| Special Report |
ACF CULINARY TEAM U S A UPDATE W
e’re only a few months away from the 2024 IKA Culinary Olympics in Stuttgart, Germany! ACF Culinary Team USA has been working hard since the World Cup last year, holding monthly in-person meetings to practice, and refining dishes with Zoom calls in between. At press time, the team had just returned from a practice at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin and was planning on regrouping for the next practice at Southwestern Oregon Community College in Coos Bay. The team consists of ACF Chef Dan Holtgrave, CEC, team captain, as well as ACF Chefs Ted Polfelt, CEC, CCA, CEPC, AAC; Logan Christensen, CEC; James Storm; Tim Recher, CEC, AAC; Shane Wilder (team sous chef) and Troman Felizmenio (team pastry chef). “ACF Team USA is the official representative for the U.S. in major international culinary competitions and consists of a national, regional, youth and miitary teams,” says ACF Culinary Team Manager J. Kevin Storm, CEC, AAC. “We set high goals and take pride in hard work, persistence, and success.” Other team managers include ACF Chefs Randy J. Torres, CEC, AAC (team assistant manager);
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NCR | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023
Susan E. Notter, CEPC, AAC (pastry manager); John Coletta, HAAC (logistics manager); Christopher A. Desens, CEC, CCA, AAC (business manager); and Thomas J. Macrina, CEC, CCA, AAC, HOF, HBOT (director of culinary). Advisors include: ACF Chefs Timothy Bucci, CMC; Jason D. Hall, CMC; Steven Jilleba, CMC, CCE, AAC; Aidan P. Murphy, CMC; Reimund D. Pitz, CEC, CCE, AAC, HOF; and Russell Scott, CMC. Visit acfchefs.org/team to learn more about the history of the program and this year’s team. In preparation for the Culinary Olympics, team members are responsible for specific dishes or they collaborate on a dish. In between practices, “we share photos and a progress report during a weekly Zoom meeting, and then when we’re in person, we try to treat practice as the actual competition,” Chef Holtgrave says.
