“What a life, huh?” says Kevin Aiello, sliding across the floor of his truck with a tuna melt balanced on the end of a spatula. “Not like a normal chef.”
On location in Chicago, where the thriller “Blink,” starring Aidan Quinn and Madeleine Stowe, is filming, the 29-year-old Aiello is wondering why he gave up a “normal life” to work strange hours in bad weather in the decidedly unglamorous world of movie catering.
As night falls on the Northwest Side neighborhood that the cops call one of the worst drug zones in the city, security is high. On this day, everyone was anxiously awaiting a verdict in the Rodney King trial. To make matters worse, it has been raining for days, and the weary cast and crew expect to shoot outdoors straight through to the next morning.
But Aiello, owner/chef of The Cast Supper, a Los Angeles catering company comprised of Aiello, his assistant Gabriel Padilla and a large truck with a kitchen inside, is unfazed. He tirelessly spins hot sandwiches off a griddle, handing them through the window to a group of crew members whose faces are obscured by rain gear. The exceedingly courteous chef, who refers to everyone as “sir” or “ma’am,” seems to be infecting the crowd with his good nature.
“Hey, that’s a pretty good burger,” a policeman exclaims, brightening a bit. “Can I have another one?”
Aiello, a professional chef who has owned his own business since 1989, has catered 15 movies and countless commercials, usually serving 100 to 300 meals a day. The key to serving quality food to so many people, he says, is to plan ahead, stay flexible and buy everything fresh, preferably the day it’s served.
To prepare for a night shoot, Aiello and Padilla begin shopping in the morning: “I start out at the Chicago Fish House, then to N&G Produce for fruits and vegetables. Then we go to Nicholas Meats. Every other day we go to Jewel. We make four stops and we always get to location an hour before the crew to start the sauces.”
Because the union contract entitles the cast and crew to two meals a day, six hours apart, Aiello can expect to work at least a 12-hour day once he gets on the set. At night, “lunch” generally starts around 5:30, and “dinner” is about midnight. If the decision is made to run overtime, a third meal is expected, and things start to get hectic.
“We work 22-hour days, and we’ll be here longer than anyone else on the set. You can generally make a lot of money at that point, but that’s when it becomes a job for me. I love it to the point of the second meal.”
As a chef working in the movie industry, Aiello often gets requests for meals that challenge all but the most flexible definition of cuisine: “The most unusual I’d ever heard was from a director on a commercial who wanted a peanut-butter-and-bacon sandwich,” he says.
He enjoys indulging individual food preferences, accepting special orders as a professional challenge, but he admits it “gets tough” when everyone on the set is on a different diet.
“On `Marrying Man’ I had Alec Baldwin eating only pasta with marinara sauce every day, I had Kim Basinger eating pasta with just tomato, basil and hot chilies with nothing else and several other people eating just brown rice. But (Basinger) got me my next movie by saying `I want the guy who was on “Marrying Man.””‘
Among the cast of “Blink,” only Stowe, who plays the female lead, has asked Aiello for special preparations: “Madeleine has a no-salt, no-oil diet, so everything has to be prepared special for her every day. We do very plain, very healthy food for her.”
Tom O’Malley, a burly Irishman who shuttles the cast and crew to and from locations, says he’s on a special diet, too, sort of. With every meal, O’Malley tries to eat from the four basic food groups, which he claims are fat, salt, meat and starch; Aiello’s cheeseburgers fill the bill perfectly.
“He’s a great cook,” O’Malley says, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Except on St. Patrick’s Day he didn’t even have corned beef and cabbage. He’s Italian! I couldn’t believe it.”
“Yeah, I almost got kicked off the set for not having corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day,” Aiello admits. “About 20 people came up and said, `No corned beef and cabbage?’ To be honest with you, I don’t have corned beef and cabbage on my menu. Actually, I don’t like it, so I’ve kind of shied away from it.”
Despite his reluctance to make you-know-what, Aiello’s versatility is reflected in the range of dishes he prepares, relying mostly on seasonal and regional ingredients. “I’ve had experience with a lot of foods, from Jamaican to Cajun to Mexican to New England. But wherever I am, I use the local flavors.” For one chilly Chicago night, for example, he offered whitefish; on another, it was beef brisket with mashed potatoes.
“Best beef brisket I ever had,” recalls Matt Roth, a Chicago actor who plays a cop in “Blink.” “I don’t know how they do all that with just two guys. They must have eight arms apiece.”
