Traveling cook finds a home

Bruce Balboni is a cookin’ kind of guy. He’s kneaded bread in Boston, stacked sandwiches in Los Angeles and chopped vegetables in New York City. Now he wraps burritoes, crimps calzone, fries piroshki, and rolls chapati in Orono.

In Orono?

Yes, Orono. Balboni is the manager of the Fernald Hall Soup Kitchen, a small vegetarian restaurant sponsored by Residential Life at the University of Maine. Monday through Thursday during the school year, the Soup Kitchen is a meal-time delight for campus and community natural food eaters, and has been since 1976.

But Balboni has only been there for a year.

“I was supposed to meet some friends at the Soup Kitchen for dinner. They never showed up, but I stayed anyway and had dinner. I started working there the next day,” said Balboni.

At that point, he didn’t imagine that he would inherit the job of manager. In fact, he accepted the position reluctantly because years of food service experience had discouraged him from working in the field again.

His tenure at the Soup Kitchen, however, has been most satisfying. He credits this to the hard-working staff, and the goals of the kitchen to serve quality food, serve lots of it, and serve it on time.

To meet these criteria, Balboni chooses his recipes from popular vegetarian cookbooks such as “Laurel’s Kitchen,” “Moosewood Cookbook,” “Cabbage Town Cookbook,” and “Yogi Bhagan.”

The Soup Kitchen staff, half of whom are volunteers, prepares an entree from an ethnic tradition, and serves up to 85 people each night. In addition to the main course, fresh baked bread, fresh vegetable salad, fresh fruit salad, and a variety of condiments (including yogurt, nuts, grains, raisins and peanut butter) are served.

The patrons, each of whom pays $3.50 per meal, are a diverse group of people, according to Balboni. Foreign students, commuters, night students and off-campus undergraduates make up the bulk of the patronage, but the Soup Kitchen is open to everyone. And the diners often share more than a desire for fresh, nutritional food served in a friendly, informal environment.

“A vegetarian restaurant tends to draw people who are politically and ecologically conscious,” said Balboni. “Sometimes they’re the same people we dance with at the contra dances in town.”

Frequently, other events, such as poetry readings or live music, take place during dinner. Balboni also organizes a free meal contest for the patrons. Typically, each person guesses how many apples are in the fruit salad or how many tomatoes are in that night’s sauce. The person with the closest guess wins a free meal.

Music makes another important contribution to the success of the evening. Usually Balboni chooses jazz recordings by Charlie Parker, Pat Metheny, or Jeff Baker. Recently, however, he has tried to coordinate the music with the cuisine.

“We all have fun, and people tell us the food is excellent,” said Balboni who doesn’t really consider himself a “chef.”

“I think of myself as a good cook. I have a feel for food, taste, flavor, and spicing. You have to have a certain boldness to spice food.”