KELLY- MILLER CIRCUS COOKHOUSE

Step right up!
Circus food is no sideshow stunt!


Rebecca Ostroff, lead aerialist for the Kelly Miller Circus, carries plates of cookhouse food to her family’s RV. / AFR photo by Carol Guensburg
from:  americanfoodroots.com
By Carol Guensburg
July 23, 2013
The opening strains of “The Lion King” soundtrack waft from the circus tent next door, signaling that the clowns have finished a round of pratfalls, the fire eater is breathing flames and the star aerialist is preparing to spin — hanging by her teeth from a bit attached to her trapeze — near the dizzying heights of the big top.

The musical cue means it’s almost intermission.

“It’s my show time,” says the aptly named Jeremiah Cook, a 23-year-old Texan.

Jeremiah Cook, who runs the Kelly Miller Circus cookhouse, posts upcoming menus. / AFR photo by Carol Guensburg
His stage is the Kelly Miller Circus cookhouse, a semitrailer parked this summer afternoon on the outskirts of Olney, a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. From its 30-by-8-foot galley kitchen, Cook produces at least two meals a day for up to 96 people, including cast, crew and their families.
It’s a numbers game, a juggling act, and Cook is ready.
He opens the oven of a six-burner U.S. Range and extracts two industrial-size pans of cornbread, replacing them with two more pans of batter. Minutes later, while he stirs a huge pot of chopped chicken breast in lemon-caper sauce, a clown in greasepaint appears at the serving window.

Steve Copeland clowns as he collects dinner during intermission at the Kelly Miller Circus. / AFR photo by Carol Guensburg
“What’ve you got today?” Steve Copeland asks. He grins when Cook loads an extra piece of cornbread onto a plate heaped with chicken, rice and mixed vegetables. Copeland joins a handful of other diners already settled in the dining tent.
To audiences, American circus food means cotton candy, peanuts and other concession fare. To the cast, crew and their families, it could be anything from burgers to beef teriyaki with broccoli, from pancakes to panna cotta — from the mundane to the magnificent.

 

Jeremiah Cook feeds about 70 people from his semitrailer cookhouse. / AFR photo by Carol Guensburg
read more at:
http://www.americanfoodroots.com/features/step-right-up-circus-food-is-no-sideshow-stunt/#lightbox/3/