Calvin Rouse is a culinary intern in the San Francisco Chronicle Food Section. Before coming to the Chronicle, Calvin was a private caterer and cook for Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” in Atlanta, GA. After moving to the Bay Area last year, Calvin attended California Culinary Academy and is currently finishing his externship.



On Saturday February 1, David Lawrence of San Francisco’s 1300 on Filmore and Paul Arenstam of Oakland’s Summer Kitchen joined 39 other celebrity chefs, the James Beard House and football players past and present in Brooklyn for the 23rd annual Taste of the NFL. It’s a ginormous charity event from a a 501c3 organization that raises money in support of food banks in every NFL city; over 3,000 people attend.

Arenstam represented Oakland with Becker Lane Farm braised pork chile verde, while Lawrence brought it with maple-braised beef short ribs with sweet potato mash and shaved horseradish. This was my fifth time volunteering, and every year, we raise a little more money. This year, preliminary figures are around $1 million.

Let’s backtrack a few days and see what exactly goes into making a food event of this magnitude:

Tuesday 1/28/14 (High: 21 Degrees)

At 7 a.m. (4 a.m. PST), I leave Manhattan and catch the dark subway, headed downtown to the Marriott Brooklyn Bridge, where I meet the shuttle drivers, hotel point of contacts, volunteer coordinators, chef coordinators and the big boss – Gena Berry. I’m part of a core group of 30 or so regulars that show up each year to pull this thing off, but many more that help out as well.

Leave the warm Marriot, hop in the clown car and check in at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. Since the Port Authority is a division of Homeland Security, in order to get past the friendly security guard, everyone in the car must have a valid government picture ID.

Tour the cavernous facility, see load-in and load-out area.

Game plan for the week ahead. Take out and inventory the office equipment, the crockpots, the cutting boards, the sheet trays, etc. — all packed in 7×7 Pods.

Wednesday 1/29/14 (High: 22 Degrees)

Return to the Marriot Brooklyn Bridge to get a tour of their kitchen facilities with Executive Chef Adam Salyer. We study the logistics plan to get the chefs to and from the two facilities with as much ease as possible.

Back to Cruise Ship Terminal to begin receiving rental items, produce and disposables. Some of the things we received that day: 24,000 bamboo plates and 3,000 bamboo bowls from a guy driving a cargo van. Turns out over 27,000 disposables wouldn’t be enough; we ran out. 40,000 beverage napkins, 30,000 forks and knives, and 5,000 spoons 500 sheet pans, with 300 more to be delivered on Friday 75 cases of Budweiser bottles, 75 cases of Bud Light 58 cases of liquor, led by 12 cases of Absolut Vodka, four cases of Gin, five cases of Avion Tequila. You get the idea. 70 garment racks and 3,000 wooden hangers 60 baker’s racks Two double door refrigerators (each is about twice the size of a normal home model)

Back to Cruise Ship Terminal to begin receiving rental items, produce and disposables. Some of the things we received that day:

Thursday 1/30/14 (High: 29 Degrees)

Out of town chefs begin to arrive at the Marriot, check-in at the makeshift office to receive location assignments, a green swag bag, personalized chef coats, a surprise Ove’ Glove (I have always secretly wanted one) and unfortunately, a patch to commemorate the passing of good friend, chef Shin Tsujimura of Nobu 57.

More of the same: deliveries, deliveries, deliveries. The only difference, we can now separate all the food, produce and equipment needed per the chefs.

Fire Marshal and Health Inspector show up — queue the Darth Vader music — to make sure what we have done so far is in compliance.

The day started at 8:30 a.m. and does not end until 6:00 p.m. Not bad, but when the refrigerated truck is warmer than outside temperature, it makes the day seem just a little longer.

Friday 1/31/14 (High: A tropical 39 Degrees)

Ready the cooking school volunteers for the arrival of more chefs. Some bright-eyed students draw the short straw and work with Bruce Molzon. Bruce is a great chef and person, but he had nine cases (84 heads) of cauliflower to grate by hand, with three box graters. I rescued two deer in headlight students that were assigned to chop five pounds of shallots and five pounds peeled garlic and show them where the hotel food processor lives. Zip, zip — job finished in less than 10 minutes.

Eddie Matney needed to shred 160 pounds of potatoes (peeled the previous day) and combine with other chopped ingredients to make 1,600 mini latkes. Assemble, test, retest, fry, bake. After roughly two hours of experimentation, I decide the best way to handle this: freeze and fry the day of. Thank God for culinary school volunteers.

Saturday 1/30/14 (High: 39 Degrees)