Lifelong AIDS Alliance Chef

Rows of paper bags are stacked high on bright metal shelving in Jim Watkins’ Capitol Hill kitchen. They’re marked LAS, for low acid/salt, one of the 15 categories he caters to as executive chef of the Chicken Soup Brigade (CSB) at the Lifelong AIDS Alliance, which delivers 5,000 meals weekly to local low-income clients living with HIV/AIDS and other debilitating diseases.

 “I feel like I’ve come full circle,” says Watkins, who was a social worker for 15 years before entering the restaurant business. With training from a variety of cooking schools including Peter Kump’s Institute of Culinary Education in NYC, the Virginia native moved to Seattle in 1991 to become the inaugural chef at vegetarian restaurant Café Flora. He later joined the team of chefs that overhauled the University of Washington’s dining program, replacing processed cafeteria fare with healthier options. Last January he took the helm at CSB, a position he likens to being a “food pharmacist”—a nod to both his role in managing the diet requirements of his clients and his belief that food contributes to well being as much as pharmaceuticals can. (It’s perhaps no surprise that Watkins has been inspired by famed integrative medicine proponent Dr. Andrew Weil.)
 
Though his clients may not be able to eat dairy or pork or red meat, he accommodates each. He might purée roasted garlic and onions to flavor a soup without butter, fat or excess salt. “The food is absolutely wonderfully prepared, like in a restaurant,” he says, citing chicken stock made the real way, with simmered herbs and bones. Ninety-five percent of what CSB serves is made from scratch and is as local and organic as budget allows.
 
“You can get really silo-ed in [the kitchen] and forget where the food is going,” Watkins says. That’s why he makes a point of getting out and doing the part of the job he finds most rewarding—delivering meals to clients near his Mount Baker neighborhood.