A New Door Into the Kitchen for Aspiring Chefs
When Joanairys Merced was living in group foster care, she once baked Ina Garten’s cheesecake for herself and a dozen other girls.
“On ‘Barefoot Contessa,’ they make it look so perfect,” said Ms. Merced, who is now 19 and lives with her mother in the Bronx. “In a real kitchen? Everything’s fast and messy. You’ve got to have a thick skin.”
Ms. Merced, who goes by the nickname Ginger, has been working on that. She is one of 22 people who enrolled this summer in Stage NYC, a new 12-week city program that recruits young, out-of-work New Yorkers and prepares them for restaurant careers with a mix of culinary classes and paid, on-the-job training in prominent kitchens like Marea, Del Posto and Bar Boulud. . .