Celebrity chef brings a Super Bowl menu to a WVU eatery

Jan. 30—Uh, excuse me, Taylor Swift ? Can I get you to scoot over a couple of seats ? Thanks.

Pay no mind to the Pittsburgh Steelers sweatshirt Estefania Ortega was wearing Tuesday at WVU's Caf é Evansdale.

She was patiently waiting to see a Super Bowl celebrity of a different kind.

"I'm just here for Chef Aaron, " the WVU animal sciences major from Union City, N.J., said, laughing.

As in, Chef Aaron Sanchez, the TV chef who was paying a call at the state's flagship university to see how his Adobo Catina was doing.

Sanchez, who serves up his culinary expertise as a judge on FOX's food competition shows "Master Chef " and "Master Chef Junior, " launched the endeavor last year with the help of Sodexo, the food service giant that also partners with the school in Morgantown.

"This is my second visit back, " he said.

"I love this place. And love to see people enjoying the food. This is why we do this."

The cantina, which holds the center grill spot at the caf é, brings a variety of the traditional Mexican fare, and other culinary takes for which he's known, to the lunchtime university crowd.

Meanwhile, this particular lunchtime university crowd — including Ortega and her best friend, Aliyah Aponte, a forensic science major and fellow Jerseyite from Vineland — still got to enjoy three new Super Bowl-themed items debuted for the day in preparation for the Big Game two weeks from now.

With Sanchez pitching in, the cantina served up pineapple ginger wings, albondigas sliders and Mardi Gras king cake, which is a dessert nod to his Johnny Sanchez Restaurant in New Orleans.

The sliders are from his grandmother's recipe. The ginger wings are the creation of his mother, Zarela Martinez, the chef and restauranteur who inspired him.

"Oh, yeah, we're bringing something different, " he said.

"That's just what my mom is about in the kitchen."

The matriarch found herself divorced and in El Paso, Texas, with two young sons, Aaron and his brother, Rodrigo, to raise.

A chance apprenticeship with Paul Prudhomme, the celebrity chef in New Orleans, gave her the confidence to make the leap to New York City, where she eventually opened her own restaurant.

Sanchez still smiles when the remembers the little family's first week in the big city.

On one of those evenings, she smoked out their entire apartment building while roasting chiles for a recipe.

Far away from Manhattan in Morgantown on Tuesday, an eatery on the Evansdale campus was just as smoking, in a metaphorically menu kind of way.

"Yep, I think they're liking it, " the cantina's executive chef Monica Gaarz said.

Ortega and Aponte liked the autographs from Sanchez and the smartphone video greeting he gave to Ortega's mom, in Spanish.

And when they sidled up for their food, Sanchez served them personally.

"Two VIPs right here, " he said.

So, how was it ?

"Oh, my God, " Ortega said, going in for the wings. "Perfect."

"Couldn't be better, " Aponte seconded, over her slider. "You know, we try to cook. We're just not very good at it."