Passage Excerpt from “The Food Business Incubator”
Excerpt from “The Food Business Incubator”
by Mandalit Del Barco
“La Cocina” means “the kitchen” in Spanish. It’s also the name of a business incubator1 based in San Francisco’s Mission District. Since it began in 2005, it’s been helping local food entrepreneurs, many of whom are low-income immigrant women, develop their small businesses.
Over the years, many of its alumni have found success: more than 50 chefs in its program have become self-sufficient business owners, and many of them have opened their own brick-and-mortar restaurants. Two alumnae of its culinary program . . . were even recognized as semi-finalists for prestigious James Beard awards.2
A new cookbook, We Are La Cocina: Recipes in Pursuit of the American Dream, tells some of their stories.
Executive director Caleb Zigas says the nonprofit La Cocina grew out of two grassroots economic development organizations3 who found many people cooking at their homes and selling food on the streets. The vendors needed an affordable commercial kitchen space and technical assistance in order for their businesses to be legally viable. La Cocina provided just such a space, in addition to helping them develop business plans, pull city permits and more.
Zigas says as many as eight businesses can work in the kitchen space at La Cocina at any one time. Some can prep for a farmers’ market sale, corporate catering gigs or weddings, while others might be making and packaging their food products.
“It’s just an incredible and exciting range of techniques, flavors, perspectives, age, language. And that’s a really beautiful thing,” he says. . . .
Twice a year, La Cocina hosts “F&B: Voices from the Kitchen,” a storytelling project where their chefs can tell their own stories, as they do in the new cookbook. Some of the chefs will be on tour to promote the book, whose proceeds will go to support La Cocina entrepreneurs.
NPR4 caught up with . . . La Cocina chefs, who shared their stories:
Mariko Grady, Aedan Fermented Foods
At La Cocina, you can often hear Mariko Grady singing or humming as she prepares miso, koji, and amasake. Her fermented products come in four different flavors, including mushroom and chicken, to be used in soups and sauces. She originally brought the fermenting rice and barley koji seeds from Japan, where she had a 30-year career as a singer and dancer with the prestigious modern theatrical dance group she founded, Pappa Tarahumara. They performed around the world, and 16 years ago, had a one-night show in San Francisco. The man who would become her husband was in the audience. She soon joined him in San Francisco, often returning to Tokyo to rehearse. But after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, her company disbanded. . . . Grady focused on nourishing her family and creating a line of fermented products that she sells online, at local Bay Area stores and at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. She began at La Cocina in 2012 and named her business after her son, Aedan. (Written in Kanji characters, the name means “wisdom” and “handed down from generation to generation.”) . . . Her fermented products are “also full of wisdom about how to relate to nature and how to create a healthy life,” she says. . . .
Shani Jones, Peaches Patties
Shani Jones is a native San Franciscan. Her father was born in New Orleans, her mother, in Jamaica. She says their home was always filled with a variety of spices and dishes like jerk chicken and Jamaican patties—savory pastries filled with beef or chicken. Jones says she learned to cook from her mother, whose nickname was Peaches. After returning from college in Atlanta, Jones worked on her doctorate in organizational leadership and management while driving a Lyft5 car. She often told passengers about her idea of opening a catering company with her mom’s recipes. They steered her to La Cocina, where she developed her own business, named after her mother. Five years later, she caters and runs a kiosk6 at a small food cooperative in Bernal Heights, where some of her handmade patties have an Ethiopian twist, “because my husband is Ethiopian.” Jones has big aspirations for Peaches Patties: “The ultimate goal,” she says, “is to be the patty kingpin7 of the West Coast.”
From “The Food Business Incubator That Helps Immigrant Women Pursue The American Dream” by Mandalit Del Barco from WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY, June 19, 2019. Copyright © 2019 NPR.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR LA COCINA APPLICANTS
| Level of Income | La Cocina considers assets and access to opportunity when screening applicants. La Cocina’s mission is to support entrepreneurs who face barriers to becoming successful in the food industry. Applicants must be classified as low- or very-low-income earners according to the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Guidelines for San Francisco. |
|---|---|
| Business Plan | Applicants must have a business plan that is ready to be put into action. La Cocina will help applicants refine an existing business plan. Applicants without a business plan should contact one of La Cocina’s partner organizations for guidance in developing one. |
| Viable Product | The applicant’s food must not only be delicious but also stand out. For a business to make a profit, there also has to be a market for the food. |
| Entrepreneurial Work Ethic | La Cocina is excited to work with entrepreneurs who are motivated and passionate about growing their business. Succeeding in the food industry requires a lot of heart and hard work. |
| Community Spirit | The 30+ entrepreneurs who share La Cocina’s kitchen are from many different backgrounds. La Cocina values the community it has created and expects each entrepreneur to be active in bringing the spirit of La Cocina to the wider world. In order to succeed in the La Cocina kitchen, accepted applicants must be flexible and willing to work closely with others. |
Source: La Cocina
1business incubator: company that helps new and startup companies develop by providing services such as management training and office space
2James Beard awards: an award named after American cook and author James Beard, considered one of the highest honors in the culinary industry
3economic development organizations: organizations whose mission is to promote economic improvement within a specific geographical area
4NPR: National Public Radio, a nonprofit media organization that produces and distributes news and cultural programming
5Lyft: ride-sharing company where people use their own cars to provide rides to customers
6kiosk: cart or small structure with one or more open sides that is used to vend merchandise or services
7kingpin: the leader in a group or undertaking
Question
Which statement would the author most likely agree with?
- AThe publicity efforts La Cocina engages in will help its business design spread to other cities.
