Jared Veldheer · The Lunch Lady
Why I'm in
this kitchen.
I'm Jared Veldheer. I used to play offensive line in the NFL. Now I cook lunch at Saint Paul the Apostle in Grand Rapids.
I'm also a husband and dad of three. Food has been a big part of my life through all of it.
It started with a Christmas gift.
In high school, my parents gave me a book called Power Eating. Funny gift for a high school kid. I was hooked.
I wanted to understand what food was doing in my body and how eating enough of the right foods could help me feel better and play better. I went on to major in biology at Hillsdale College and take the full pre-med curriculum. I've always been science-oriented. If something could help me get better at what I was doing, I wanted to understand it and try it.
Nutrition became a big part of that through college football and my NFL career. I devoted a lot of time to it. But I've also always loved to eat. Big kid. Big appetite. I wanted to eat good food while I was eating well, so I started cooking more.
Dinner became our hobby.
After our first baby, cooking became something my wife and I did together. We'd go to the farmers market, bring home good ingredients and cook after practice. It was harder to leave the house, so we made a lot of dinners at home. We had fun with it and got pretty good.
What I learned on
Next Level Chef.
That love of cooking gave me the chance to compete on Next Level Chef. I learned a lot from Gordon Ramsay and the other chefs on the show. One of the biggest things I brought home was how to finish a dish.
Plating with intention matters. So does tasting along the way and making sure the flavor is there when the food is ready to eat. Sometimes it needs a little fresh lemon zest, a squeeze of lemon or a quick hit of salt. Sometimes a sauce brings the whole thing together.
Those last adjustments can make a big difference. I pay a lot more attention to them now, whether I'm making dinner at home or lunch at school.
Why I cook for the kids.
Having kids gave me a whole new reason to care about food. I started learning more about child nutrition and thinking about how to feed my family with the same care that went into feeding us at an NFL facility.
I want my kids to feel good today and have what they need to grow and stay healthy in the months and years ahead. A good meal is one way I can help with that. And it has to taste good, or none of this gets very far.
My kids give me plenty of practice getting a meal dialed in. They also provide a fair amount of psychological warfare at the dinner table.
That's what I bring into Saint Paul's kitchen. I get to cook something nourishing that the kids actually want to eat. Seeing them enjoy it, knowing I'm helping fuel their day, is the most gratifying part of what I do.
Jared
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