Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Richard Anglin | Capt. Wayne P. Liebold, commanding officer of amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD...... read more read more
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SAN DIEGO (Sept. 18, 2024) Sailors assigned to the amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) reopen the galley after it was completely renovated with new ovens, steamers and deep sinks during docking selected restricted availability (DSRA) in preparation to provide the best culinary services available to Essex crew in San Diego, Sept. 18, 2024.
Essex closed the galley when the ship entered DSRA. However, when they initially shut the galley down, the ship still held over one hundred pallets worth of food that the ship could no longer use. The culinary team called a few of the ships across the water front, and were able to salvage the surplus food by providing it to USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), successfully preparing the galley to be efficiently closed.
The galley being closed did not slow down the Essex Culinary Specialist team. The team created a partnership with a five-star hotel local to San Diego, Hotel Del Coronado, rotating three team members every 30 days to learn how to prepare meals in the high tempo environment of the civilian sector, and bring those skills back to the crew.
They also sent Sailors to compete in 13 different culinary competitions including the Sea vs Shore Galleys Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) Cake Competition, which they won. Two Essex Sailors were selected to be the first U.S. Navy Sailors to represent the Navy in the U.S. Army Culinary Arts Team (USACAT) which competed in the Culinary Olympics in Stuttgart, Germany, where they won bronze. They were also able to win a silver at nationals during the 2024 American Culinary Federation (ACF) student chef of the year competition. Across all 13 culinary competitions, the Essex Culinary Specialist team has brought home a total of 32 medals.
“The Sailors are really performing really well when it comes to getting the job that we need to get done,” said Culinary Specialist 1st Class Maria Martin. “We have a lot of people that have been here for deployment and Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), and they're some real heavy hitters when it comes to leading the new Sailors.”
Spare Sailors from the Culinary Team were sent to assist in helping 16 different commands to complete multiple different inspections, and go out to sea on deployments and underways.
“The Culinary Specialist team also gave over 1,200 hours to volunteer work at 64 different four-star flag events,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Jeremy Domagalski, Essex Food Service Officer, “including the Battle of Midway, and local community events supporting the fleet reserve.”
The Culinary Specialists are made responsible for 326 spaces, including 128 staterooms and 12 storerooms which they needed to refurbish with paint, a polyurethane resin coating (PRC), fixing lights, doors, hinges, lockers, missing handles and repairing the showers.
The team managed a 10-million-dollar budget in habitability contracts to completely rehabilitate all of their spaces and equipment to be fully prepared to open their galley. Surpassing the progress of the rest of the ship, they had to delay the reopening to wait for the rest of the ship to catch up and create conditions suitable to open the galley.
“My goal is to be the best ship in the United States Navy,” said Domagalski, “which is why I am so blessed to have such an amazing team. They poured everything they had into making this happen.”
After 758 days, refurbishing the ship, competing in competitions, training with other commands and civilians, the Culinary Specialists were able to reopen all three of their galleys with full capacity to serve 1100 Sailors and Marines.
“These Sailors really are the best food service team I've ever got to work with,” said Domagalski. “I could imagine most other Sailors would probably go crazy trying to finish the amount of work they did.”
With the galley now operating, the Culinary Specialist team is able to display all of their skills they’ve cultivated from the training and preparation over the last two years, even despite not having access to train in their own galley.
Seeing the inspiring progress of the Culinary Specialists, the Essex team is looking forward to the future as it continues to prepare each department to become fully operational.
Essex is homeported in San Diego, conducting a maintenance period to upgrade and refurbish many key systems aboard.
For more news from USS Essex, follow us on Facebook, and Instagram at https://www.facebook.com/USSESSEX, https://www.instagram.com/ussessex_lhd2/ or visit https://www.surfpac.navy.mil/lhd2
| Date Taken: | 09.23.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 09.25.2024 13:56 |
| Story ID: | 481750 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 84 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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