Meeting News - February 25, 2008 - (Page 8)

Chef Talk Serving up wholesome foods and drinks across SoCal tart using local berries, as well as almonds for the Sharing a longstanding passion for fresh, natural cream ﬁlling. For lunch, there’s an heirloom tomafoods—an interest now sweeping across profession- to salad, a free-range chicken breast with organic al and home kitchens nationwide—executive chef spinach and tarragon sauce, as well as seasonal CalFred Mensinga of the Hilton Anaheim last month ifornia fresh vegetables—to name a few dishes. introduced Eat Naturally, a proThe list goes on and on. gram offering banquet menus with How has planner fresh, local, organic, and sustainresponse been? able food and beverage choices. In fact, Hilton Hotels tapped the Our catering sales staff is widely respected Mensinga to reporting great interest. spearhead the program not just at Customers have been bringing his hotel but at Hilton’s seven us menus and asking to make other area properties. them organic. [Editor’s Note: Leading a charge is nothing Mensinga advised meeting new for Mensinga though. He planners against using this launched a culinary trade magaterm as it doesn’t have a univerzine 18 years ago and served at the sal deﬁnition. He suggests dishelm of a professional chefs organFred Mensinga cussing “natural” food options ization for eight years. Executive Chef with chefs.] However, we don’t Mensinga stopped slicing and Hilton Anaheim know if people will do this dicing while he explained his inner because it costs 30 to 40 percent revolutionary to MeetingNews. more than standard banquets. Why do you feel that fresh, natural food is Why is Eat Naturally more expensive? so important? By Rayna Katz Q A It allows me to travel to different hotels, see new things, and the chefs have to give me recipes. It’s important for me to go see what’s going on. I’m always looking for something new; that keeps everyone going. I also get that from a student exchange program. We bring students in for 12 months, and they work all our stations; this year, I have students from Korea, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Q A Why are you involved in the magazine publishing business? Absolutely. I create chef ’s tables and the students cook a four- or ﬁve-course menu for a group. It’s a great tool for meeting planners to have fun with. Q A Q A Do you capitalize on their varied ethnic backgrounds? What’s your favorite food? Everything we eat these days is processed. Stores use chemicals to make fruit look nice, and meat is hormone injected. This trend of natural food had been out there, and I was researching things like ﬁsh farming processes when our area vice president suggested we create a banquet menu with products from local farmers using sustainable techniques. Q A Fresh produce can be tough to come by. If, for example, we need organic string beans for 2,000 people and there’s not enough available from one farm, we may have to go to several sources. Q A Q A Q A I like everything, and I’m open to try things. When I visit chef friends, we have several small courses so that we can taste a variety of food without getting stuffed. What’s important is to try different things and to feel good afterwards. r Contact Rayna Katz at rayna.katz@nielsen.com This organic ﬂourless chocolate cake is a treat that many meeting-goers are now able to savor. Are there any other disadvantages to going fresh? Q A But this is only available for meetings and events. Why did you start with that customer base? We can’t say months out what will be available, so we have to tell the planner close to the event. The hotel had already gone green, and Joseph Kruvi, the area vice president, thought this would be interesting for the banquet menu. You served for eight years as president and chairman of Les Toques Blanches International, a prestigious professional chefs society. How could you volunteer so much of your time? Q A What are some examples of dishes that groups can ﬁnd at participating hotels? At breakfast, there are organic eggs, fair trade coffee, trans fat-free Danish pastries, a berry February 25, 2008 For me, it’s important to be in a chefs organization to guide young people in the right direction, and for networking. My network of chefs goes around the world, and that’s helpful when I’m looking for a sous chef, or just qualiﬁed people. www.meetingnews.com 8 MeetingNews http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - February 25, 2008

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