For dinner, members of the set can choose a vegetarian pasta, a meat or chicken dish or a fresh fish as an entree. In addition, the 30-foot salad bar, one of Aiello’s signature items, has 70 condiments, 14 dressings and five fresh salads. On one day these included a split pea with vinaigrette and onion salad; red potato, sour cream and snow pea salad; tortellini salad; and tofu on a bed of cabbage with Oriental dressing.
Aiello says his personal standards are what keeps him in demand, adding that every dish passes through his hands. “I run my truck as an owner-chef, so the quality is a little higher.” He doesn’t rely on catering staples like beef stroganoff or macaroni and cheese, which don’t require much planning, and he changes the menu when an item isn’t available.
“The great thing about being a caterer is if I don’t like the quality of anything, I can change it. If I walk in and the fish isn’t that fresh, I just ask them for something else.”
Having worked as a professional chef in his native New England, then in Hawaii and Los Angeles, he knows how removed from the craft a managerial chef can become. Before embarking on this career, Aiello started several restaurants, and even owned a house-painting business before he bought the truck and hung his shingle outside. Now he finds satisfaction in the daily routine of food preparation and service.
It’s two hours into “lunchtime” on day 45 on the set of “Blink,” and the lines keep forming. Eventually Aiello closes the back door and rolls the slats down the side of the truck. He has to prepare for dinner.
Common wisdom on a movie set is that no matter how tasty the food is, after a couple of weeks everyone gets tired of it and eats elsewhere. This doesn’t seem to be happening to Aiello. Intermittent knocks on the truck keep him slinging sandwiches out the back door into waiting hands, while everyone tries to sneak a glance into the three saucepans on the stove. “Hey, Kevin,” someone asks, “what’s for dinner?”
“Chicken breast in porcini mushroom glaze, angel-hair pasta with sun-dried tomato and cream sauce, and fresh halibut.”
“Wow! That’s incentive to work all night in the rain.”
Aiello says the following recipes, good for summer barbecuing, are foolproof and healthful. About the teriyaki sauce, he says: “Also bring an extra napkin to the table. It is so good you will cry.”
GRILLED BREAST OF CHICKEN AND PAPAYA SALSA
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
1 papaya, peeled, halved, seeded, diced
1/4 cup each, finely diced: red bell pepper, red onion
3 tablespoons each, finely chopped: fresh cilantro, mint
1 small jalapeno chili, minced
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt, white pepper to taste
2 whole chicken breasts, split
Olive oil
1. For salsa, mix papaya, red pepper, onion, cilantro, mint, jalapeno, lemon juice, cumin, salt and pepper in medium bowl. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings.
2. Prepare a charcoal grill or preheat broiler. Lightly sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Rub chicken with olive oil. Cook chicken, 6 inches from heat source, turning occasionally, until juices no longer run pink, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve hot chicken with chilled salsa.
GRILLED FRESH HAWAIIAN AHI WITH TERIYAKI AND PINEAPPLE
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 6 to 10 minutes
Yield: 6 servings
Ahi is a very firm fish found in better fish markets. When fresh, it should have little or no “fish” smell. Fresh tuna, shark or swordfish steaks or fillets can be substituted.
1/2 cup each: soy sauce, sugar, water
2 tablespoons chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 tablespoon Oriental sesame oil
1 small lemon, halved
2 green onions, chopped
2 tablespoons each: cornstarch, water
6 ahi fillets or steaks, each 6 to 8 ounces and 1-inch thick
Freshly ground pepper
Olive oil
1 fresh pineapple, peeled, cored, cut in lengthwise spears
1. For teriyaki sauce, mix soy sauce, sugar, water, ginger, sesame oil and green onions in medium non-aluminum saucepan. Squeeze lemon into pan then add lemon shells. Heat to boil; reduce heat to a simmer. Stir cornstarch and water together then stir into simmering sauce. Cook, stirring constantly until thickened, about 10 minutes. Strain into a bowl or jar. (This can be done up to several days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.)
2. Prepare grill or preheat broiler. Lightly sprinkle fish with pepper and rub with olive oil. Cook fish, 4 to 6 inches from heat source, turning once, about 3 minutes per side for rare, 5 minutes per side for medium. Baste often with teriyaki sauce while cooking. Do not overcook. Add pineapple spears toward the end of cooking to heat through. Serve fish accompanied by pineapple.
Note: Extra sauce is great with chicken or steak. Sauce will keep refrigerated for several weeks.
