For Aerin Frankel, these are indeed salad days. Especially if you toss in a little romaine lettuce.
On the wings of her Gold Medal performance for the U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey Team, Frankel has seen her @painbyromaine Instagram account — where she rates Caesar salads — go viral, shooting from some 3,000 followers to more than 62,000.
The salad at an Olympic team dinner in Milan got a 5.4 out of 10 because “Green olives don’t belong on Caesar and this one was lacking an adequate amount of croutons,” she posted.
“I definitely wasn’t expecting that when I went to the Olympics,” Frankel, a Briarcliff Manor native who grew up in Chappaqua, told an interviewer about her social media stardom. “I’m a bit of a foodie and I like Caesar salad and it started out as a huge joke and obviously now people are taking a liking to it and so I think it’s pretty cool.
“I think a lot of us as players, we have personalities off the ice,” she added. “so it’s fun to share with the outside world what we’re doing sometimes outside hockey.”
Frankel’s culinary passion did not go unnoticed here at home and across the country.
Bobo’s Cafe in Chappaqua created the Hometown Hero (romaine, hot honey, Buffalo chicken cutlet, crouton crumble, Caesar dressing wrapped in a Parmesan blanket) and Rocky’s Deli in Millwood added a chicken Caesar wrap with bacon and croutons in her honor.
Frankel told Food and Wine magazine that her ideal Caesar comes with “lots of Parmesan cheese and well-distributed dressing” but goes light on the anchovies.
The 5-foot-5, 26-year-old netminder, who posted a stingy 0.39 goals against per game average during the team’s 5-0 sweep in Milan, rejoined her pro team, the Boston Fleet, just days after the Games concluded.
The Fleet — part of the Professional Women’s Hockey League — contributed two other members of the U.S. Women’s team: defenders Megan Keller (who scored the Gold Medal-winning goal) and Haley Winn.
During her Boston press conference, Frankel recalled the pandemonium that ensued after Keller’s overtime clincher.
“I couldn’t really see the puck go in the net from where I was on the ice, but I obviously saw the immediate reaction, the celebration in the crowd,” she said. “I remember just trying to skate down the ice as fast as I could to hug my teammates to celebrate with them and, honestly, it was like I couldn’t even believe that it had happened.”
Frankel — who chronicles her on-ice accomplishments on
@aerin.frankel — has earned her the nickname “The Green Monster” for her netminding prowess, drawn from Fenway Park’s imposing leftfield wall.
She responded modestly when asked about her performance in Milan, which included setting an all-time Olympic record for most shutouts in a single tournament with three.
“Our team was just so dominant; they made my job pretty easy, honestly, playing so predictably in front of me,” she said. “We were just having so much fun.”
Frankel, who calls her parents, Deborah and Peter Frankel, her “greatest support system,” explored Milan with her family, shopping and sampling the city’s Northern Italian cuisine.
“We also went to figure skating, speed skating and men’s hockey,” she said. “Watching on TV is one thing, but watching those athletes compete in person was mind-blowing.”
“It was awesome,” she said of representing the U.S. in Milan. “Obviously I had never been to the Olympics before and I didn’t know what to expect. But just the love and support from so many people back at home and honestly all over the country for our team, being so invested in our success and following the journey, was very special and so unlike any experience I’ve had.”
Frankel is hopeful the momentum from the Olympics is going to carry over into the PWHL’s popularity. The league’s regular season ends April 25, followed by the playoffs. As of March 25, Frankel had notched a stellar 15-3 record with an elite 0.952 save percentage. She had given up one or fewer goals 14 times, including six shutouts, a PWHL record.
“I think people that just started watching hockey at the Olympics for the first time now are going to be following the league,” she said, “which is one of the most important things for the growth of our league and the growth of women’s sports and women’s hockey.”
Frankel, who got her start in the Vipers Youth Hockey at the Westchester Skating Academy in Elmsford, spent her freshman year at Horace Greeley High School before transferring to a Minnesota prep school specializing in hockey development. She then played for Northeastern University in Boston.
Frankel is the first U.S. women’s goalie to start in five consecutive games at the national team level in 26 years. Her career has included medaling as the U.S. goaltender in the international Women’s World Championships.
