A Chef's Dream Waits as She Enters a Food Voucher Program

"They talk of the working poor... that's us." At 56, Esther works hard and makes little. The small business she runs with her husband Mario and two cousins is about to fold after a year of fighting uphill. "We are down to five customers. Who can pay the rent with five customers?"

It's not a complaint. Esther is just too depressed to complain anymore. She wearily walks along the corridor of the Shalom Aleichem JDC-sponsored Social Assistance Center, wearing a drab gray blouse. Her shoes are worn. A few steps behind her, hesitatingly, her husband follows.

They used to work together. She, a trained cook, was head chef at a successful Jewish restaurant in Buenos Aires. He was her assistant. Esther's specialty is Jewish cooking, both Sephardic and European. Esther still uses the recipes passed down to her by her grandmother, who ran a restaurant in Romania.

But 2001 was a terrible year for the restaurant trade and even before the December crisis that saw the government fall and inflation explode, they lost their jobs. In 2002, they used their savings to open a small shop which sold dehydrated chocolate and cappuccino to offices and restaurants. But their plans and hopes are collapsing.

To survive, Esther and Mario contacted a JDC-sponsored Social Assistance Center and were enrolled in the JDC food voucher program. They also receive medicine from the Central Community Pharmacy. "It's a life saver," says Esther. "I am diabetic and have a heart condition." Mario and Esther "shop" at the Social Assistance Center free clothing store.

"All I hoped for was to have my small business prosper, so I could help my children and maybe find a way to be a chef again. I love cooking. It's my life, and now it's been denied to me."