When Leo Teti ’26 returned to St. Andrew’s this week for football preseason camp, he arrived with some newly acquired skills, thanks to a summer job that taught him the art of mozzarella cheese-making.

The search for summer employment led Teti to a family-owned cheese business in Point Pleasant, N.J. What he thought was going to be a job interview instead was an on-the-spot offer. 

“They said, ‘You know how to make mozzarella?’ And I said, ‘I don't, but I learn quickly and can follow instruction and direction, and if you teach me, I'll figure it out,’” Teti says. “They said, ‘Alright, we’ll teach you and we’ll see.’ … I was all ready to go for this interview and then had gotten the job without even realizing it.”

Teti’s employer, a classically trained chef, sells a variety of Italian dining staples at farmer’s markets, most of them in New Jersey beach towns. Products are made fresh at his storefront for sale on the road: mozzarella, burrata, and ricotta cheeses; marinara and vodka sauces; roasted red peppers; cannoli cream; pizza dough. In between helping make some products at headquarters and making mozzarella live from the Jersey Shore, Teti assisted coworkers in loading and unloading product, setting up market stalls, talking with customers, and handling sales.

There was a lot for Teti to learn on the fly, often after a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call and drive to the day’s market. More experienced coworkers taught Teti the ins and outs of transaction tech and the proper way to cut saran wrap and use it to secure a ball of fresh mozz, but he also learned more subtle skills through observation. Watching others build rapport with customers at the same time they built ball after ball of cheese, Teti grew more comfortable at the market stall.

To talk about life, the weather, food, and so on with someone new requires confidence. It requires even more so to keep the conversation flowing while you’re wrist-deep in cheese curd heated by a 150- to 175-degree water bath.

“You're sticking your hand in a vat of basically molten cheese curd, and you're expected to keep a smile on your face and keep talking to the person in front of you,” Teti says. “And the other thing is, it's really unique. Everybody's been to a deli counter and seen somebody slice turkey, but nobody's seen somebody make mozzarella; you're almost providing an experience as much as providing the cheese.”

For as much of the job that was brand-new, some elements felt routine; Teti says the busy pace of life at St. Andrew’s helped him prepare for a structured summer. 

Then there was the interconnectedness: many of Teti’s’s fellow vendors worked across the same rotation of farmers markets, forming a network of small businesses providing each other supplies and support. Teti has had some practice for this sort of thing: showing up for peers in class or on dorm or on the football and baseball fields translated well to showing up for fellow vendors who needed his products to make their own, or sending business to vendors whose products complemented his. 

“It’s a vibrant ecosystem that you would never think existed, and everybody's relying on each other. If the butter guy steps out, you might try to sell some butter for five minutes if he has a line,” Teti says. “I think the thing I'm most glad to have is this community that you wouldn't know existed unless you're in it. St. Andrew’s is like that too … Relying on each other is something we do a lot at St. Andrew's, and something that's really important in this line of work.”

Another aspect of the job felt familiar, too: The summer gig tied into his deep-running interest in Italian and Italian-American culture, and what endures or differs between the two. His paternal great-grandparents left Abruzzo, Italy, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, to come to America, passing down a love of cooking and good food that rippled through generations, all the way to a summer farmer’s market by the Atlantic Ocean.

“My grandparents have come and bought mozzarella, and that's very cool for me because so much of that I've learned [about cooking comes from] them and from my parents,”Teti says. “To feel that family connection, in which Italian food and Italian heritage have always been a big part, and to be participating in this cultural phenomenon [around food] is a lot of fun and really rewarding. … Cooking has always been something I wanted to have as a hobby, and now I'm learning things I never thought I would learn.”