The Eureka High School Cafeteria is one of the students favorite places of the school building. However, not many students know what goes on behind the counters in the cafeteria.

Besides the lunch nutritionists that serve students food, we rarely get to see who or what goes on in the process of preparing food for hundreds of students every day. 

Todd Bale is one of the chefs backstage. Through the duration of Chef Bale’s culinary career, he’s had many unique opportunities and experiences regarding who he’s cooked alongside or for. Chef Bale’s culinary journey started back to when he was a teenager. 

“I used to help my mother make dinner for our family, ’cause I have four brothers,” Bale said. “I started with that and then realized that it was really a good creative outlet, artistically.” 

One of his first culinary presences was working for widely known, White House Executive Chef Pierre Chambrin.

“He’s a great chef,” Bale said. “He used to be one of the White House chefs during the Clinton administration. So I aspired to go work for him when I was y’all’s age.” 

Chef Bale says that working for Chef Chambrin would be stressful at times due to his thick french accent, making him difficult to understand at times. 

Chef Bale had incredible opportunities while working in New England for a large catering company, 

“It was the largest, privately owned catering company in New England. And the events that we did were tremendous experiences for me and learning culinary arts as well. We catered the Democratic National Convention when Barack Obama became the president. President Jimmy Carter came to support Obama. I ended up cooking for him as well as his secret service team.”

Bale also had interesting tasks while under the New England catering company such as being required at Senator Kennedy’s residence to cook for him and other Democrats.

Cooking for all of these well known people would be thought to be intimidating. But besides the secret service team making sure nothing bad went into the food, Bale says it was less intimidating, and more humanizing of these inspiring public figures.

 “I cooked for the king and Queen of Jordan once like Queen Hussein, they had beef short ribs, just like we would have, you know?” 

After living in New England for a while. Chef Bale moved back to Missouri, and the Rockwood school district is pretty familiar to Chef Bale. 

“I think that it’s my honor to be able to work here in our community. I have a son at Wildwood Middle School and my daughter graduated from Lafayette,” Bale said. “So I know how important it is for all of our kids, and our community, to have that awesome education. In the Rockwood School District, I just want to help the students have food for the brain.”

Although being a dad and working within Eureka’s kitchen staff isn’t all that Chef Bale is up to. His favorite project currently is called “The Stony Turtle” located in Dogtown owned by him and his partner Nick. 

“We rehabilitated a historic building in Dogtown by the zoo and made a bourbon gastropub bar,” Chef Bale said, “I like working there ’cause that’s my creative outlet.  I get to make whatever I feel like as a special for the restaurant, every week.”

He especially likes to experiment with seafood dishes, trying to create new and unique specials. 

All in all, Chef Bale loves spending his time here at Eureka high school and getting to have the chance to cook for the students. He’s had many different experiences throughout his career and he can’t wait for more. 

“I’m honored to be here,” Bale said. “I’ll do my best to make sure you guys always have food, and maybe someday in the future, I’ll see you all at the Stone Turtle, yeah?”