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In May 200 1, Thorne quit his
glamorous job as a chef at the renowned Windows on the World restaurant atop
New York's World Trade Center. His new position: helping to serve food to
disadvantaged AIDS and HIV patients as the executive chef of the non-profit
Momentum AIDS Project. He never thought it would be a life-saving decision.
On most days, Thorne was the first chef to arrive at the ritzy skytop
restaurant, opening the kitchen at 6 a.m. to prepare for breakfast and
lunch. Of course, if the 36-year old New Yorker had not changed jobs when he
did, his name would have surely been added to the death toll of September
11, 2001. "Taking this job saved my life," he says. It also, with the recent
decision by President Bush to allocate ~$15 billion over the next five years
and ratchet up the US’s commitment to fight AIDS worldwide, made Thorne a
player in another global battle, one that many experts consider the greatest
health challenge to humankind today.
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"We do some good stuff," says Thorne, who took a $10,000 pay cut to
serve food to people In need. |
The president's initiative, announced in late January in his State of
the Union address, targets 12 countries in Africa, as well as Haiti and
Guyana. But Thorne and the others in the front lines of the fight here
know there’s real work to be done at home work that is intricately bound
to the administration's global efforts. As one senior Bush staffer said
recently about the new AIDS initiative, "The president often talks about
not only winning the war, but winning the peace."
These days,
along with his fellow Momentum workers, Thorne spends his days in
synagogues and church basements throughout New York dishing out a more
down home cuisine than he did at his former job. But his menu, which
includes lasagna, fried shrimp and roast beef, is still as tasty as
ever.
When budget permits, he even cooks up a fancy meal like Cornish hens or
gourmet French toast. "We try to make each and every guest happy," he
says. He's happy too, doing a job he knows makes a difference.g |
