By Darragh Doiron
The News staff writer
A Port Arthur Army sergeant thinks it could have been his cheesecake method that netted him second place in an “Iron Chef”-style cooking competition in Baghdad.
“We lost to fried cheesecake. I just had regular, strawberry cheesecake,” Shelvin Jackson Jr. said by phone from Baghdad.
Four teams were given surprise ingredients, such as salmon, and given an hour to whip up several dishes, just like on the fast-paced reality TV-show.
“We came up with one plate of chicken and rice with broccoli. Another was ham and rice. I forget what we used the spaghetti for. The fish, we pan sautéed it and I had a friend of mine make a special sauce. He’s from the Virgin Islands. It was tropical and had peppers,” Jackson said about the Jan. 30 competition. “We took it all and decorated it really nice.”
“Some of it was a lot of fun. It took a lot of team work and working together and yes, there was a little bit of stress,” he said.
Jackson, 32, is a food service supervisor with the U.S. Army, in charge of storing and receiving food. He’s said he’s not at liberty to say how many meals he helps serve a day. Jackson is currently deployed with the Headquarters Support Company. He is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin High School. His parents Shelvin Jackson, Jr., a U.S. Army Veteran, and Cynthia M. Jackson, live in Port Arthur.
While Jackson said he doesn’t much get the chance to play with local spices in his cooking, he does say the military folk are eating well.
“There’s a wide variety of food. We’ve really come a long way with food service. They do a really good job of getting steak and potatoes and, on occasion, lobster and seafood,” he said.
There is a woeful lack of authentic Cajun gumbo.
“But they do make a gumbo soup,” he said.
Jackson said he believes he was picked to participate in the competition because his unit has run a dining facility feeding soldiers at Fort Lewis in Washington.
When Jackson is back home, he’s often at the stove for his parents and aunt, Leona N. Wilson.
“I’ll be back in a couple of months to cook for my family again. I’ll ask Mom and Dad what they want,” Jackson said.
ddoiron@panews.com
