Bringing the Heat: Dickinson Welcomes New Executive Chef
Executive Chef Ashlee Telep. Photo by Dan Loh.
Ashley Telep serves fresh takes on campus cuisine
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
Ashlee Telep’s January 2020 job interview at Dickinson was going swimmingly. Then the executive chef asked about her career goals. “I told him I wanted his job,” says Telep, who was applying for the head caterer position. “I wasn’t sure how he’d react.”
Telep was hired. And four years later, she’s gotten her wish: Telep is Dickinson’s new executive chef, and she brings fresh ideas—and fresh food—to the table.
Born to cook
Inspired by her grandfather, an ardent home cook, Telep eschewed cartoons for cooking shows as a child. In 2010, she entered Keystone Technical Institute’s culinary program while working in restaurants full-time. A catering internship revealed a talent for fusion and fancy fare.
Over the years, Telep worked in diverse settings—in corporations, including the West Shore Hospital system, and in restaurants, such as the Mt. Holly Inn. She also ran her own catering business on the side. It informed her work as head catering chef. And she’ll bring all of her years of experience to bear in her new role.
As executive chef, Telep plans, organizes and supervises all of the college’s dining operations. From developing three-meal daily menus for a large crowd to overseeing culinary staff and maintaining culinary, safety and sanitation standards, she tackles a mélange of creative and managerial duties.
It’s a demanding job—especially during a time of change, as Dining Services is rolling out substantial updates this year.
A culinary world tour
The star of the show is a new food-prep and serving station called an "action island." It features a big grill and prep area in the center surrounded by chafing dishes. Open and staffed for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the action island offers different dishes each day.
The entrees will take Dickinson tastebuds on a culinary world tour—think curry bar one day, buddha bowls the next, followed by stir fries, then hot dogs. Special events, such as a prime-rib carving station, are also in the works. To entice more students to come to the Dining Hall for breakfast, Telep plans a pancake and French toast bar on one side of the island on weekday mornings and an oatmeal bar with all the toppings on the other side. On weekends, she envisions fancier fare, like made-to-order omelets and eggs benedict.
The action island will launch in the Dining Hall in time for the start of the fall semester. And it’s only one of the new features in store.
What's on the menu?
Dining Services is upgrading the pizza station, and more vegan and vegetarian options, like taco quinoa, are coming.
Updated kitchen equipment, electrical systems and generators make the expanding menu possible.
A design refresh—new paint, wallcoverings and furniture and digital signs—is under way, and because of the extra space taken up by the global island, there will be an overflow-seating area in an adjacent room.
Additional upgrades include:
- New hot-food options in the Gluten-free Zone.
- Pilot run of a sustainable to-go program, offered in partnership with Dickinson’s Center for Sustainability Education (to-go food must be consumed outside the Dining Hall).
- A new menu program, Nutrislice, allows students to view all nutritional and allergen information, rate menu items. Introduction of digital menu signs.
- Acai available at every meal (in the hand-dip cooler).
- New online-ordering Union Station menu items
- New drinks available at the Biblio and Juice Bar (Underground).
- Devils Den will stock frozen Farm Works (Dickinson College Farm) pizza and soup. Devil’s Den payment options now include cash as well as Flex Meal Points, Dining Dollars, Devil Dollars, Declining Balance and credit/debit cards.
New menu alert!
In the spring, Telep will roll out a new menu rotation, now in the testing phase. She’s challenged all members of her staff to bring in one new recipe to try out.
“That means we’ll have at least a dozen new recipes in rotation. Everyone must bring in a piece of the pie,” says Telep, who’s developing a mahi-mahi dish with coconut curry and jasmine rice.
A micro-restaurant approach is planned for 2027, as part of Dickinson’s major, multiyear refresh of the Holland Union Building (HUB).
‘We're really bringing change’
Innovations like these reflect broad changes in American and global food cultures, says Telep, who gained a keen understanding of students' food preferences by serving side by side with students on Dickinson's Food Advisory Committee. Many of Dining Services’ most popular offerings—the fresh fruit and Tex Mex bars, for example—arose from that work.
“Students tell us they want fresh food and they want more variety, and we hear them. We’re listening,” says Telep, noting that the action island and forthcoming new menu will bring greater variety, and that the made-to-order offerings make the fresh ingredients and prep process more visible—and make fresh food even fresher, as students get to see how the food is made. “We’re really bringing change.”
That said, the Dining Hall will still serve the old favorites—the popular Tex Mex station, wing tosses, fresh fruit bar and mac ‘n’ cheese, for example, will remain (only this year, expect to see a mac ‘n’ cheese bar, with all the fixings). Staff also will continue to cater events, like the Welcome Back Picnic and Charter Day, as well as present food-focused celebrations, like Octoberfest and a cookout for Major League Baseball’s opening day.
So it’s all hands on deck for the Dining Services team, which is staffed up for the challenge. Dining Services now has more employees than in any year since the pandemic.
“There is a lot of culinary talent in the kitchen—people with a lot of experience who are excited about learning new things,” says Telep. “It’ll take time to make all of these changes, but we’re on the way.”
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published August 12, 2024