“I Pretty Much Still Want to Break Every Rule”: An Interview with Chef Ann Cooper

Let’s begin in the early days of your career as a chef. When you went to school at the Culinary Institute of America in the ’70s, there were no female culinary instructors. When you worked on cruise lines, you were one of the first three women to work in the kitchens. What drew you to becoming a professional chef when so few women worked in the industry at the time?

Chef Ann Cooper: It started with not having a high school diploma. I was thrown out of school, and I decided my occupation was going to be “ski bum.” I hitchhiked from Massachusetts to Colorado and had no money when I arrived. I needed a job. I talked my way into an assistant breakfast cook position, and the owner of the restaurant kind of took me under his wing.

After a couple of years of cooking there and all around town, I broke both my legs back-to-back while hang-gliding and skiing. I decided there needed to be life after “ski bum” and that I really wanted to learn how to cook. I wanted to go to culinary school, and everyone said the only school was the Culinary Institute of America. 

You’ve had an adventurous career: you’ve cooked for round-the-world cruises, for tens of thousands of people at film and music festivals, for gourmet restaurants, for the Grateful Dead, and in the White House. You eventually decided to devote yourself to making school food healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable for all kids. Why did you ultimately move your career in this direction?

Chef Ann Cooper: I’m such an unlikely candidate to be a school food advocate. As a chef, I never knew what kids ate and didn’t want to know what they ate. The worst thing that could have happened to me was on a Friday night, some server came running into the kitchen and said to me, “Chef, chef, there’s a screaming child on table 19. What do I do?” And I would always say, “Ask them to leave. What are they doing in my restaurant on a weekend night?” 

But eventually, a few things led me to school food. First, even though I struggled with reading and writing, I really, really understood math and numbers. And when computers came along, I really understood computers. I could do financial modeling. I could cater these big parties of 20,000 because I knew how to build spreadsheets and be organized.

Another thing was that I really got into sustainability and began working with local farmers. 

Almost 20 years ago, in a profile in the New Yorker, you were quoted saying, “I never met a rule I didn’t want to break.” What are some of the rules you wanted to break? 

Chef Ann Cooper: I pretty much still want to break every rule … especially ones that don’t make any sense to me, which are probably most of them. 

We’ll have to save that story for another time! After hearing all that, it’s unsurprising that you’ve become known as the “Renegade Lunch Lady” for your leadership in advancing school food change. The term “lunch lady” evokes different things for different people, both positive and negative. For some, lunch ladies and cafeteria staff can even seem invisible. How did you come to proudly embrace being a lunch lady? 

Chef Ann Cooper: Eventually, I told people, “I’m not going to be a chef anymore. I’m going to be a lunch lady.”  Why was being a chef cool and a lunch lady wasn’t? I felt like if I embraced being a lunch lady as if it was something cool, I could lift it up to be something more than what most people were thinking about lunch ladies. And thinking differently about lunch ladies could help change school food. 

What’s a stereotype or misunderstanding about school food workers that you’d like to debunk?

Chef Ann Cooper: I think one of the things is that it’s easy work. It’s really hard work. People think, “You’re just feeding a couple kids.” That’s not the case at all. I think there’s this sense that school food workers don’t want to make good food. They don’t want to cook from scratch. 

But most people who work in school food do it because they care about the kids. And if they care about the kids, everything else can just go by the wayside. I think as we professionalize school food people, not just the directors and not just the chefs, but everyone, then that will change the whole perception of school food and how school food people are really seen.

Researchers have found that care-oriented work is typically lower-paid. This holds true for the workers whose job is to feed children at school. The school food workforce is 94% women, and school food professionals are often the lowest-paid workers in schools. What needs to happen for the general public to recognize the inherent value and importance of the predominantly female school food workforce?

Chef Ann Cooper: First of all, you have to remember that in 2024, women, in general, made 84 cents to every dollar a man made. So, we’re already behind the eightball, right? But I think that there’s something that carries over when you notice who oversees school food at the highest levels. People in charge of facilities, school superintendents — these are usually guys. Most school food workers are women, but a lot of times, the people at the top are not advocating for women. 

Initially, women started doing school food work as volunteers. They wanted to work when their kids were in school, so the work first had no value, then it was devalued, and today, still too often has very little value. Again, we need to professionalize school food work. Now, we have trained chefs doing this work—and certainly not just me; all over the country, chefs are doing this work, and that makes a difference. 

Also, today’s generation of parents—many of them cook at home and care about what they eat and what their kids eat—is starting to work in favor of valuing the school food workforce. We know that hungry and malnourished kids can’t learn well, and eating well affects emotional health. We have to keep saying that and keep doing it.

Last question. In your book A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen, you write: “Most culinarians would not be where they are today without a mentor. Mentors help us formulate attitudes about food; they show us generosity of spirit; they give us confidence in our creative vision; and they teach us by example about the day-to-day professionalism required to succeed in the kitchen.” Who are some women who have served as a mentor to you in the kitchen or on your path to reforming school food?

Chef Ann Cooper: In the school food world, it’s Alice Waters. She has been an uncompromising leader in school food reform, and I was happy to work with her for years. 

Also, though she hasn’t personally mentored me, I’m very grateful to have worked near and around Michelle Obama. She was also pretty uncompromising in her own way, trying to change school food. She was constrained by being the First Lady and also by politics, but she still really understood the importance of school food.

I’ve worked with many women in kitchens over the years, and every one left a lasting impression on me. There are so many strong, powerful women out there who made their way in food and paved the way for women to work in kitchens in a way that, in years past, they couldn’t.