By Emily GlazerThe Daily Northwestern
Ilan Hall, winner of the television show “Top Chef,” brought 20 pounds of vacuum-sealed lamb from New York to cook for about 50 Northwestern students and staff at Fiedler Hillel Center Tuesday night.
He said he brought his own knives and Kosher lamb “from Mrs. Shpitzer on the Lower East Side.”
About eight years ago, the Fiedler family donated money to build Hillel’s center and created the Fiedler Program Endowment, said Rabbi Josh Feigelson. Since then, there has been an annual Hillel food event every April.
Hall, 25, first went to Allison Hall in the afternoon to help cook a turkey stir fry dish for lunch at the Kosher station in the dining hall. Although it was not his recipe, students said they were excited just to eat something he cooked.
“You watch ‘Top Chef’ and you want to eat the food, and now you get a chance,” said Adam Rosenbloom, a Weinberg freshman.
For dinner Tuesday night, Hall prepared “crispy lamb” and decided at the last minute to add potatoes.
Hall spent about three hours cooking the lamb at a low temperature. He said he wanted to cook it as long as possible “because it’s a fatty piece of meat.”
Rosenbloom said he was excited to eat a meal prepared by Hall, and also offered to help him serve potatoes and get the plates ready for the audience.
“I wanted to be able to say ‘Ilan cooked a meal for me,'” he said.
Audience members said they thought the meal was delicious. After everyone received their plate, the majority of the audience rushed to the front table to get second, third or fourth servings.
While he was cooking, Hall encouraged students to keep the conversation going and to ask questions.
Some students asked Hall what the most difficult challenges were on Bravo’s “Top Chef.” Hall said the hardest were the “beach challenge,” where the chefs had to cook breakfast for surfers on the beach, and the “restaurant challenge,” where chefs had to open a restaurant in less than 24 hours with $500 dollars.
“(The ‘restaurant challenge’) was completely ludicrous,” Hall said.
But Hall’s path to becoming “Top Chef” was not typical either.
Hall grew up in a suburb near Manhattan. He attended the Culinary Institute of America in New York state, and went on to its California campus for baking and pastries upon graduating from the institute’s associate program.
Later, he worked for a top Spanish restaurant in Manhattan for three years.
Hall said he did not watch the first season of “Top Chef” but friends encouraged him to audition for the second season.
But after preparing himself for the audition, he realized he got the day wrong and had missed it, he said. As an alternative, he sent in a tape of himself “heating up Ramen noodles.”
“I went in with no preconceived notions,” he said.
Hall said he saw an instructor from the Culinary Institute of America and thought he had no chance. But after competing with 14 other chefs chosen from across the country, Hall was the last chef cooking.
“It was a 15-person competition and I won – and I’m Jewish,” he said.
Hillel contacted Hall after Andrea Jacobs, director of engagement at Hillel, realized they had a mutual friend.
“He’s a creative, interesting chef and his Jewish story is a part of who he is,” Feigelson said. “A lot of what we try to do at Hillel is help people find the Jewish lens for understanding people’s stories.”
Reach Emily Glazer at [email protected].
