ATOs hungry no more: Fraternity welcomes new cook

Home Features ATOs hungry no more: Fraternity welcomes new cook

When students walk into the Knorr Family Dining Hall for dinner, they will no longer find the men of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity seated at their usual circular table behind the fireplace.

The fraternity has hired Eveline Hecklinger, a resident of Camden, as the new ATO house cook. Hecklinger has quickly become much more than just a cook to the men of the fraternity.

“Eveline has become like a mom to all of us,” sophomore and ATO Kitchen Manager Logan Kauffman said. “When she is in the kitchen cooking, she makes a point to ask us how we’re doing and help us with any problems we have going on in our life. She has become our go-to for that stuff.”

This endearment goes both ways.

“I love all of the boys,” Hecklinger said. “Every single one of them. There honestly isn’t even one that I think, ‘I could do without that one.’”

Hecklinger was born in Germany and moved to the United States in 2008 with her husband Rick, an American whom she met online.

“I actually only started a chat with him because I thought his username was odd, and I wanted to make fun of him for it,” she said.

Eveline and SweetPain08 have now been happily married for 17 years.

Hecklinger prides herself on cooking nourishing meals to her husband and four children, something she taught herself.

“The women in my family are great cooks, but my mother didn’t like to have people in the kitchen,” she said. “And I knew that I wanted to eat well, so I started reading books, and I just taught myself how to cook.”

Almost all of the ingredients Hecklinger uses to cook with at home — from vegetables to meats — are grown or raised by her family and friends.

Although she can’t hold to these same strict standards when cooking at ATO, she still makes an effort to ensure that the men get proper nutrition.

“They don’t see that I’m doing it, but I am,” she said. “I want to be sure that they get everything in their diet that they need, and I try to keep everything as local and organic as possible. And when they won’t eat their vegetables, I just trick them by putting a little bit of bacon in there.”

The men of ATO may not realize the nutritional richness of Hecklinger’s cooking, but they certainly realize the quality of her cooking.

“Her cooking is out of this world, and nobody here will say anything different,” Kauffman said. “I don’t have the most diverse food tastes, but I have never once disliked an Eveline meal. Nobody has.”

Hecklinger says that she makes a concerted effort to make sure that the men get the chance to experience other cultures through their food.

“When I came to America I was amazed at how segregated it was from everything else,” she said. “I think it is so important to know at least something about other cultures, and I think the experience of food is a great way to do that.”

There is much more, however, to Hecklinger than her cooking. In fact, while in Germany, she earned her master’s degree in logistics, and worked as a special transports technician.

“It was a good job, but I got sick of being in an office,” She said. “I much prefer cooking.”

She has also run an animal rescue out of Jonesville for 12 years, a job, she says, all started on accident, after she took in one stray dog.

“One day I heard a guy threatening to kill his dog, and I said, ‘Don’t do that, I’ll take it!’ After that, it started to go around Reading that the crazy German chick would take in animals,” Hecklinger said. “I decided to make it official, and it just kept going from there.”

Just like her cooking, Hecklinger’s ability to train animals is completely self-taught.

“I had these dogs coming in, and they were not good dogs, but I couldn’t afford to pay someone else to train them,” she said. “I decided that if I wanted to do this I had to learn to do it all myself.”

Besides the chickens, goats, and pigs that Hecklinger raises for her cooking, she also has eight dogs, 15 cats, and two snakes as pets.

Hecklinger’s friend, Dawn Hoard, explained that this love of animals is reflective of her personality.

“She is a very kind and caring person,” Hoard said. “She loves to take care of those in need, whether that’s animals or people, and she is very straightforward about it.”

Hecklinger often makes and donates cakes to less-fortunate children on their birthdays. She says that her commitment to kindness finds its roots in her rough upbringing.

“I was raised by two horribly abusive alcoholics that never helped anybody,” she said. “I was determined to not be that, and so I have always done my best to help anyone that I can, and I like to think that I am passing that on to the boys as well.”

ATO President, junior Matt Katz, explained how this is shown in her interactions with the fraternity.

“She is fun-loving, but she is also just very loving,” he said. “She doesn’t just run out the door after she cooks. She sits down and talks to us, and helps us with any problems we have. That is exactly the type of person that she is.”

Katz said that the fraternity couldn’t be more satisfied with the hire, and they look forward to having Hecklinger around for some time. Hecklinger said she is more than open to that.

“I love what I am doing here,” she said. “I love the cooking, I love the boys, I love the time with them. I hope that I get to do this for many more years.”