World Series Chefs Serve Baseball

By JULIETTE ROSSANT One of the chapters in Super Chef opens with an all-chef baseball game, sponsored by American Express Publishing Group's magazine Food & Wine. The baseball goodies go beyond normal hotdogs, I can assure you (see Super Chef, pp. 175-177). Baseball and sports in general are big food business, and I have also been tracking Wolfgang Puck's forays into baseball stadiums -- most recently in a big deal with Philip Anschutz that expands an existing deal with Levy Restaurants (see previous entry "Euro Puck"). Delaware North Companies Sportservice supplies chefs to major sporting events. You may have been watching the play-offs and are probably hankering right now, after the Boston Red Sox victory, for the World Series -- that's their client. So is Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League All-Star Games and Stanley Cup Championships, even the Olympic Games. Another Delaware North company, Well Bread catered the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. (See previous entry "Politics, Chefs & Billboards.") DNCS's top chef Rolf Baumann has been competing this month at the 2004 Internationale Kochkunst Ausstellung (IKA), also known as the World Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany, in a quest to become a certified master chef (CMC) as recognized by the American Culinary Federation (ACF). The German-born Baumann has been chef at St. Louis' Busch Stadium since 1998. Is this a big business? Delaware North grosses $1.6 billion annually -- sounds like a ballpark any super chef would like to play in.