Lakefield Herald Special Report

Olympic cook has Lakefield connections

by Anita Locke

Bill Pratt (CPO1, CCC, MMM ret’d), the son of Louise and the late Tom, is an Executive Chef at the Vancouver Olympics in Whistler’s Athletes Village.

Although he never lived in Lakefield, his parents have had a close connection with the village since they were young.

Louise and her husband grew up in Lakefield, and moved back to the village after Tom retired from military service. Tom passed away a few years ago.

Their son Bill spent 28 years serving with the Canadian Navy before retiring in 2008 where he attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer.

Bill will be working alongside Chef Mike Greer, himself a retired Canadian Forces Chef.

The culinary teams have their work cut out for them. They will be preparing 12,000 meals a day in nine food stations. Michael Smith is the Lead Chef.

On his blog, Bill says, “I find myself using my military feeding background more and more each day. We’re feeding the masses here and I have a lot of chefs who are baffled at the way I’m able to produce a meat sauce pasta for 500 people while they’re used to doing it in a restaurant for 20 or 30. We can have great food using premium products but speed will make or break us so I can see my skill sets training a lot of these Chefs in large volume cooking in a very quick time.”

Bill arrived in Vancouver on January 18 and will be there until mid-March. He will also be a chef for the Special Olympics.

Although Bill retired from the service, he is the very first Canadian Forces Cook to take on the challenge of Iron Chef America in the role of Sous Chef to Chef Michael Smith; they battled it out in Kitchen Stadium with Iron Chef Bobby Flay on the Food Network, January 31.

The main ingredient, around which the chefs had to create a variety of dishes, was avocado. Although Chef Bobby Flay was the victor, Bill and Michael created some tremendous dishes which earned high praise from the judges.

Louise Pratt says, “We are so proud of our son. He’s had a wonderful career.”

Bill and his wife and children live in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He is currently employed as the corporate chef for Lou’s The Meat Factory.

Bill Pratt and Mike Greer will be blogging regularly while at the Olympics. Visit the site at http://billandmike.blogspot.com/

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