Even When Far From Home, Para Nordic Skiers Lean On Each Other To Stay Well Fed

The top American Para Nordic skiers will eat well this Thanksgiving and in the days immediately afterward.

It’s become an annual tradition for the athletes who take part in a training camp that U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing hosts every November in Canmore, Alberta, to enjoy a team dinner at a local Indian restaurant.

The group has also held a potluck-style dinner in the past, where they enjoy the more traditional Thanksgiving offerings such as turkey, mashed potatoes and stuff. Often, they extend the invitation to members of Great Britain’s Para Nordic skiing team as well, since they’re often in Canmore at the same time training.

“We’re usually doing Thanksgiving away from our family, so it’s nice to be able to be with each other and celebrating Thanksgiving as kind of our ski family,” said Kendall Gretsch, a seven-time Paralympic medalist in Nordic skiing and triathlon.

As they do every year, members of the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing national and development teams are spending a few weeks this holiday season living together in Canmore as they train for the upcoming season and compete in a series of world cup events.

Being away from home for so long, it’s only natural that the athletes will break out their hidden culinary skills and make meals for each other. Regular potlucks play a key part in team bonding.

Everyone looks forward to when four-time Paralympic medalist Jake Adicoff cooks an Italian dish with pasta and stewed chickpeas. Gretsch has a collection of recipes from around the world that impresses her teammates.

And Paralympic hopeful Nicole Zaino enjoys showing up to ski practice with a baked good for her friends to take. That could include sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies or pretzels covered in caramel and chocolate.

“I love baking. We always had so many baked goods at every holiday,” Zaino said. “So, (when) I grew up, you would wake up and it would be like 6:30 in the kitchen and baking with my mom and my grandma and my sisters. And so yeah, I still try to bake a lot and still do that, even though I won’t be traveling home for the holidays this year.”

A year ago, Gretsch and Zaino shared an apartment in Canmore. They took turns making dinner for each other, which often included curry and stir fry dishes.

Adicoff, meanwhile, is considered one of the better cooks on the U.S. team. He said it’s a skill he picked up from watching his mother, whom he considers the best cook he knows.

Adicoff’s signature dish is pasta e ceci, which he can easily make in one pot with pasta and chickpeas. He said it’s a hearty meal to eat during the winter, and it has plenty of protein and carbohydrates for the athletes who are burning lots of calories while training and racing.

“I’m not working (a full-time job) right now, so there’s a lot of downtime, especially during the race season when the training load isn’t high,” Adicoff said. “You’re not doing these long afternoon workouts. You need to fill your time with things, and for me, cooking is kind of an easy one. It’s just like a little bit meditative, a little bit something to do.”

Oksana Masters, a 19-time Paralympic medalist and fellow national team member, said Adicoff is such an avid cook that he brings his own set of good knives with him to their training camps. Masters, meanwhile, has been known to show up to the training camp in Canmore with her own groceries.

Since nearby Calgary has a good-sized Ukrainian population, Masters said she’ll stop at a Ukrainian grocery while driving to Canmore to pick up items that she’s familiar with from her childhood in Ukraine. A few years ago, she made traditional Ukrainian cabbage rolls known as holubtsi for her teammates who attended the training camp.

“I kind of force — encourage — my teammates to try Ukrainian foods,” Masters said. “And I think that’s what’s really cool, just making some foods from different cultures and where we are, too, and bring it all together.”

If a few athletes need a hearty dish to eat before a workout this week, seven-time Paralympian Aaron Pike could make them an Asian-inspired rice bowl with seaweed, kimchi and a fried egg. Or a rice bowl with ground beef, sweet potatoes and vegetables.

Pike makes his signature rice bowls for Masters, his teammate and fiancée, when they’re back home in Champaign, Illinois.

“Rice bowls have been kind of our thing now, and we’ll make some kind of breakfast version of that,” Pike said. “And then in the afternoon, it’s more of a dinner version of some kind of rice bowl.”

Alex Abrams has written about Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than 15 years, including as a reporter for major newspapers in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma. He is a freelance contributor to USParaNordic.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.