Equipped with a chain saw, elbow-length rubber gloves and gardener’s kneepads, Phillip Evans can turn a 300-pound block of ice into a swan. Or a mermaid. Or a locomotive -- with dry ice wafting from its smoke stack.
Evans, the food production manager for west campus dorms (Lagunita Court, Roble Hall and Governor’s Corner), learned ice sculpting 20 years ago at Cañada College’s culinary school. He worked 14 years as a chef at Westin Hotels in San Francisco, Cincinnati and Boston before coming to Stanford in 1993. These days, he carves his creations, which melt at the rate of about a half-inch per hour, for dorm holiday banquets, campus parties and Hoover House dinners. It’s no sweat for the guy whose New Year’s Eve cherub appeared in the 1979 film More American Graffiti (at a dinner party thrown by Ron Howard’s character).
Before carving, Evans meticulously sketches his designs to be sure they will fit within a 5-foot-long block of ice. He does his handiwork behind Roble Hall, where he often draws a crowd. Among his apprentices: Stanford students and other chefs. “I’ll show anybody,” he says. “As long as they have the guts to get out there and get wet.”
