HMD student cooks at Beijing Olympics
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
Stewart Lane will be late to class.
The senior in hotel and restaurant management is in Beijing cooking for the 2008 Summer Olympics.
“While this might be one of the hardest jobs I have ever had, the experience and knowledge gained will stay with me forever,” he wrote in an e-mail from China. “Last Monday we served 1,000 people between 5 p.m. and 1 a.m. with seven different menus.”
Lane, a catering chef in the family business – Lon Lane’s Inspired Occasions – in Kansas City, is part of an American delegation of bakers, chefs, and other workers who are staffing kitchens for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s main hospitality headquarters, the USA House.
Frank Puleo, owner of Framboise Catering of New York, hired Stewart for the Olympic job. Puleo had the contract to the USA House.
The K-State student arrived in Beijing on Aug. 1 and returns on Sept. 1. “I know I am missing a week of school but I have cleared that with all of my teachers ahead of time,” he said.
Dinners and Diners
USA House concentrates on American food such as chicken potpie and barbecue. “We try to make the USA House an American oasis in the heart of Beijing,” he said. “We are also here to wow them with our culinary creations.”
Diners include USA Olympic team sponsors, donors, Olympians past and present, the media and Olympian guests. Stewart listed a few of his celebrity guests: multi-Gold Medalist Michael Phelps, former President George Bush, Prince Albert of Monaco, Katie Couric, Ross from “Friends,” the Williams sisters and many past track and field Olympians.
The senior explained the system:
“At 11 we have a lunch buffet and the grill station outside serving hot dogs and hamburgers. Then at 5, we have happy hour that includes 3 or 4 different trays of finger foods. Dinner starts at 7 and ends around 10.
“At 10 the Bud Deck is open and we serve small plates of upscale bar food. We make up four different plates every night and produce them right there for the guest. Last night we did a barbecue duo plate with a pulled pork and pulled beef sandwich with fries, fried spring rolls with shrimp or crab with vegetables, spinach pasta with chorizo and shrimp, blackened tuna with coleslaw and avocados cilantro aioli, chicken quesadillas with homemade guacamole and salsa.”
The kitchen scene gets bristly at times, Stewart reported, when celebrity chefs lose patience with culinary students or “walk around with their chests puffed out.”
Going Local
He has little free time: USA House serves food daily from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Via cab he commutes to work every day from the “apartotel” at Beijing Normal University where he lives.
Stewart has taken in a few Olympic events – water polo, beach volleyball, ping-pong. He zip-lined (this involves a cable and a pulley) off the Great Wall and has planned jaunts to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Silk Market.
Stewart samples local cuisine whenever he can.
“One of the food bits that has blown me a way is the Szechuan pepper,” he reported.
“I recently had some of the pepper oil, just a small taste and the magic began. First it tasted like a water flower oil with a hint of something in it, and then a very cold heat started to work its way down the back of my throat. Then my lips and tongue went tingly numb. I think I ran around for an hour just in awe of this crazy thing. Our Chinese executive chef said that when Chinese people have a tooth ache the just chew on a Szechuan pepper.”
Stewart added: “Chinese food, real Chinese food, has so much flavor and complexity to it. They call it simple but I call it magic.”
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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 and is filed under Dean's Blog.