1989: Hugo meets the Plumbers

     In 1989 I was in Moneta, Virginia with my first wife Valarie.  We had moved there with a mission team to help strengthen local churches.  While mission work had many obstacles and was fraught with tension and frustration the culinary events would again shape my life and propel me forward on my culinary journey.
    Valarie had grown up with a friend who had a hippie bus and she had always wanted one.  So I acting in good faith went around the Virginia countryside and lo and behold I came upon a half converted 1954 Thompson School bus that was used by Boy Scout Troop 141.  It had suicide rims and a blown head gasket but it was only $500.  SOLD!  I drove the bus back to the house we were living at in Moneta with Jason and Gala, part of our mission team.  We packed up our belongings and drove the bus to the back property of our boss who owned "The Cove"  A lakefront resort on Smith Mountain Lake.  Well he was in the process of developing it into a resort.  At the time it was a rundown and vacated trailer park, a bait shop and boat rental and the restaurant.  The restaurant was something special.  I had walked in looking for a job and was hired on the spot at put to work immediately.  In the kitchen there were four of us.  Fred, the French Chef and the three fry cooks of which I was one.  The kitchen was split. One side for the deck and bar.  Raucous music, baudy dancers, boats, booze and drugs galore were the mainstay of the deck.  The food was fried to a grand scale of the Captain's Platter.  A supreme meal of fried seafood, fries and rings over a foot high.  While the floating restaurant with it's covered holes and creaking roof was draped in finery with white lines and a French Menu of refined tastes with a wine list to match.

     The fry cooks would scramble to cook the platters of fried food, the burgers and BBQ's.  While Fred would drink Courvoisier, cuss in French and throw knives at the wall in a drunk homesick state of enoui.  Val had taken a job as the dishwasher-busser.  When the guests finally did arrive for the French cuisine Fred would go to work.  Pulling strange and magical ingredients out of "his" cooler and cooking them in sauteuse's and sautoir's.  He would pull out terrines and pates he had made and prepare beautiful plates.  Fred was always drunk in the kitchen as said it was part of a French chef's right.  But the owners, the "Jersey plumbers" had other words to say to Fred.  He would serve old and moldy food.  Let the food rot in the coolers instead of saving it.  But he still got paid $500 cash per week.  For a 23 year old this seemed like a million dollars.  I was impressed with his skills but dismayed by his lack of caring.  He was a sad lonesome mess and he did not finish the season there.  It was in late September I believe of that year the Hugo came in pounding the Eastern seaboard.  Shops were boarded up and many people fled the region.  Even as far inland as Smith Mountain Lake.  The tourists were gone, the money was gone, the "Jersey plumbers" were bankrupt and sat on their deck for one last hurrah.  We all sat on the enormous deck drinking what beer was left and the German manager was pouring hurricane's in homage to the massive black wall of doom that covered the entire southern horizon.  The air was still and quiet.  A mist hung in the air.  No music blared across the lake.  Just 14 of us drinking and watching as Hugo rolled inland.  It was quite a sight.

French Chef in a daze

     The next day the restaurant sat empty and quiet. We were woken in mid afternoon by the boss who gave us our last payroll in cash and asked us to vacate the premise in seven days.  I had to walk up the street to a local restaurant that was in no other terms a "dive"  They had heard of the closing of "The Cove" and when I applied for work they snapped me up. I was going to be paid cahs at the end of each shift.  My first shift was brakfast and I had to set by lighting the flame under the hot line, then prepping potatoes eggs, grits etc.. the standard fare of the south.  What took me off guard and made me glad that I would only be working here 4 days was the first order of the morning.  A brain omelet.   I said, "What!! you gotta be kidding!"  Nope there it was under the counter far in back.  Several small cans of potted brain.  Wow, I sure can't wait to become a chef.  So I opened the can, it smelled of rancid cat food.  Poured it into a pan to heat and made an omelet.  Poured the warm brains in the center of the omelet and shazaam!  It was the best one he had ever had. Four days went by quickly then we packed it in and started up the bus.  We rolled out heading northward to Canada.  We would eventually make it to my mom's but that is another story.  I had seen true cooking, I had seen what a semi-skilled drunk French chef could do with schooling, imagine what I could do!!  IT was there on that deck watching Hugo's wall of black roll by that I knew that my calling would not just be to wander aimlessly and cook.  But that I would become a Chef.