job with that, then they begin to trust that you can make something taste good even if they’ve never heard of it.” You might think the Mini-Cooks students would be his toughest critics, but they are often the most eager to taste test. “I vividly remember a Kindergarten student remarking, “I never liked apples before, but now I like them because we made that apple crumble!”

Though he remains mostly behind the scenes these days, Sconce’s confident leadership sets the tone in the kitchen and helps ensure that his team thrives. In fact, he can’t speak highly enough about the Brimmer kitchen staff. “I love working with them,” he raves. “There’s so much experience. They’ve seen the whole process over the years, from opening canned food and warming it up to making fresh ceviche. It’s exciting to see the change and have the support and trust of a team that includes people who have worked here for 25 years. I don’t have to know everything about the kitchen, or know their jobs as well as they do, or keep all the knowledge to myself. I can trust that they take care of what they need to do. We’ve achieved so much together.”

Is it any surprise that Sconce and his team are some of the most beloved members of the Brimmer community? Ever humble, Sconce insists that this adoration boils down to one simple truth. “We have the food. Don’t you always love the ones who serve you food?” ■

Nicky DeCesare, Brimmer’s Associate Director of Marketing & Communications, loves going behind the scenes to spotlight our amazing faculty and staff. As a self-proclaimed foodie and Brimmer lunch enthusiast, she was thrilled to learn more about Michael’s culinary journey, the inner-workings of the kitchen, and the integral role that Michael and his team play in enhancing the student experience and contributing to the positive culture of the School.