Whether it’s simple,comforting mashed potatoes and meat loaf or a classic Italian chicken agrodolce, The Commons Lead Cook Abdo Yahiaoui knows how to make them well. His philosophy while cooking is to keep improving and to make students happy with some good food.
Yahiaoui is good at pool, enjoys playing “nerdy games like Dungeon & Dragons” and spending time outside. He also appreciates being seen as a person, not only as a cook, at a place where he has been working for almost ten years.
Yahiaoui was born and raised in Algeria, the youngest of eight who had busy parents that “didn’t have time to spoil him.” He recalls being an independent kid and a good student at school… other than middle school where puberty took over.
Before becoming The Commons Lead Cook, Yahiaoui always wanted to be a translator. The inspiration came from seeing how two presidents, some of the most powerful people in the world, would usually need a translator to make things work. He went to college in Batna, Algeria, to study English, French, and Arabic. Shortly after finishing college in 2013, Yahiaoui met his future wife online. In 2015 he moved to the US, and a year later started his first job at PLU as a dishwasher.
Yahiaoui admits that being a dishwasher was never the plan, but he knew he had to start somewhere so “I was just showing up and doing it.” He recalls that “I never cooked in my life before… like a meal. Then I started learning, I was watching people — it’s easy.” Yahiaoui kept working and learning, “then I loved cooking, I literally loved cooking.”
Yahiaoui’s life wisdom is “if it [just] happens, it’s the best one… this is how I started cooking.” Now, he enjoys a challenge in the kitchen and admits that “it’s worth it even when I’m having a bad day.”
At the end of the day, Yahiaoui is a person who respects challenge and improvement. He misses his social life back home where “we never stay inside,” but he applies the same wisdom to the situation and believes that the right people will come around when the time is right.
When asked about aspirations, Yahiaoui shared that he loves to travel but his true goal is “to be happy… I don’t have conditions for it.” When The Commons shift is done and Yahiaoui is not overseeing the Crave or helping other cooks in the kitchen, he has a wife, two cats, and two dogs waiting at home for him. “I want to be in comfort… but I also want for my ‘bubble’ to be big.”
