From Confucius to Champignons Sautes

When Jerry H. Sternin returned from the Peace Corps two years ago to become a graduate student in East Asian studies, he shopped around for part-time employment.

"I was looking for a mindless job," he recalls. "I went over to Holyoke Center and on this bulletin board was a sign which read 'President Bok is looking for you."

But the job-turned out to be more stimulating than he had imagined: the Bok family was looking for a chef. "We didn't want live-in help like a butler, but needed some assistance, especially after Scissile began teaching," the president explains.

So Sternin called the Boks, auditioned with one of his specialties, and won the job. Now he cooks dinners for the Boks, and often their guests, two to three times a week. Occasionally he prepares meals for larger affairs at 17 Quincy Street, sometimes for up to 150 diners.

"Good food," Sternin says, "is the best gift I can give to people. And the Boks are so appreciative and get so excited that it gives me a wonderful feeling."

President Bok certainly agrees. Sternin's greatest strength, he says, lies in his creativity. "He's been cooking for us for two years now and I can hardly think of two or three dishes he's cooked more than once. And everything's so terrific."

Sissela Bok, an ethical theorist who is a lecturer on the Core Program, praises Sternin's variety. According to her, he is proficient in Indian, Chinese, and French cuisine, and often invents his own dishes.

Neither of the Boks will name a favorite dish, claiming that Sternin's range is too broad Sternin, for his part, notes that his bosses' sense of culinary adventure is quite well developed, saying. "They'll eat anything I even tried out a Moroccan pigeon pie on them--and they loved it!"

Sternin's current job is the latest in a long, colorful string of vocations. In 1962 he joined the Peace Corps and was sent to the Philippines. "It was some- thing brand new and JFK said to do it," he jokes. After four years abroad, he moved to Washington and worked as a freelance musician, writing commercial jingles.

In 1966, when he was offered an assistant directorship with the Peace Corps in Nepal, he took it--partially because he realized that he "couldn't make a living off of commercials."

He returned to the United States after a two-year stint in Nepal to become an assistant dean at the Business School acting as a student counselor.

Sternin says he took the job because he was tired of the Peace Corps and after hearing about the job, couldn't imagine anything offering a greater contrast.

In 1972, weary of "listening to other people's problems day in and day out," he opened a restaurant on Long Island's South Shore. "It was something I'd always wanted to do, I met terrific people, and it was a critical great success," he says.

After two years, when Sternin felt it was time to move on, he accepted a teaching position at Concord Academy. When his feet began to itch again, Sternin left to take a Peace Corps directorship in Africa, where he stayed until the academic life beckoned.

But Cambridge is not the last step on Sternin's itinerary. After he receives his master's degree in June, he plans to travel to China, with his wife and three-year-old son. And some time next year, another sign will probably go up in Holyoke Center advertising the post of Harvard's first chef