Roots

I know we've hyped a lot about the fact that both Bill & I served in the Canadian Forces (CF) as cooks, and worked together at CFB Edmonton in the early 90's.

I promise this will be the last lengthy or detailed post about it. The intent of our blog was to simply keep our family & friends informed of what we were up to, basically to save the time of having to send mass, impersonal emails to them all, and hope no one got missed.

Quite obviously this has grown much larger than either of us imagined or anticipated. Along with the fact Chef Michael Smith has been giving us a plug on his Twitter page, let's just say there's a formable following.

Back to my initial point. With such a large audience it provides us with a positive opportunity, 2 fold. Firstly, it demonstrates to cooks currently serving in the CF a prime example of what is possibly achievable, and could be a great form of motivation or incentive. Secondly, it provides a rare insight to those not serving. Our military might be small, but it is regarded as one of the best in the world, and it holds true for our cooks as well. When serving overseas with military units from other countries their troops were quite frankly blown away by our standard of Food Services & superlative quality of food. Not entirely unique to our way of training, but there are not many other country's military cooks that are crossed trained quite like ours. All our cooks serve in all of our elements, Army, Navy & Air Force, and are trained in all areas of the kitchen, from washing pots to baking, preparing meals for fine dining or on service flights, to ordering rations, to managing various types of kitchens such as for in flight meals, field kitchens, which include mobile & static in temperatures from -40c to +40c, to Galleys on HMC Ships & Submarines. Not to mention, catered, buffets, steamline/cafeteria & table service style meals also. In short, we're versatile to say the least.

Although everyone here has a necessary role & their experience is an invaluable asset, Bill has been kicking some serious ass to help make it the success it is. There are some exceptionally talented chefs on board, but few have the back ground in not only large quantity cooking, but also orchestrating & managing a large contingent of chefs & cooks to make it all a huge success. It's not just about being able to cook. He's the Operations Chef, second only to Lead Chef Michael Smith. And even though my role here is not as pivotal or glamorous as Bill's, it is one that I'm fully tailored to, drawing on my experience of large quantity ordering, receiving & storing from my days serving with both the Army (2VP) & Navy (HMCS Ottawa), and also with the Air Force supporting larger functions such as the Edmonton International Air show.

This training, experience & background knowledge has afforded us the unimaginable opportunity, to not only just be a part of the biggest event in the world, but to actually help in making a notable highly successful difference.

For those serving, here's the proof that the possibilities are endless. It's up to you to seize the opportunity.

If anyone is interested in serving your country as a cook, the training is not only second to none, nothing else remotely compares. And, it's a damn great job.

Olympic FSM Mike