School's head cook uses her culinary skills to help kids grow in their faith

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. (OSV News) -- You don't often find sawdust on school lunch menus, but at St. Joseph Catholic School in St. Joseph, students were surprised one year to find sawdust-like breadcrumbs on the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, as a reminder of the woodworking saint.

Stephanie Nix will be the first person to tell you that she did not take the head cook position at the school just because she loves to prepare food. For her, it's helping kids grow in their faith.

Nix first became involved in St. Joseph School as a parent in 2015. When the position of head cook went unfilled for months after the retirement of the current cook was announced, she began to discern if the role was right for her.

Her career history had included publishing and working with special needs students as a paraprofessional. She did not have experience as a cook.

Her discernment started with a conversation she had with her husband, later discussing the idea with their three daughters -- knowing it would change her role at their school.

"I wanted (my daughters) to see me modeling that I can try and learn something new," Nix said. "I wanted them to see that our church and school community matters to us, and that as a married couple, we were going to invest in this."

Nix, a lay Carmelite, read an article by Carmelite Sister Laetitia Therese, who shared about her experience working in a kitchen at their retreat house.

"She wrote that when people are on retreat, they probably don't see her or know who she is and that she doesn't have a forward-facing job in their retreat experience, but that they can't hear God's voice and have a good retreat if they're hungry," Nix recalled in an interview with The Central Minnesota Catholic, St. Cloud's diocesan magazine.

"It just clicked that working in the kitchen could be a way of helping the children to learn about Jesus," she continued. "Even those background jobs can really impact people's ability to tune into God during the day."

This fall, Nix began her fourth school year as the head cook at St. Joseph, and her love for children and for sharing her faith is apparent to many.

Preschool teachers Sarah Mattson and Becca Rauch have a front-row seat to how Nix works, as their classrooms are adjacent to the cafeteria and kitchen. Both feel Nix is the right person, through the breakfast program, to greet them in the morning.

"Her heart is so big, and she is able to identify if students had a tough start to their day," Rauch said.

"She is always on the lookout for people who may be having a hard day and knows just how to help them," Mattson said. "She always knows what kids need and they know they always have a safe place with Mrs. Nix."

Kitchen assistant and school parent, Tina Coborn, feels equally grateful to work alongside Nix.
"We chose this school for our kids because when we visited, I could tell that everybody cares. Stephanie is part of that," Coborn said. Working with her is great, and we have grown to be friends."

Nix's discovery of "The Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life" by Kendra Tierney got her to thinking of incorporating liturgical living into the school day.

"I knew this role could be impactful if I choose to see it that way. I saw (adding liturgical living practices) as a way to do something during lunch that could add to catechesis, add to the faith culture of our school and help them to make a choice for Jesus," she said.

Now, Nix finds new ways to incorporate special days into the lunch menu like the breadcrumbs on the feast of St. Joseph to symbolize the sawdust in his workshop, animal crackers on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, all white foods on Immaculate Conception and angel food cake to celebrate the feast of the Holy Archangels, to name a few.

This intentionality creates extra steps when menu planning, but Nix feels strongly about reinforcing at lunch time what students see and hear at Mass and in their classrooms. The work does not go unnoticed.

"She's very knowledgeable about the saints and the feast days and takes special care to recognize those days and make them special for the kids," SJCS preschool teacher Sarah Mattson said. "It helps enforce the Catholic identity of our school."

Even outside of school hours, parents are hearing about the work Nix does.

"Our kids come home talking about a special dessert they had because of the feast day," Margaret Nuzzolese Conway, a school parent, said. "It makes it fun and relevant for kids and gives meaning to celebrating the lives of these extraordinary people. It's what a Catholic school should be doing."

As a parent, she is grateful for the extra steps Nix takes to incorporate faith, but the real secret ingredient to a positive lunch experience at the school is Nix.

"She is such a present person in all of her interactions. When people see Stephanie, they feel an abundance of care from her, and I know that transfers into her food preparation," Nuzzolese Conway said. "We love Mrs. Nix."