W&J welcomes students back with gourmet-style lunch
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Pho served by Bethany College executive chef Beau Dittmar
Seared sea scallops with grilled mixed vegetables, topped with a blue cheese tuile, made by Franciscan University executive chef Ryan Gregorius
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Duquesne University executive chef Tim Fetter serves up wood-fired pork porchetta to students at W&J during a traveling chef lunch.
Bethany College executive chef Beau Dittmar serves pho to students at W&J during a traveling chef lunch.
Chocolate-covered strawberry parfait was the featured dessert, and Mark Bowers was heading for his second.
“It’s very good. Amazing,” said the Washington & Jefferson College sophomore.
A football and lacrosse player from Canon-McMillan, Bowers enjoys meals – and the variety of meals – inside the college’s Commons dining room.
“If you want to eat healthy,” he said, “you eat healthy. If you want to pig out and eat burgers and pizza, you can. There are a lot of choices.”
Choice selections were among the choices Wednesday, as Douglass Dick, executive chef at W&J, and peers from three other regional colleges prepared dishes for the school’s first Traveling Chef Lunch.
It was the first day of the spring semester, and Parkhurst, the school’s food service provider, greeted students with the culinary nontraditional: wood-fired pork porchetta with arugula salad; pho (Vietnamese meatballs with noodles and sauce); seared sea scallops with grilled vegetable hash and blue cheese tuile; and the parfait.
Burgers and pizza did not have a good day.
“It’s a way to welcome students back and put a smile on their faces,” Dick explained. “They get to try different things and different ingredients.”
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
A chocolate strawberry parfait served up by W&J pastry chef Anna Bailey
He and Anna Bailey, W&J’s head baker, presented the parfait. Parkhurst, a brand of Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, brought them together with executive chefs Beau Dittmar (Bethany College), Ryan Gregorius (Franciscan University) and Tim Fetter (Duquesne University).
“This is a big collaboration of chefs’ minds,” said Dick, a W&J employee for five years who was a successful chef and restaurateur in Pittsburgh. “Students today expect more variety, more options unlike the burgers and fried chicken breasts we had in college. This is their dining room for four years, so we want to give them new things and keep them guessing.”
Few could have guessed the process Fetter used to prepare the pork porchetta. It’s called sous vide, in which the meat, garlic and herbs are placed in a vacuum-sealed bag and cooked at a low, constant temperature for 30 hours or so.
“The pork is super tender and moist,” Fetter said.
Brad Miller certainly liked it. “I tried chicken parm, and the pork dish was very good,” said the sophomore football player from South Park. “I will try the meatballs.”
Miller did not know about the chefs event until it was mealtime. He said friends were aware ahead of time, “but didn’t know what they would be preparing.”
Mya Gordon likewise had no prior knowledge that four executive chefs were preparing a lunch outside of the mainstream. Gordon, a senior basketball player and a Washington High alumna, arrived around noon and said the specialized dishes “all look pretty good. My friends had some of them and liked them.” She planned to indulge.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Wood-fired pork porchetta made by Duquesne University executive chef Tim Fetter
“I never come here and get the same thing,” Gordon added.
The Traveling Chef Lunch was well received by students, and by one person who directly oversees their well-being. Eva Chatterjee-Sutton, vice president of student life and dean of students, said there is a “huge variety” of dining selections in the Commons.
“That’s based on student response,” she said. “They still like burgers, pizza and salad, but they can get something different each day.
“We want students to be comfortable during their four years here. An event like this is a good way for them to try new things.”