Cooking for the Major League

Baltimore Orioles pitcher Tommy Hunter yells across the clubhouse’s dining room to chef Chris Covelli. He wants to know how much water to put in his oatmeal.

Covelli says Hunter is one of the more animated players on the team. Sometimes, Hunter sings to people.
Today, he’s too busy loudly interrupting Covelli’s interview by cracking jokes.

One player walks into the dining room and sits at a table near J.J. Hardy and Adam Jones.

“That’s Nelson Cruz,” Covelli says. Cruz is the Orioles’ recently acquired power-hitting outfielder.

Covelli has gotten to know many of the players since becoming their spring training chef two years ago. He has since learned their favorite of his meals are skirt steak, curry salmon and, most of all, tacos.

To keep the healthy food interesting, Covelli gets creative with his meals. He serves tacos with fresh cut pineapple, mango salsa and pico de gallo. He also prepares a black bean soup to accompany them. He cooks the meat in a special blend of cumin, paprika and coriander. Covelli leans in and whispers:
“We don’t tell them it’s ground turkey,” he says. “You can’t tell them!”

Everything Covelli serves is strictly regimented. Covelli works with a nutritionist, Sue James, to plan the menus. There are no cheat meals or cheat days when the players are training. And they take it seriously.

“They have serious goals,” Covelli says. “They’re hungry. They want a World Series, and there’s no doubt about it.”

Although the players have been requesting barbecue, it’s too high in calories and fat content. Everything on the menus, which change daily, has a calorie and trans fat count.

For instance, for breakfast there are waffles and pancakes made of whole wheat or buckwheat flour. The salad bar (available at every meal) has things like fresh cut fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese and hard-boiled eggs. There’s also a grill line where players can get made-to-order omelets and turkey sausage. They are allowed to have bacon in moderation, and all of their proteins are portioned — they get 4 ounces of steak.

Everything Covelli doesn’t serve goes by what he calls the stoplight system: red is high fat, yellow medium fat and green low fat. Covelli even follows the menu himself. He’s lost 15 pounds so far this spring training season.

Covelli’s career hasn’t always been so nutritionally focused. He owned and operated his own restaurant in Massachusetts until 2008. For the past 13 years, he has taught at Toscana Saporita Cooking School in Italy, teaching everything from culinary students to celebrities, tourists to politicians.

 Between that and his spring training gig, he also participates as a guest chef at charity events and demonstrates around the world. He’s been the guest chef for four James Beard Foundation dinners. Covelli was also featured on Home Shopping Network and was on the first season of Food Network’s “Rachel vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook Off.”

He occasionally does some restaurant consulting in Sarasota. He also sits on the board of the Florida Wine Fest and Auction. This year, he’s auctioning off two spaces at his culinary school.

But his favorite job is working for the Orioles. Covelli is and has always been a huge baseball fan. He grew up in New York City as a Red Sox fan. Now, his team is the Orioles.

“It changes when you work with them,” he says. “It becomes personal.”

He says he has gotten to know Tommy Hunter, Adam Jones and Chris Davis pretty well, and he says pitcher Darren O’Day has a great sense of humor.

As soon as he says this, O’Day walks into the dining room. He’s not wearing pants, just spandex slider shorts. He walks over to where a photographer is taking photos, announces he’s not wearing pants, covers himself with a dining room plate and hams it up for the camera.

Covelli lets out a deep laugh, but doesn’t seem surprised. Like he said, he knows these guys.

“This is the nicest, most respectful group of young people I’ve ever interacted with,” he says. “I would tell you if they were a bunch of jackasses.”

He pulls up the players’ stats every day. He watches every game. In the afternoons when he has time,  he’ll sneak out and catch the end of the spring training games. He’s bringing his family to the final game of spring training.

Last season he flew to Boston just to see the Orioles play the Red Sox. When the Red Sox beat The Orioles, it ticked him off. Those were his guys the Red Sox beat.

“I wish people really understood how hard these guys work,” he says.

Covelli wakes up at 3:45 a.m. to get to the clubhouse by 5 a.m., and he and his crew are responsible for feeding  the players throughout their 16-hour days, seven days a week. He goes to bed early to keep up with it. Last week, he fell asleep on the couch with a glass of wine in his hand that spilled all over his couch.

“It’s exhausting,” he says. “At the end of spring training, (the chefs) will be tired, yet the players go into regular season full swing.”