Street roots., March 04, 2016, Page 6, Image 6

Street Roots • March 4-10
Vendors
Page 6
Union
by Teresa Jones
Anna Gibson
You were lost like I was lost,
free like I was free.
You had no place to go,
nowhere to be.
You drank to the future.
You drank to forget.
You felt like there was no one
you hadn’t lied to y et
BY LEONORA KO
S T A FF W R IT E R
A nna Gibson has a passion for
ZA professional cooking and making her
j L
Now you’re lost like I am lost,
free like I am free.
I wonder are you lonely
when you remember me.
Answers to puzzles on page 15
sugar-free, gluten-free or vegan.
In October, Anna and her fiancé decided
to come to Oregon for the milder weather.
“So maybe it was too impulsive,” Anna
said. “(In Oklahoma) I had two paychecks
from two different jobs I was working. It was
irresponsible to put ourselves in this hard
position. But we can get back. We are
already in the process.”
Being on the street is a new experience
for Anna.
“There have been a few times I missed
the bus and I didn’t make it into the
shelter,” she said. “I had to stay on a piece
of wood behind a building, and that just
frightened me so much. I
don’t want to go through
that again.”
Like many on
the street, both
Anna and her
fiancé had
their wallets
_________
stolen,
which
* * '& , •
made it
'
'dr '
hard to
• 4
apply for
-
JLfavorite specialties.
“Meats and sweets! But I can make that
tofu, you know,” Anna said, laughing.
“Being a pastry chef, I just love making
those sweets,” she said. “I like to do the
chemistry with the math and science, and
then make it beautiful. It needs to be a good
presentation because you eat with your eyes
first, but at the same time, it’s got to taste
good. It takes a lot of patience.
“But I can do other forms where it’s fast,
like cooking eggs, steaks and everything.
And I take great pride.”
Anna said she also liked processing meat.
“The boss trusted me to cut rib eyes and
New York strips and weigh them just by the
touch of the hand. If you mess up on a cut,
now you’re losing the place money.”
Anna was born in Pauls Valley, Okla., and
learned about hard work from her
stepmother.
“She taught me how to break down
wooden fences in the backyard when I was a
kid,” Anna said. “I got a lot of
splinters, but I learned how to
™
work It wasn’t fun, but boy I tell
< ||l
you, I learned the work ethic.”
Anna completed her education
' in the culinary arts program at
PlatrCollege in Oklahoma City.
ÍIIÍWI
“I still have some loans I need
' h
to take care of,” Anna said. “But it
®
was still worth it to me to have that
experience. I got to do a lot of
competitions and won a lot of scholarships.”
Anna went on to jobs where she cooked
French cuisine, was a master grill operator
and assisted the personal chef to a
university president. Her favorite job was
working as executive pastry chef at East
Central University, where she ran the
bakery and made specialties that were
O ut of Luck?
J
A
■
jobs. But she found that Street Roots didn t
require identification to become a vendor.
“Thank God they don’t do that because a
lot of us would be in a pickle,” she said. “A
lot of us are without our IDs.”
The first few days as a vendor were
tough, she said.
“At first,’ I got discouraged and cried the
very first day (selling papers),” Anna said. “I
got turned down by eight or 10 people ...
but then later, I tried again. I started talking
to people and getting my confidence up. I
started finding my dignity and self-worth.”
Anna also has good things to say about
Old Town Clinic, a Central City Concern
health clinic in the Burnside neighborhood.
“My counselor Megan and my nurses and
doctors, they’re wonderful to me there,”
s Anna said. “I have a whole team of
| women. They keep me accountable to
keep doing good things.”
, Anna’s hard work and help from
different organizations have opened
up opportunities for a better life.
L
After leaving her Street Roots
K interview, she was on her way to a
job interview.
f i?
“I’m really excited,” Anna
said. “(I’m applying for)
"¡1 1 ^
chef and making
homemade pastas,
| gnocchi and things of
P this nature. But I may
fc, even apply for
Jjl washing dishes for a
Hk while because it’s a
fcjfe four- to five-star
restaurant - even
• - a
though I’m a
< certified chef and
1 did all this
H|v lormal training.
You have to be
able to wash dishes
to keep the place
running and clean
whatever you need to
clean; that’s how it goes.
L I’m not ashamed of that.
I¡I’m happy to do it.”
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