Fort Scott native Ken Carpenter (left) with Ian Frew, a Canadian native who lives in Connecticut and also works as an executive chef for Aramark Corporation. The two chefs are standing near the Imperial Palace, one of the buildings that make up the Forbidden City which is located in the middle of Beijing, China. -- Submitted Photo [Click to enlarge]

The Fort Scott Tribune

Fort Scott native Ken Carpenter and his co-workers have a monumental task ahead of them.

Carpenter is one of 27 executive chefs with the Philadelphia, Penn.-based Aramark Corporation who are supervising a catering operation to provide more than 3.5 million meals to athletes, media representatives and team officials over a two-month period at the Olympic Village in Beijing, China, during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games that begin Aug. 8.

"Our company is embarking on the largest catered project in history here," Carpenter said via e-mail from China on Friday. "The Beijing Games are the largest Olympics that my company has served out of the 13 they have contracted."

About 600 chefs and managers, as well as nearly 3,000 other Aramark employees and kitchen staff have been working recently to design a 24-hour dining area at Beijing's Olympic Village. The dining area will feature a variety of healthy food choices, including bagels, pasta and steamed fish.

Chefs and other staff with the company will prepare 100,000 meals each day during the Olympics. About 30 percent of the food will be Asian cuisine that appeals to the many Japanese and Korean tourists expected in Beijing during the games. About a third of that food will be authentic Chinese dishes, while the rest will be Japanese, Korean, or Indian, a statement from Aramark Corp. said.

About 38 officials sponsors and Chinese companies are supplying ingredients for the food dishes, while hard-to-get items will come from abroad, the statement said.

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Carpenter, who was born in Fort Scott, grew up in rural western Bourbon County, and is a graduate of Uniontown Junior Senior High School.

After all the time he has spent living and working in larger cities across the country, Carpenter said he still finds himself missing his hometown from time to time.

"Driving down a country road in late August with big fields of corn on both sides of the road, it really cools the air and has a unique smell that brings back memories," he said. "I also miss the genuine hospitality. It seems the larger the city, the more impersonal people become. Beijing has 14 million people. That's almost double New York."

Carpenter currently works with a division of Aramark that oversees all food preparation, menu planning, staffing, sanitation, purchasing and budgeting for the 275,000-square-foot Overland Park Convention Center in Overland Park. His career in the food industry over the years has also included stints in various hotels, restaurants and clubs in Arizona, Florida, and Missouri.

He works with Aramark to provide catering menus and execute events that typically draw thousands of people. Carpenter said he has worked for the company in several of its different offices across the country.

His job also periodically takes him to unusual locations.

"My company has many government and correctional contracts, so I've had meetings at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary," he said. "That's unusual to me."

Carpenter said he began cooking at the age of 10, learning home-style favorites such as ham, beans and cornbread, spaghetti and meatballs, and chili. He was taught by his grandmother how to make beef with homemade noodles, in which the noodles were hung from broomsticks all over the kitchen.

He started working in his first restaurant at the age of 16, and became a chef apprentice at the age of 18. He has worked for ritzy hotels, private clubs, and numerous Fortune 500 companies in several major U.S. cities during his career. He is currently an executive chef and managing partner for The Players Club Restaurant in Wellington, Fla., a successful business he opened in 1999.

Carpenter said that following his Olympic assignment, he will most likely be transferred, to help with Aramark accounts in other U.S. cities.

Among celebrities that Carpenter said he has met or worked for over the years include Richard Gere, Cindy Crawford, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Prime Minister of Canada, Billy Joel, Christie Brinkley, Jerry Seinfeld, Donald Trump, Paul McCartney, the Sultan of Brunei, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jack Nicklaus, Gisele Bundchen, and Jim Palmer.

Aramark, which operates an office in downtown Kansas City, Mo., is the largest food caterer in the United States, and generated $12.6 billion in sales last year, the company statement said.