- BThe variety of exciting food available in San Francisco is due to the work of La Cocina.
- CLa Cocina offers a method that will guarantee business ownership for qualified entrepreneurs.
- DLa Cocina does admirable work in supporting the efforts of ambitious cooks who may have few resources.
Show the answer
Correct answer: D
The question asks with which statement the author would most likely agree.
A. Incorrect. The author does not suggest at any point that La Cocina would like to expand its work and mission to other cities.
B. Incorrect. While the author describes some of the work of talented chefs from La Cocina, at no point does the author imply that the many food choices that exist in San Francisco are because of La Cocina.
C. Incorrect. While the author does describe how La Cocina can help entrepreneurs find success, at no point does the author suggest that La Cocina can guarantee success.
D. CORRECT. The descriptions of the income requirements as well as the information that some of the chefs are James Beard award semi-finalists and others have achieved success with their businesses all help show that the author admires the work of La Cocina in helping chefs who have few resources.
Question analysis
This point-of-view question asks which statement the author of the NPR article about La Cocina, a San Francisco nonprofit that helps food entrepreneurs, would most likely agree with. The author reports facts and profiles two chefs rather than giving opinions outright, so students must infer the author’s attitude from what the article chooses to report and test each statement against it.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Inferring which statement an author would accept is typical grade 7 point-of-view work. This reporter lets facts and two chefs’ stories carry the view, but each statement can be checked directly against the article, which keeps the demand ordinary.
- Estimated difficulty
- Straightforward: two steps or one careful reading.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Reading between the lines moderate
- Evidence in several places minor
- The right answer is reworded minor
- Evidence
- Answered from the whole text
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 10, 1057 words; question and choices: about grade 11, 72 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- An inaccurate detail in the explanation was corrected.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Because the author reports rather than argues, students must build the author’s attitude from the facts chosen, then test four statements that all speak well of La Cocina. Three of them claim more than the article does: that it will spread to other cities, that it accounts for the city’s food, that it guarantees ownership. The right statement is the modest one, and students drawn to bigger praise lose the point.
Reading between the lines moderate Working it out
The reporter never states an opinion; admiration has to be read from what the article chooses to include: the income rule, the 50-plus self-sufficient owners, the James Beard semi-finalists and two chefs’ stories. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Evidence in several places minor Working it out
Support for the author’s view is scattered from paragraph 1’s low-income immigrant women through paragraph 2’s successes to the table’s Level of Income row, so no single passage settles it. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
The right answer is reworded minor Choosing the answer
The right statement speaks of “ambitious cooks” with “few resources,” words the article never uses, while wrong ones echo its own “exciting” and “San Francisco” or the table’s talk of qualifications. (Freedle & Kostin, 1993; Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Strategy: Ask what the article’s choice of facts and stories shows about how the author regards La Cocina, then measure each statement against that view and against what the article actually reports.
Traps
- Too broad or too strong: A choice overstates, generalizes, or uses absolute words the text does not support.
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
The wrong answers, classified
A Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Takes the chefs’ book tour and the twice-yearly storytelling events as a growth plan, but the article reports promotion of a cookbook, not any intention to take La Cocina’s model to other cities.
B Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Stretches the “exciting range” of flavors inside La Cocina’s kitchen into the cause of all the food variety in San Francisco, a link the author never makes.
C Too broad or too strong (King et al., 2004)
Builds on the more than 50 chefs who became self-sufficient owners and the table’s qualifications, but “guarantee” overstates, since the author reports successes, not a promise to every qualified applicant.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The handbook’s explanation of Option D says that “some of the chefs are James Beard award recipients.” The excerpt never says any chef won the award: paragraph 2 says two alumnae “were even recognized as semi-finalists for prestigious James Beard awards.” The site now says “some of the chefs are James Beard award semi-finalists.” The answer is unchanged.
Working it out, step by step
Think about the author’s view
This asks about the author’s point of view, or how the author feels about the topic. The author is a reporter who mostly gives facts. So you have to read the author’s feelings from the facts the author chose to include.
Gather the clues
- Paragraph 1: La Cocina helps cooks, “many of whom are low-income immigrant women.” Low-income means earning little money.
- Paragraph 2: “more than 50 chefs in its program have become self-sufficient business owners.” Self-sufficient means able to support themselves.
- Paragraph 2 also says two alumnae “were even recognized as semi-finalists” for top cooking awards. Semi-finalists reach the round before the final. They did not win.
- Paragraph 10: Shani Jones hopes “to be the patty kingpin of the West Coast.” A kingpin is the leader of a group.
Work out the author’s opinion
Put the clues together. The cooks often start with little money. Many of them dream big, like Jones. La Cocina helps them, and many succeed. The word “even” shows the author is impressed. So the author admires La Cocina’s work. Admirable means deserving praise. Ambitious means wanting to achieve a lot.
Check each choice
- A is wrong. Some chefs will tour to promote a cookbook. That is not a plan to bring La Cocina to other cities.
- B is wrong. The author never says La Cocina is the reason San Francisco has so many kinds of food.
- C is wrong. To guarantee means to promise for sure. The author reports successes but promises nothing.
- D is right. It matches the clues: cooks with little money, big dreams and praise for the help they get.
Watch out: A is tempting because a book tour does spread the word. But spreading the word is not opening in new cities.
Choose the answer
The author would agree that La Cocina deserves praise for helping driven cooks who have little money. So the answer is D.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
A is the most tempting wrong choice. The chefs’ book tour and storytelling events do share La Cocina’s story. But the article never mentions taking its model to other cities. D claims only what the article supports, so it is the better choice.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from “The Food Business Incubator”” as printed (pages 158–160)
