Crowd Pleaser

Susan Vermeire’s cooking can feed a hockey team

Intimidated by the thought of cooking for your entire family on Thanksgiving or Christmas?

Imagine cooking for an entire hockey team – or more.

This experience, while potentially frightening for some, is one Susan Vermeire has gone through on many occasions. From team dinners to church banquets, the Westerville mother of two has shown a knack for putting together massive meals for colossal crowds.

Susan and her husband, Dan, have two children, both graduates of Westerville North High School: daughter Jillian and son Eric. Both children were part of sports teams in Westerville, and one way or another, Susan ended up preparing team dinners.

Eric played hockey all four years at North and was also on the lacrosse team.

“I think the hockey team ate here probably 10 to 12 times per season,” Susan says.

Hockey players love carbohydrates, Susan says, making her macaroni and cheese one of her most popular dishes.

“My mac and cheese is legendary in some ways,” she says. “I have all the hockey boys’ moms asking me for my recipe.”

Susan’s fresh-baked bread, fruit salad and green salad are also popular.

The hockey team isn’t the biggest group she’s had to feed, though –far from it. Cooking for the varsity hockey team means only cooking for about 20 people, but cooking for the lacrosse team – which combines the freshman, junior varsity and varsity lev-

Mac and Cheese:

els – means 50 to 60 mouths to feed.

Jillian and Eric were both part of the Westerville Crew rowing club, and Susan spent several years as point person when it came to crew meals – which meant preparing breakfast for 100 to 200 people, including parents and siblings of team members, in a tent with no electricity or running water. And then there are the church banquets, where guests can number in the 200 to 300 range.

Susan has been feeding sizable volumes of people since long before her children started playing sports, though. When she was growing up, her father was in charge of all the outings of his golf league, so Susan and her mother were accustomed to preparing barbecued ribs, chicken and other meals for the league members. When attending college at Penn State University, Susan worked in the university’s food service department, interacting with the eight chefs on staff and managing a sandwich shop.

Susan wears a lot of hats besides the chef’s toque – she works as a personal assistant for a New York-based venture capitalist and does merchandising for Costco, and she is in the process of obtaining a teaching degree. But she still makes sure to keep her cooking skills honed with regular doses of the Food Network.

“My kids will tell you the Food Network is on my TV all the time,” she says.

Garth Bishop is editor of Westerville Magazine. Feedback and comments welcome at gbishop@pubgroupltd. com.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb. elbow macaroni or cavatappi

• 1 qt. milk

• 6 tbsp. butter

• ½ cup flour

• 6 cups shredded cheese (choose mixture at your discretion, but at least 2 cups of mozzarella is recommended for creaminess)

• ½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

• ½ to 1 tsp. salt

• ⅛ tsp. nutmeg

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cook macaroni according to package directions, but leave slightly undercooked.

Meanwhile, heat milk in a saucepan, but don’t boil it. Melt the butter in a large pot and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. While whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minute or two more, until thickened and smooth.

Off the heat, add the shredded cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg (amount of salt may vary depending on the salt content of the cheeses used). Add the cooked macaroni. Pour into a 3-qt. baking dish. Bake for approximately 30 minutes until bubbly throughout.

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