HUNGRY BOYS

After two years of catering to the whims of a billionaire and his unpleasant family, private chef Darlene Barnes walks out. She and her husband relocate to Washington where, in the midst of a recession, she takes the only job she can find: cooking at the Alpha Sig fraternity house at University of Washington. She had never cooked on the scale that the job required (cooking for 80 young men!) and she was daunted not only by the professional challenge, but also the cultural one. Upon her arrival at the house, she spent two weeks cleaning before she could bring herself to actually cook. Over time, she imposes order in the kitchen with lots of rules and padlocks. She picks up a reputation for being “mean,” but she eventually earns respect. Her cooking becomes a point of pride for the house and the guys become attached to her, often turning to her for advice on matters ranging from school, girls, parents and future plans. Sorority girls start to drop by looking for a good meal, which doesn’t hurt her relationship with the guys, either. Soon she realizes she has become just as attached to them as they are to her — that she feeds off their attention and devotion the same way they feed off her cooking. She fully recognizes that this isn’t a grown-up job and that it can’t last forever— so at the end of her fifth year, she tells them she isn’t coming back. But after they beg, and text her sad pictures of themselves, she agrees to return for one more year. She’s in the middle of that year now.

Darlene Barnes is a native of New Orleans but was raised in the UK. She started a blog (fraternitykitchen or hungryboys.net) as an outlet for some of the craziness she witnessed during her time at the University of Washington. The blog has gained a strong following and has been featured in culinary publications. Darlene was included in an article in The Wall Street Journal about a handful of professional chefs who have taken jobs cooking for fraternities. She was the only woman, unsurprisingly.