Cook Has an Artist's Eye

With a pepper in her left hand, Violeta Urteaga deftly goes to work with her pairing knife. A few moments later, a tulip emerges ready to join a color-rich display aimed to whet the appetite of luncheon guests at the National Press Club.
Urteaga has worked for nearly eight years at the Club preparing salads and cold-cut platters for the restaurants and banquet services that have been praised by members and guests for their aesthetic appeal.

Urteaga's creative eye and skilled hands turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, according to Executive Chef Susan Delbert.

"The roses she carves from beets are spectacular. I've never seen any better," Delbert says.

Urteaga, who is known as "Vi" by her friends, learned to carve floral designs from fruits and vegetables by reading a few books on the subject -- and a lot of practice. It's not something she ever expected to do growing up in the Philippines.

She came to Washington in 1981 to work in the kitchen at the New Zealand Embassy where her sister worked. She left there to work for a catering service, went on to work at the Tremont Plaza Hotel in Baltimore and eventually landed at the National Press Club.

Along the way, Urteaga said, she began carving fruits and vegetables to keep her hands busy during slow periods in the kitchen.

"I can't stop using my hands," she explains.

Urteaga lives in Maryland with her two children - Robert, 17, a high school junior, and Maria, 19, a college student.

Urteaga typically begins work in the Club's kitchen at 6 a.m. and has a few hours to complete the breakfast fruit platters before starting on the salads and cold-cut lunch platters. Because of the time crunch, Urteaga says she prefers carving fruit -- melons and papayas in particular -- over vegetables.

"It's easier and faster," she says.

Although soft-spoken, Urteaga is certainly proud of her accomplishments. She keeps a photo album of her best displays that include papayas, tomatoes, beets, carrots and radishes turned into flowers -- and even a few hens sculpted from cream cheese. She also keeps a scrapbook of notes and letters received from employers and guests like the one Nancy Marshall of the Ohio Municipal Electric Association sent in March 2006 admiring her "stunning" floral arrangements.

Urteaga smiles as she relates how one early rising Club member has made a habit out of commenting on her breakfast displays at the Reliable Source.

"He always says, 'Vi, I saw your fruit.' He remembers my name," Urteaga says.