Adrienne Cheatham

When I look back at my childhood growing up in Chicago, it was great. We didn’t have much money, I had a life-threatening illness (at one point my parents were told I had six months to live), but I wouldn’t trade any of it.

My parents both come from large families, and we frequently got together with both sides for cookouts, holidays, and Sunday dinner. There are very few memories that don’t involve food and family on some scale. Even when my parents left for work each day it was about food: my father worked the overnight shift at the Oscar Meyer plant on the West Side, and my mother worked at a restaurant in our neighborhood. After school each day my older sister and I would walk to the restaurant, grab a booth in the non-smoking section, and do our homework while my mother was working. She was a host, then waiter, then manager, and subscribed to the all-in work ethic of true hospitality industry people. If someone called out she would pick up the slack and expected us to do the same. When the restaurant got busy around dinner time we would have to give up our table so guests could be seated. We were often asked to mop the bathroom, run food to tables, help wash dishes, and whatever else was needed.