Does anyone on campus eat better than the fraternity brothers of Theta Delta Chi on Memorial Drive?
Their full-time chef for nearly four years has been none other than Master Chef Shigeki Koizumi, trained in Japan in classical French cuisine.
Chef Koizumi, "Jerry" to the members of Theta Delta Chi, was profiled recently in the Swampscott Reporter by staff writer Jenna L. Russell, who was smart enough to have Mr. Koizumi demonstrate his skills at the newspaper.
Mr. Koizumi, a Lynn resident, began his training as an apprentice in Japan when he was 16 and came to America in 1969 to "see something different," she writes.
In his career, he has worked at fine restaurants and hotels in Japan and this country, including the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston. He is also the owner of Swampscott's Le Flambe Catering, which he runs with the help of his wife, Stephanie.
At the fraternity, Chef Koizumi prepares food from all cultures-what he calls an "international" menu-for 47 hungry college students. He cooks dinner six days a week, along with some breakfasts and lunches. The members pay his salary out of fraternity funds.
Chef Koizumi said the members show him "great respect" and appreciation for his efforts, adding, "I take pride in whatever I do."
"They make me very, very happy," he said. "They are good boys. I'm a very lucky man, and I try to show them a good example, like a father."
Obviously, his feelings are reciprocated. When he turned 50 in October, he said, the fraternity members made a "big deal" of it.
And one of them, naturally, baked him a birthday cake.
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A new piece for large wind orchestra by John Harbison, Pulitzer-Prize winning Class of 1949 Professor of Music, received a rave review from Richard Buell in The Boston Globe following its Boston premiere at the New England Conservatory of Music.
The critic described "Three City Blocks" as "a big, powerful, abrasive yet beautiful work. It is both lovely and nasty in its evocation of modern cityscape, a sort of mating of Respigh's `Roman Festivals' with the 11 o'clock news. And it shows this composer working with a freedom an d abundance of invention that was impressive to no end. And does it ever sound: the vigor, the force, the physical impact knock you back in your seat."
A version of this article appeared in the October 20, 1993 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 38, Number 10).
