When visiting Atlanta United’s training ground and standing in the main lobby, the smells from the kitchen on the second floor can be intoxicating: chicken, vegetables, grains. If it weren’t off-limits to most people, it would be worth walking up the stairs most days just to see what’s for breakfast or lunch, to watch the techniques of the chefs and see if there are meal ideas worth copying.
“Our kitchen staff is phenomenal,” Atlanta United goalkeeper Brad Guzan said.
Atlanta United’s kitchen staff features two cooks, with Steve Yearwood as the head chef. It is outsourced to Levy, the same company that works with the Falcons and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Levy works with Atlanta United’s sports scientist Ryan Alexander and Vice President Carlos Bocanegra to determine plans.
Now, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of Atlanta United’s players are their own kitchen staffs. Making breakfast, lunch and dinner, with snacks in between, are their responsibilities. Atlanta United is helping with weekly lists of meals, recipes and needed ingredients.
Those players who have families are used to planning, prepping and cooking.
“It kind of goes hand in hand with being at home with the kids all the time,” Jeff Larentowicz said.
After a day spent helping teach his kids and then paying attention to them in the afternoon, Larentowicz said he can be pretty worn out. Sometimes they have breakfast for dinner.
“The nutrition is there,” he said. “We do pretty well as a family.”
Mo Adams said he’s become very good at cooking salmon and vegetables, which are on the team’s meal plan. Adams said he was ingesting about 2,500 calories daily during the season. He thinks he may be ingesting 3,000 now.
Manuel Castro said he goes to the grocery store every 7-10 days to load up on ingredients. Like Adams, he said he is eating healthily: plenty of fruits and vegetables, with fish.
There is some comfort-food cooking and eating.
Alec Kann, who said he typically eats healthily and doesn’t keep too many items around the house that are tempting, has taken the time to learn how to make biscuits.
“Not the healthiest thing ever,” he said.
Kann said cooking has been a nice distraction and an outlet to exert nervous energy.
A friend who is a butcher had shared with him some pork sausage. Kann said he wanted to make sausage gravy, and what goes better with that than biscuits. Kann described it as a moderate success because the biscuits were too thin. But he can do better.
It’s not always the same as the kitchen at the training ground.
But the players are doing what they can to stay prepared for when the season returns.
“That will play a factor when we do return,” Guzan said.
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