Cher Rosenberg: The Sorority Chef Interview

Catering to 55 girls for lunch and dinner everyday except Saturdays seems like a lot of work but not to Colorado State University’s Kappa Kappa Gamma Chef Cher Rosenberg. Although the girls of Kappa Kappa Gamma say that her food is delicious, her dessert is something they cannot resist. I decided to dig a little deeper into her point of view on her job and her desserts.

How do you manage and figure out what the schedule is going to be for the week?

Some of it is driven from what the girls like. Certainly, I take all my ques from suggestions. I know from past experiences that certain things are always popular. Sometimes, overtime they are not so popular anymore so I have to kind of watch to see what people like or don’t like. Sometimes we will issue food surveys and stuff, but we don’t get a lot of participation so that is hard for me to figure out what people really want. I try to tell everyone, “please tell me what you like” and if I can do it I will, absolutely, because I am really here for the chapter not for myself. I enjoy what I do very much and I want people to be happy.

Sometimes it is also driven by what’s cost effective because I am in the store and managing money, but I handle the money well. But I still make sure people are happy. And it becomes easier over the years.

Its seems very hard, especially since there is gluten, vegan, and soy options in the world right now. How do you manage that?

Yeah this type of food service is not easy in this age. Its not like a restaurant where you can sit down with a menu, which is what people your age are used to. So I try to take a menu and make it interesting and unique as I possibly can so everyone at least gets something they like.

So out of all the hardwork that you do what is your favorite part about working for Kappa Kappa Gamma?

There is a lot of favorite parts. I am a true foodie. You know I have been doing this all my adult life in some form or another. So, working with food, being creative with it, the fact that I have a family here is really wonderful. I enjoy working with the chapter and the girls, I always have. I like almost every Kappa I have ever known.

If you weren’t part of Greek life as a college student, what got you into making food for greek life?

Well, I owned a restaurant in Loveland and it was an enormous amount of work. I mean, it was insane. There is no way to tell someone that hasn’t done it what it was like. It took a toll on me, it took a toll on my kids and I decided that I had to stop. I was in partnership with my brother and I sold my part to my brother and I left. And the day I decided to leave there was an ad in the paper from Kappa Kappa Gamma. So I thought “Oh I can do that, since I have been in food service and it seems so much less work then what I have been doing.” It would also put me on the same calendar and my son at the time was going up so I thought, I will do that. And that is what lead me here.

What does your typical day at work look like for you?

A typical day, I generally start at home. I work from home quite a bit. I do a lot of menu research, planning, and writing up ideas and then making a shopping list, projecting out for the next week or two, what we are going to need. Because of my lack of storage I have to rotate product a lot. I am probably in the stores four to five nights a week, and so that is how I start my day. I leave my home before 7 a.m. Sometimes I will go to three stores because not everything we need comes from one. Plus we are not a traditional restaurant so how I buy, for example, if I need to provide for a handful of girls that need soy milk I can’t buy a case, I have to buy a couple half gallons, so it doesn’t go bad. But I don’t mind that, I like it. But I don’t like wasting food and I like spending money responsibly.

And so I go shopping and I pick things up. Then I go to the gym for a half an hour because if I didn’t workout I couldn’t do this work. You know you have to have a lot of strength. And then I show up at Kappa. I prep lunch and I prep dinner, and of course dessert; you know just organize everything.

Do you place dessert out every day?

Yes I do. I have a sweet tooth. I love my sweets. It is the treats in life that matter as far as I am concerned. I know sometimes you have to cut back but life is short. I’m pretty sure when on my deathbed I am not going to be like, “I’m really glad I didn’t eat that doughnut”

So, what is your favorite dessert you like to make?

I know what the favorite is of the chapter. I am trying to figure out what I like making. The chapter’s favorite is probably red velvet cupcakes followed closely by this dessert I make with peanut butter and chocolate custard graham cracker, people love them. I don’t have a pastry kitchen and I don’t have the kind of help I need to do interknit things. I can’t spend a lot of time on one thing, because my help is not skilled. But because of that I am somewhat limited, so I can’t decorate cookies like I used to. However, we are getting a bigger kitchen due to a renovation so I am looking forward to doing that again and I get more help.

You mentioned you used to. What did you used to do?

We used to decorate cookies, make all different kinds of brownies. Years ago, I taught cooking for a sister who lived here and we did all sweets. I did carmelitas, I taught chocolate moose, and I taught a basic sugar cookie and then we would make it. And then once we did a cake decorating class where we would bake, that was when I was house mom and chef at the same time. Hopefully with new house renovation that we are can start cookie decorating.

How does the new house renovation help you besides cookie decorating?

Well it is very exciting. I have been part of the design and the board has been extremely generous to allow me to be apart of the design team on this thing. My wishlist as been 80% filled. The guy the other day was talking to me about all the new equipment and its amazing. We have been working on this for over 4 years and I can’t believe this is really happening. Now is it starting to look so real. I look at all this equipment has to go because it is all getting replaced. I’m so used to my equipment that the other day and I was like “Oh my god I don’t know how to act.”

What does you future look like for you?

Well everyone keeps asking when am I going to retire. I really don’t feel like retiring. I guess I am supposed too. I am as energtic, as strong and as committed as I have ever been. I am never tired, I just keep going. But I knew for fact, I have to work in the new kitchen. I can’t have gone this long, help with the design, been apart of so many changes here at Kappa, and then not be part of this. So, hopefully, and as long as the chapter wants to keep me, and I’ll stay and been around for at least another couple of years.