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Her Plate Is Always Full

Cafeteria manager takes pleasure in pleasing palates

By JANETTE NEUWAHL
STAFF WRITER

PALM COAST — As she slides a fresh pizza out of the oven, Graciela Butarelli glances at the clock in the Matanzas High School kitchen. It is 10:30 in the morning, just five minutes before the first lunch period begins. The cafeteria manager peeks out the kitchen door and ducks back inside.

"The people are coming," Butarelli yelps, her high-pitched Argentinian accent signaling the students are about to pour in.

Her reminder sets off a frazzled pace for the 12 food service staffers who help ensure the school´s 1,000 students are fed each day.

At the far end of the kitchen, server Susana Haire pushes a cart of carefully-packed salads to the display case. Kathryn Luck puts a fresh batch of french fries under the warmer. Staffer Jackie Collins gets seated behind a cash register, waiting for the bell that dismisses students from class for lunch.

Butarelli uses the spare moments to plow a pizza slicer through her homemade spinach pie, then tears off slices and places them on a tray. She faces the pieces in a rectangular shape, opposite each other so students can grab the slices by the crust.

It seems like a small move, but the desire to please her hungry customers is paramount to Butarelli.

"We have our job thanks to the kids, so I try to help them as much as possible," she says, while sautéing the onions and green peppers for her pizzas.

For example, making a dish from scratch each day isn´t a requirement of Butarelli´s job, but she likes to do it.

Throughout her 19 years in the Flagler County school district, Butarelli has earned a reputation for her cooking — and her generosity.

Because of that, coordinating meals at Matanzas is not her only charge nowadays. Butarelli is also tapped regularly to cater school district events, from affairs as formal as the Teacher of the Year banquet to baking up a batch of cupcakes for a School Board member´s birthday that night.

Luckily, Butarelli thrives under pressure.

"I never have a normal day," says the 57-year-old, who rises at 4 a.m. each day and typically logs 11-hour days, sometimes including weekends for special events. "But when you make things people remember, and they start asking when you´re going to do it again, that´s pay for all of your job."

Butarelli makes an annual salary of just under $30,000 a year, but earns overtime for special events.

She never loses sight of her main purpose, though. And students notice that.

Matanzas junior Doris Mayorga, 18, chatters in Spanish with Graciela as she winds her way through the lunch line, asking which dishes to try first."She´s really understanding and down to earth," said Mayorga. "She puts herself in our position and makes what we like to eat."

As she doles out a free lunch to a student who forgot his money, Butarelli knows she could get in trouble for doing that, but figures she´ll take the pay cut if she needs to.

"Other high schools say ´too bad´ (if a student does not have their lunch money)," she said, putting her hand on her heart. "I can´t do it."

Butarelli´s compassion for children led her to start working in the school cafeterias. She got her first job with the district as a kitchen employee at Buddy Taylor Middle School in the late 1980s so she could spend more time with her daughter, who attended the school.

She had not worked in a professional kitchen for many years, although her parents owned a restaurant in her hometown of La Plata, Argentina, so she had an idea of how things would be run.

When she started at the middle school, Butarelli said, she did not plan on becoming a manager, let alone a school district caterer. But her ability has allowed others to push her in that direction.

In the past, Flagler´s Food Services director Angela Torres said all of the cafeteria managers used to collaborate and plan district-wide affairs, but those seemed less organized than events with Butarelli in charge.

"Graciela has an absolute talent of pulling these things together," Torres said. "She can with no effort plan a whole menu, think of decorations, layout — she has it down to a science and can whip it all up, whereas I have to plan Thanksgiving starting next month."

It´s hard to match the many gifts that Butarelli donates to the district, but officials are trying. Last year, when she was moved from Buddy Taylor Middle School to manage the Matanzas High School dining hall, assistant superintendent Roy Pistone added a personal touch to the sub sandwich station — a sign naming the counter "Lady Graciela´s Port."

Butarelli is constantly making a special dish for someone, or agreeing to cook for an occasion that warrants her culinary expertise. "She never says no," Torres said.

And Butarelli does not see that as a problem.

"I really enjoy it," she said. "I love my job."

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