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BY NAOMI PEDUZZI (NCS 12, CTT 06-11, staff 14, 18–19)

The growing, preparing, and sharing of food is so wrapped up in my mom’s personality, I couldn’t separate them if I tried. To nourish others is simply her nature. This fall my mom, Paulette, retired from NCS/CTT after 26 years working in the kitchen. She became Head of Kitchen in 2008. She has provided countless meals to the campers, students, staff, and faculty of this place, fueling growing bodies and minds, year after year. She planned menus, coordinated with our farmers and food-packers, got special projects off the ground, ordered ingredients, searched for new recipes, guided children working in the kitchen, and managed the kitchen staff. That’s all on top of the fundamental part of her work—the cooking and baking! Walk into the kitchen and you would find Paulette baking homemade bread, turning our garden produce into fresh salsa, rolling out sticky buns, or chopping vegetables for soup. She did everything with a grace and ease that came from living her entire life in communion with food—from its source in the dirt to its place on the table.

Paulette grew up on a family dairy farm in Rice, Minnesota. The farm was essentially self-sustaining. Her family raised chickens for eggs and meat, baked fresh bread every day, and harvested, canned, and froze enough vegetables from their large garden to last through the long, cold winters. Paulette was involved in all of it. She took care of the calves and chickens, worked in the garden, and helped in the kitchen. Being connected to the food she ate was simply a fact of life.

In her 20s, Paulette lived and worked at a restaurant and campground in Greece for six years. The food that supplied the restaurant was bought fresh every day. Fishermen on motorbikes came by pulling carts of fish caught earlier that day, and vegetables and fruit came in from local farmers. In the off-season, when the campground restaurant closed, Paulette and her friends found work picking mushrooms or oranges. The local women taught them to make spanakopita with homemade phyllo and foraged greens from the mountains. Her world was full of simple, delicious food whose ingredients could easily be traced back to their source.

A few years after leaving Greece, Paulette and her friends started High Peaks Base Camp, a restaurant and campground in upstate New York. She worked in the kitchen, making food that locals recall with admiration to this day. It was there that she perfected the art of stretching out pizza dough by tossing and spinning it—a trick that she brought with her when she joined the NCS/CTT community as a cook in June 1994. By that time, she had married my father, Mark Peduzzi, and my older brother, Luke, was a year old. NCS/CTT offered a reliable, steady job, and the organization’s philosophy and emphasis on farm-based, local eating made it an easy decision. Paulette was a kind, strong, and steady presence in the NCS/CTT kitchen ever since.

I spoke to Paulette shortly before her retirement, and asked her a few questions about her career. This is what she had to say:

Naomi: What do you find most rewarding about your work?

Paulette: I really enjoy being able to utilize what we have grown and raised here on the farm. I am constantly learning and looking for new ways to use as much from the garden as possible and make sure those ingredients are transformed into meals that taste good! It’s very rewarding to know that we are giving the kids healthy, local food that is going to nourish them.

Naomi: What’s it like cooking for an international population of students and campers?

Paulette: I really enjoy eating food from all over the world and trying new things, and I enjoy the challenge of trying different recipes and using ingredients that are unfamiliar to me. When we make food from different cultures and countries, like at the yearly holiday banquet, we like to get suggestions and recipes from kids and their parents to make them as authentic as possible. It can be hard because I’m not always sure what the end result should taste like! Getting access to authentic ingredients and having the time to really commit can also be a challenge. But it’s always a fun one!

Naomi: Do you have a favorite meal to make?

Paulette: I love the Thanksgiving meal. It is always a lot of work, but it’s also very rewarding because so many people help to make it happen. In the weeks before, students come in and help peel apples for pies and faculty helps with other prep, and then on the actual day there’s really full support from everyone. The community feeling is really strong. The work doesn’t feel like too much because there are so many people helping. And the kids are so happy because their families are there! That always feels good.

Naomi: What will you miss after your retirement in September?

Paulette: I will miss the community of people a lot. Even though I was in the kitchen, I was able to work alongside and talk with everyone so much—the children, the kitchen staff, the people working in the offices, the teachers, and the farmers. Everyone felt like good friends.

Naomi: How are you feeling about leaving after all those years here?

Paulette: It’s time. I’m feeling good. I am ready. I want to get out and explore the Adirondacks, do some hikes, work in my garden, and really slow down and enjoy living in this beautiful place.

And Paulette deserves it! She has poured 26 years of her energy, time, and love into feeding the bodies and hearts of this community. NCS/CTT will not be the same without her amazing food and gentle, giving presence. I could not be prouder to be the daughter of such a truly incredible person.