Vince Caguin Supervisor of Food Service and Warehouse for the Natomas Unified School District / Photo: M. Laver
BY TRINA DROTAR
THE NATOMAS BUZZ | @natomasbuzz
Quinoa mango salad with black rice puffs
Chicken pot pie for elementary school menu
Lettuce turnip beet salad for catering menu
Chicken sausage gumbo for secondary supper menu
Chicken chili verde with cilantro garnish
Chorized pepitas dates with picked radish and smoked paprika
Honey lime sweet potato with corn and black bean tacos
Vince Caguin seemed destined to become a chef. He’s prepared meals for Hollywood, but his toughest critics are the young stars in the Natomas Unified School District where he works as Supervisor of Food Service and Warehouse.
Caguin was born in the Philippines where his grandmother owned a culinary school that taught bulk cooking. Cruise ships would request 20 or more chefs to cook for up to 5,000 passengers.
“I knew at a very early age that this was a career option,” said Caguin, who’s looking to buy a home in Natomas with his wife.
Caguin kept his interest in cooking after moving to California in 1986. With no culinary classes or clubs at school, his only option was taking home economics. His 8th grade instructor suggested a career in cooking.
Caguin has kept his focus on food, earning a BS in food science from Sacramento State and an MBA from Ashford University. He has cooked for 17 years, not including those years helping at his grandmother’s culinary school peeling egg roll wrappers as a child.
His intention, after receiving his BS, was to work in the school lunch program.
“I’m a product of school food myself,” he said. “School food just kind of took a back burner.”
Instead, he moved to Los Angeles and worked in a variety of restaurants where he cooked for high-end clientele and celebrities.
Working in fine dining helped refine his culinary skills and led to a teaching position at Le Cordon Bleu. He turned the challenge of picking up Martin Yan from the airport and sitting in Los Angeles traffic into an opportunity to learn from the chef. Within 10 years, he rose to the position of department chair.
Three years ago, Caguin returned to the Sacramento area to be closer to family and to his first passion – working in the school lunch program. His second anniversary with Natomas Unified was last month.
“This is my long-term career goal,” he said, “to work in the school lunch program.”
While pursuing his MBA, every paper he wrote focused on school food service. He was mentored by Ann Cooper, the “Renegade Lunch Lady” and author of Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children.
“I got to pick her brain and she gave me her private cell phone number,” Caguin said.
Caguin designed a school lunch program in Pasadena for a small operation as part of his master’s project. Now, he develops recipes for the 5,500 lunches served in the most diverse school district in California. He’s also in charge of the after school supper program where he tests recipes which, once approved by students, will be included in the lunch menu the next school year.
Caguin’s role in the Natomas Unified lunch program led to him becoming an ambassador for FRESHMeals@School and a culinary center recipe developer. FRESHMeals@School is a peer to peer counseling program of 16 child nutrition professionals chosen by the California Department of Education. Natomas Unified is one of 10 culinary centers in the state where new recipes are developed, tested and shared.
“I’m up there with chefs who have been to the White House,” he said.
Just last week Caguin presented a cooking demonstration and shared the Natomas Unified scratch cooking approach for Team California for Health After Schools from the state Department of Education.
“It’s never a dull moment,” he said about his job with Natomas Unified. “I love this industry because school nutrition is not in competition with each other. I’ll openly share my recipes.”
Caguin loves the opportunity to prepare meals for his toughest critics – the kids – and takes in stride daily challenges such as special dietary needs, ethnically diverse tastes, cost concerns and USDA regulations.
“Although I have been part of culinary teams that cook for award shows and high profile events, my most memorable experiences have been going in the classrooms at NUSD and teaching kids about fruits and vegetables,” he said. “It’s less glamorous but more meaningful.”
Natomas Unified kitchen staff (L-R) Mark Trujillo, Vince Caguin, James Valles, Jewendar Lal, Patricia Naranjo, Jennifer Orosco, Kamani Devi. / Photo: M. Laver
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