Greene County students cook at Trump Hotel during inauguration
Greene County culinary students pose at Trump International Hotel last week.
Models of the White House and Capitol Building were made out of chocolate.
Students prepare breakfast in the kitchen at Trump International Hotel last week.
Trays hold pounds and pounds of bacon.
A ballroom adorned with red, white and blue lights is set up at Trump International Hotel.
Oliver Beckert, executive chef of the hotel, works with one of the GCCTC students.
GCCTC students fold napkins at Trump International Hotel.
A culinary student uses a torch to carmelize the tops of creme brulee.
A culinary student cuts off a rind from a watermelon.
Executive chef Oliver Beckert overlooks the plating of meals last week.
The GCCTC culinary interns and members of Trump International Hotel wave flags out the hotel in Washington, D.C.
Nik Streit has never made so many omelets in his life.
“I’ve probably made about 100 omelets throughout the week so far,” he said Friday night.
The Carmichaels sophomore and eight of his classmates at Greene County Career and Technology Center have been working in the kitchens of Trump International Hotel, which opened in October on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
“We’re the only school in America doing this internship in the Trump Hotel in D.C. the week of the inauguration,” said Dan Wagner, culinary arts adviser for the career center.
Wagner and the high school students left Monday for the nation’s capital and have been cooking up a storm, from fruit trays and omelets to banquet hors d’oeuvres and chocolate molds of the White House and Capitol Building.
“The amount of food we got to work with was amazing,” Wagner said. “These kids were just doing so much. Nik’s never worked on a cooking line before and he did that this weekend.”
Wagner and the students agreed this was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for them, which all started with a letter Wagner sent around Thanksgiving to several locations for Trump International Hotels. He requested an internship for his students during the week of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
A few days later, he received an email from Oliver Beckert, executive chef of the hotel, with an invitation. A week before the inauguration, Wagner went to Washington, D.C., to meet Beckert and to discuss what the students were learning in class.
“(Beckert) has taken these students under his wing this entire weekend,” Wagner said. “My students have the opportunity to work with some of the best chefs in the country, and they made them produce – these kids worked hard. They gave them tasks that are in our curriculum and that’s what it’s about.”
Wagner said the students were put in different departments, including room service, dining and baking and pastry, and got to work with dozens of chefs, managers and other hospitality staff at the hotel.
Streit worked mostly in room service, cooking for guests of the hotel.
“With room service, it was really different cooking for one person at a time,” he said. “I was making a lot of fruit dishes, and I was working with a lot of breakfast food.”
Haley Hice, a junior at Carmichaels, and Sydnee Watson, a sophomore at West Greene, also worked in room service, putting the food on plates, rearranging the food on the carts and taking it up to rooms.
“It’s one of the most fun things I’ve ever done,” Watson said. “I thought it was going to be very stressful and fast-paced. Well, it was fast-paced but once we got to know the staff, it wasn’t that stressful.”
Hice also mentioned the stress of being a high school student working for the first time in a five-star hotel.
“It was more fun than stressful, and without that stress, it wouldn’t be learning,” she said.
Tabatha Wise, a senior at Carmichaels, worked in baking and pastry while she was there. She said she made chocolate chunk cookies, crème brulee, and models of the White House and Capitol Building out of chocolate.
“I had no idea what was going to happen, but the chefs took me under their wings,” she said. “It was the best kitchen ever. Everyone worked so well together.”
Wise said she wants to go into baking and pastry while studying culinary arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania after graduation.
Kyle Sharp, a junior at Jefferson-Morgan, has a similar dream to study culinary arts and open his own kitchen one day. This week, he said he’s been working in the banquet kitchen preparing “all the food for all the parties we’ve been hosting every day this week.”
“The chefs had me everywhere,” he said. “I was at the stove, chopping up vegetables, prepping spices.”
Sharp said, starting out, he was nervous and didn’t want to disappoint the chefs.
“Just going into a five-star hotel was nerve-racking,” he said. “I thought they would be impatient with us – a bunch of high school kids in a five-star hotel – but they were so patient with us.”
Wagner said he thinks the chefs enjoyed having the students there because Jim Zambito, executive chef at Trump National Golf Club, invited them to come back and help in the kitchen during the PGA Championship in Washington, D.C., during Memorial Day weekend.
“He was only in the kitchen one day watching the kids, but he said to me, ‘I love the way these young kids work. Bring your team down and work in my resort,'” Wagner said.
This was not the first inaugural field trip Wagner’s led to Washington. He said he’s taken a group of students to four different Presidential inaugurations since 2001.
Wagner said choosing which students to take on this trip was one of the hardest things he’s ever done.
“I lost two nights of sleep trying to pick which ones to take,” he said.
The students were evaluated after they hosted a Christmas Buffet at the career center. Wagner said it was also based on grades, attendance, their portfolios and an interview.
The other four students who made the cut were Jefferson-Morgan sophomore Destiny Phillips, Mapletown sophomores Sara Hornick and Bryan Hoge and West Greene junior Brody Miller.
Wagner said out of all the “educational experiences” he’s been a part of, this one took the cake.
“This is the best hotel that I’ve ever seen operate,” he said. “There’s not a flaw in it.”
And his students agreed.
“I don’t want to go back to Carmichaels,” Streit said. “I just want to stay and cook at the hotel.”