Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Nathaniel Moger | Petty Officer 1st Class Erick Vanderhorst assembles a platter in preparation for a...... read more read more
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GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – It looked nothing like the Food Network.
There was no Emeril Lagasse in front of a studio audience, with six burners, an island and a host of prep cooks who made the task of peeling, slicing, dicing and frying an onion as simple as upending a ramekin of Spanish red into a pan.
Neither was Rachel Ray there, with her timesaving techniques and commercial breaks.
Instead, there was a man talking to two friends who had shown up to lend a hand. And he was about to get some bad news.
"What did you just say?" he asked.
"40," came the reply. "I'd say about 40."
"It was only supposed to be 27. Okay, let's get back to work then. Get one more tray of the artichoke dip out there."
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Erick Vanderhorst, a culinary specialist from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, has one job during his six-month tour at Joint Task Force Guantanamo: Make sure that when the JTF commander has an official reception, no one goes home hungry.
This means, when faced with cooking for dozens already and another dozen show up, Vanderhorst is always prepared.
"I take my job seriously and that job means making sure the Admiral never has to worry about what's going on back in the kitchen, and that means being ready for anything. If the starting lineup for the New York Giants showed up, looking to eat, I'd find a way to feed them," said Vanderhorst.
Vanderhorst, a Dominican Republic native with a Dutch name, cut his teeth and earned his salt on the sub tenders USS Simon Lake and USS Emory S. Land before becoming a galley captain on the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung Hoon. For Vanderhorst, cooking for 40 is no different than cooking for 300.
"Back on the ship, I made sure all of my CSs were paying attention to everything they served," said Vanderhorst. "When you're working 12 hours a day, and then have to go stand watch on top of all that, you deserve to eat well. Cooking for hundreds of my friends and peers really taught me a lot about taking pride in my profession."
Vanderhorst has since gone through follow-up training at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. Between the extra schooling, personal inventiveness and studying monthly cooking periodicals like "Food and Wine" and "Gourmet Magazine," he's gone from serving trays of turkey a la king to shined silver platters of fried plantains topped with lump crab meat and handmade chimichurri sauce and artichoke dip baked onto crostini.
"To make food that people will remember, you need to be willing to put in the extra effort. Take this artichoke dip," said Vanderhorst while pulling out a tray of bite-sized pieces of bread. "Taste that. It would be so easy to just go out and buy a jar of artichoke dip and put it on some bread. But by whipping egg whites into it and baking it, it comes out light so people can concentrate on the taste."
| Date Taken: | 08.15.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 08.21.2008 14:57 |
| Story ID: | 22748 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 189 |
| Downloads: | 181 |
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