thedrifter
10-28-08, 08:02 AM
Light on weight, not taste, in Iraq
Cook drops 125 pounds to join military
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, October 28, 2008
TARMIYAH, Iraq — Never trust a skinny cook, the adage warns.
The soldiers of Joint Security Station Tarmiyah have learned that isn’t always true, though. Their cook, Sgt. Jason Ackley, is 5 feet 10 inches and a slim 175 pounds and knows his way around a kitchen.
The Monticello, N.Y., native cooked for seven years at an upstate New York restaurant called the Blue Horizon Diner. The eatery specialized in steaks, chicken and ribs.
"It wasn’t extremely fancy, but it wasn’t a regular diner, either," Ackley said.
Ackley, a soldier with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, has used that experience to craft meals that soldiers normally don’t receive at outlying posts in small cities like Tarmiyah, Iraq. He’s especially proud of his ribs, which he coats in his own sauce. One of Ackley’s officers recalled those ribs as "the best meal I’ve had in Iraq."
The 29-year-old wasn’t always the fit soldier he is now. His weight peaked at about 305 pounds — the product of being a typically lazy teenager, he said. Ackley had wanted to enlist ever since his senior year of high school, but the Army wouldn’t let him join unless he cut his weight to about 190 pounds.
So Ackley attended a Manhattan cooking school for a while and continued working at the Blue Horizon Diner.
But that wasn’t the end of Ackley’s story. He set his mind on joining the Army and decided to stick it through. So he started following a low-carbohydrate diet religiously: No breads, no rice, no pasta, lots of veggies and a bit of exercise. In just 14 months, he shaved off 125 pounds. It’s a diet he still more or less sticks to after four years in the Army.
"Once you’ve done it so long, you don’t even miss the rice and stuff," he said.
Now Ackley’s the one giving dieting advice. He helped one 215-pound sergeant lose 35 pounds in a couple months.
Admittedly, his cooking doesn’t help his soldiers resist the temptations of food. Army rules bar him from buying ingredients from the Iraqi economy, so he’s often forced to create new meals out of the military’s standby rations.
"I get tired of cooking it, so I know they get tired of eating it," he said.
The Army has one soupy combination it calls chicken fajitas. Ackley drained the liquid from the meat and grilled made-to-order quesadillas for his fellow soldiers. They could load the treats with their favorite combination of refried beans, cheese, rice and other toppings.
"I put my own twist on pretty much everything," he said. "A good cook at a JSS is really going to bring up morale for soldiers."
Ellie
Cook drops 125 pounds to join military
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, October 28, 2008
TARMIYAH, Iraq — Never trust a skinny cook, the adage warns.
The soldiers of Joint Security Station Tarmiyah have learned that isn’t always true, though. Their cook, Sgt. Jason Ackley, is 5 feet 10 inches and a slim 175 pounds and knows his way around a kitchen.
The Monticello, N.Y., native cooked for seven years at an upstate New York restaurant called the Blue Horizon Diner. The eatery specialized in steaks, chicken and ribs.
"It wasn’t extremely fancy, but it wasn’t a regular diner, either," Ackley said.
Ackley, a soldier with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, has used that experience to craft meals that soldiers normally don’t receive at outlying posts in small cities like Tarmiyah, Iraq. He’s especially proud of his ribs, which he coats in his own sauce. One of Ackley’s officers recalled those ribs as "the best meal I’ve had in Iraq."
The 29-year-old wasn’t always the fit soldier he is now. His weight peaked at about 305 pounds — the product of being a typically lazy teenager, he said. Ackley had wanted to enlist ever since his senior year of high school, but the Army wouldn’t let him join unless he cut his weight to about 190 pounds.
So Ackley attended a Manhattan cooking school for a while and continued working at the Blue Horizon Diner.
But that wasn’t the end of Ackley’s story. He set his mind on joining the Army and decided to stick it through. So he started following a low-carbohydrate diet religiously: No breads, no rice, no pasta, lots of veggies and a bit of exercise. In just 14 months, he shaved off 125 pounds. It’s a diet he still more or less sticks to after four years in the Army.
"Once you’ve done it so long, you don’t even miss the rice and stuff," he said.
Now Ackley’s the one giving dieting advice. He helped one 215-pound sergeant lose 35 pounds in a couple months.
Admittedly, his cooking doesn’t help his soldiers resist the temptations of food. Army rules bar him from buying ingredients from the Iraqi economy, so he’s often forced to create new meals out of the military’s standby rations.
"I get tired of cooking it, so I know they get tired of eating it," he said.
The Army has one soupy combination it calls chicken fajitas. Ackley drained the liquid from the meat and grilled made-to-order quesadillas for his fellow soldiers. They could load the treats with their favorite combination of refried beans, cheese, rice and other toppings.
"I put my own twist on pretty much everything," he said. "A good cook at a JSS is really going to bring up morale for soldiers."
Ellie