Chef Anthony Marshall, center, stands with volunteers Joe Ragusa, left, and Pat Lawn, right, on Wednesday at The Community Kitchen in Keene. The trio made Bolo de Banana Carmelizada -- a Brazilian caramelized banana cake -- for dessert earlier that day.
If you wander into The Community Kitchen building on Mechanic Street in Keene on any given weekday, you might be treated to a symphony.
You'd enter reception and walk past the food pantry area and hear the percussion from behind a set of double doors. The clang of pots and pans big enough to cook food for 20 or even 50. The din of metal spoons against hotel pans filled to the brim with pasta. The hiss of the sanitizer as it sprays hot water and detergent on cooking utensils.
Chef Anthony Marshall is in the middle of it all. Since he took the helm as the hot meals manager at The Community Kitchen last year, Marshall has been conducting the symphony measure by measure, and with an almost singular focus on feeding people good, simple food.
"I think about food all day," the 43-year-old Keene resident said. "... It can be a little overwhelming because you have people depending on you for their nourishment."
As you peek into the kitchen, you would be hard-pressed to detect any of that overwhelm. Marshall moves about with a sense of purpose and ease. He might stop to chat with a volunteer on his way to the sink. He exudes a sense of boisterous serenity that permeates the place.
Serving dinners on weekdays and brunch on Sundays, Marshall feeds more than 600 people in an average week at The Community Kitchen. He transforms donated food, with the help of volunteers, into balanced and tasty meals for people who often can't feed themselves.
Marshall has worked in all kinds of kitchens, from fast food joints to sit-down establishments. He's also worked at school cafeterias and even at Keene State's dining hall. But when he landed the gig at The Community Kitchen last year, Marshall said he found the ideal place to marry his passion for food with his desire to serve.
"The Community Kitchen is a place where you can come feel good," he said. "It's free of judging. It's free of the services that you have to have a pocket full of money to come get what you need. We're doing this for the community because we are The Community Kitchen."
'Give them the best'
Marshall isn't wrong in his focus on service through food. Nutritious food is so important that whole polices and organizations have been put in place simply to make sure that people have access to enough of it. From the National School Lunch Program to the Women, Infants and Children program, the U.S. has allocated billions over the years to address hunger.
And yet these programs can fall short. Almost one in 10 Granite Staters did not have regular access to food in 2022, according to the most recent statistic from Feeding America.
The Community Kitchen helps fill that gap in Cheshire County through its food pantry and hot meals programs. A staple in Keene since 1982, the nonprofit organization aims to be more than a stopgap measure, according to its website.
Organizers wanted to create a program that would surpass the utilitarian soup kitchen, emphasizing nourishment and companionship. Marshall takes that mission seriously.
"You don't come to The Community Kitchen to just have a meal," he said. " ... raise the bar, give them the best."
'A head full of culinary solutions'
The scale at which Marshall works can be mind-boggling to people who haven't seen the inside of a commercial kitchen. Most of us have some experience with the largest of U.S. food extravaganzas, Thanksgiving.
But at the kitchen on Mechanic Street, every day is the last Thursday in November, and 100 of your closest family and friends are on the list.
One well-cooked bird won't do here. You might need two or three of those. That sweet potato casserole you love would require peeling and boiling no less than 18 pounds of yams. And if you're planning on a traditional casserole to feed a crowd, you'd best get ready to process about 20 pounds of green beans.
The sheer amount of food isn't the only challenge Marshall faces. He sets the menu, but often has little to no control of the ingredients that come through the door. Grocery stores and local farmers donate their surplus to The Community Kitchen. Marshall also gets food from the N.H. Food Bank.
He might get 50 pounds of potatoes in one box and raw jackfruit in another. There may be flats of ripe mangos that need using up. And there's always lots and lots of onion.
"It's a little like 'Chopped,' " Marshall said, referring to the popular Food Network competition show where chefs cook with a mishmash of unusual ingredients. "You come in, and obviously you want to have some culinary skill, but you're taking the ingredients every single day ... and I just make something great out of it."
On any given day, Marshall may have four or five volunteers to help around the kitchen. Some volunteers have a culinary background, and others do not. Marshall finds a way to motivate and work with anyone, said volunteer Erika Guy, who divides her time between Nelson and Pittsfield, N.C.
"Anthony is very creative, and he has a head full of culinary solutions looking for problems," she said.
'Fix the world'
Long before he ever heard of Keene and The Community Kitchen, Marshall developed a palate for simple, good food. He was born and raised in New York City, but his family's roots are in North Carolina.
His mother and grandfather fed him traditional Southern fare with classics such as mac and cheese, pig's feet and okra patties.
Marshall got his first formal training in 2006 at the New York City Human Resources Administration's culinary arts program. He had a series of gigs at restaurants and cafeterias. Then, in 2020, came an opportunity to work at Keene State College's dining hall, and Marshall and his family moved to Keene.
He started working at The Community Kitchen last summer. The decision to take the job was as much a practical one as it was about the nonprofit's mission, Marshall said.
Most chefs work 60 or even more hours each week, and weekends and late nights are part of the job. But Marshall says he'd rather spend this time with his wife, kids and grandson.
The Community Kitchen had another unbeatable allure for Marshall in that every morsel matters.
"I look at people like 'what you need, I can give you if you'll let me.' And that's a safe space to consume a great meal and be around great people and help strengthen your mind and body so that you can go out there and fix the world."