“I’m getting ready to get out, so I wanted to go out with a bang,” said Sgt. Gary King, quality assurance evaluator with Quantico’s Food Services Branch, as he deep-fried another basketful of plantain slices. That was his reason for volunteering to compete in a cook-off between a Marine team and two Sodexo teams at Bruce Hall on Oct. 30.

This was the second such cooking competition at the base, and the first to pit Marines against mess hall cooks. The last contest, held in late March, was between teams that combined Marines and employees of Sodexo, the company that runs the base mess halls.

The Marine team was preparing a Caribbean-themed meal, and King’s plantain chips were to accompany an appetizer of shrimp ceviche.

Although his civilian competitors spend their days cooking, he said he thought his team had an edge in the contest. “We’re able to experiment more, while they’re stuck in their recipe mindset,” said King, who has been cooking for the Marine Corps for eight years.

As the 10:30 a.m. deadline for judging neared, Sgt. Austin Nelson, food service specialist with Food Services Branch, was cutting circles from a sheet of coconut cake, to be filled with pineapple semifreddo and topped with dulce de leche sauce and garnished with toasted coconut and fresh pineapple. The cooks had been working since 6:15 a.m.

“They’re more used to cooking a standard menu,” he said of his competitors. “I cook literally every day, so I think, conceptually, I have an edge, from my experience and my passion.” Nelson spent five years cooking in restaurants before the Marine Corps sent him to the Culinary Institute of America in New York City.

“This is all home cooking to me,” said Sgt. Erik GironGuerrero, another Food Services Branch quality assurance evaluator, as he seared the team’s main dish — steaks that had been poached in seasoned garlic butter and would soon be topped with chimichurri sauce and served with coconut rice and beans and tropical slaw.

His Honduran heritage is one reason the team chose a Caribbean-themed meal.

William Burress, the afternoon chief cook at Bruce Hall, said his team chose a Cajun theme with a jambalaya entrée because it’s a colorful, spicy food. “That was what we wanted to bring out more than anything else, was the colors and the flavor,” he said.

His teammate Paula Branham, who works mornings at the Bruce Hall sub shop, was selecting a bell pepper to garnish the jambalaya. “Red makes it pop,” she decided. Branham said she was confident of her team’s winning potential, even though they were down one member who stayed home sick.

“We’ve got the wit,” she said. “We’ve got the best food out there to win this.”

Team 3, meanwhile, was preparing a Tuscan menu.

John Wardrick, chief cook at the Officer Candidates School’s Bobo Hall, said he chose the theme based on the 15 years he worked in hotel kitchens. “I’ve worked with quite a few great Italian chefs. That inspired me to do Italiano,” he said, as he transferred portions of pan-seared pork Florentine onto the sheets where they would finish cooking in the oven. The pork, he said, was stuffed with spinach, white wine, garlic, red pepper and “a couple of other secrets.”

Wardrick said his team’s competitive advantage came from “great teamwork amongst my coworkers, good drive and great ambition.”

Those teammates were “Deedee” Triege Heck, chief cook at The Basic School’s Lopez Hall, and Stephanie Parker, another Lopez Hall cook.

The winning team would receive first-place medals and chef coats and have their names engraved in perpetuity on the Culinary Team of the Quarter trophy.

Erik Buehrle, area general manager for Sodexo, said the contest is indeed to become a quarterly event, partly as a way to allow his cooks a creative outlet that the fulfillment of the company’s contract doesn’t always permit. “With this thing, they get to use their expertise and create their own menus,” he said.

The official contest was judged by a panel of four, and the meals were then offered to lunchtime diners, who would select the “people’s choice.”

The judges would select a winner based on taste, temperature and presentation, and the teams had gone to lengths not only to artfully garnish their dishes but also to deck out their serving tables according to the themes they had chosen.

“It’s good to see some competition, so it keeps all the chefs and cooks on top of their game,” said John DeBerry, the base visits coordinator and one of the judges. He added that the mess halls are often highlights of visits by reunion groups, who are impressed by, if not somewhat jealous of, the way today’s Marines are fed.

Other judges included director of the base Logistics Division Col. Christopher Edwards, retired Master Gunnery Sgt. Larry Curtis and Stephen Winterling, a Sodexo executive chef from Marine Barracks Washington.

Curtis, who retired from the service as Quantico’s food technician, had judged the March contest as well.

“They had good food last time, too, but the presentation was a lot better this time,” he said after the judges had sampled all the meals and submitted their scores.

He said it was difficult to decide between Team2 — the Marine team — and Team 3, with Wardrick’s Tuscan menu, but in the end he preferred Team 3’s offering. “The flavor of their food was awesome, and it wasn’t over-flavored,” he said, adding that, while he had also appreciated the Caribbean meal, he thought the seasoning was a little too much and the steak could have been hotter.

Sure enough, when all the points were tallied, Wardrick’s team just barely edged out the Marines, with total scores of 215.5 and 212.5.

“I’m actually totally ecstatic,” Wardrick said. “I planned it with my heart, my passion for cooking, and it paid off.”

The “people’s choice” award, as selected by lunchtime diners, however, went to the Marines.

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com