Chefs aren’t the ones deep-frying the mini doughnuts and cheese curds sold during the St. Paul Winter Carnival. The real chefs are carving ice in Rice Park.
Year after year, these kitchen pros constitute about half of the competitive Winter Carnival ice carving teams, turning huge blocks of frozen water into elaborate ice sculptures.
Rod Graham, a culinary arts instructor with Intermediate District 287 in Hennepin County, is on one of three teams this year comprising only chefs and cooks who learned the skill during their culinary training.
“When you become a chef, you have to learn all different types of disciplines,” says Graham. “With a chain saw, I can do the usual swan, fish, eagle and wine rack.”
Andy Anderson picked up the skill in Georgia, carving ice centerpieces for buffets. “In 1993, they dragged me out to Minnesota to carve 20 300-pound blocks of ice,” says Anderson. “That’s when I learned what ice carving is really about.”
An ice sculpture bound for a buffet table needs to be sturdy enough to be moved from kitchen to dining room table and stout enough to last up to six hours. But the giant Winter Carnival creations need to hold up for only 20 minutes of judging.
Greg Schmotzer, banquet supervisor at Treasure Island Resort and Casino in Welch, Minn., has taken first place for his ice sculptures the past four years. For this year’s competition, Schmotzer created “The Loser Is Lunch,” featuring a squat mountain lion on a thick pile of rocks with two chubby rams butting horns nearby.
Because of the unusually high temperatures, he resorted to what he calls “Plan B, warm weather sculpture” and eliminated the fine details that would most likely melt before the judging. “Usually,” he says, “you want to go as delicate as possible”
In the end, of the five teams in the contest, chefs took the top two spots — with Schmotzer’s Plan B taking top honors.
John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.
Copyright 2010 Pioneer Press.
