Schools
Whiz Kids: For DHS Student, 'Cooking is Personal'
Each week Patch highlights an individual kid, youth group, teen or sports team that's wowed us with their accomplishments. Meet Aron Pobereskin, this week's pick.
While most teenagers don’t venture outside the realm of microwaveable meals when preparing food, Aron Pobereskin goes above and beyond that norm.
“I can’t remember not loving being involved with food and cooking,” said the senior at . “Cooking is personal. You put all of yourself into it. It’s hands-on, fast-paced, always changing and always a form of expression.”
Pobereskin is in the process of transforming his passion for cooking into a future career. Last year, he secured a two-day stint at Charlie Trotter’s, a popular upscale Chicago restaurant and since then, he’s interned at Schwa, Graham Elliot, Motoand Lockwood.
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Pobereskin also expanded his taste buds outside the U.S. last summer, interning at the world-famous Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark. But of all the restaurants the teen has worked for, he points to Chicago’s Alinea as the most influential.
“It is hands down the most creative, innovative and mind-blowing place I’ve ever worked,” he said, reflecting on its kitchen where he spent 60 hours a week while working in the summer of 2009. “Alinea built my set of standards and opened my eyes to what food could be.”
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Those long hours have given Pobereskin the time he needs to perfect his craft and is thankful for it. “What I like the most is that it’s often hard [for me] to differentiate work from fun,” he said.
Whether it’s fresh chicken topped with romesco, onions and fennel or pumpkin soup with poblano pepper jam and torched Chinese five-spice marshmallow, the Deerfield High senior is always trying new combinations of flavors and textures to create the ideal dish.
Currently, Pobereskin works at Chicago’s Kith and Kin as a line cook, which incidentally is his first paid job. He plans to continue his passion next year as a student at the Culinary Institute of America in a more distant Hyde Park, the New York town where former President Franklin Roosevelt's home is a national historic site.
But he's already looking beyond his college days with ambition. “In 10 years, I’d like to have my own restaurant,” Pobereskin said. “I want to push myself to the limit, to be the youngest four-star chef and the best in the United States. Not so much for ego or pride, rather for a good challenge and because I want to be a leader in this industry.”
