1990: 1,733 Reasons to Cook

     The final destination of the bus was Kearney, Nebraska.  Val and I had traveled from Canada after visiting my mom and headed deep into the heartland of America to visit my dad and see my sister.  After pulling up in front of my dad's house the we went in to see my dad.  Coleen (his significant other) had prepared her fantastic green chili stew.  She would always make it in 5 gallon batches.  It is by far the best I have ever had and what I use to judge all others.
     Val and I soon found a home on the main drag.  It rattled and seemed to almost collapse at the passing of every semi-truck that flew by. They say you will get used to those kind of things but in this case it never happened.  My sister eventually moved in with us and we sold the bus to a biker who converted it to haul his collection of Harley's.
     Kearney turned out to be another growth period for the Vagabondchef.   I worked at several locations back in those days.  Young and impulsive I did not stand for to much b.s.  which is common in many restaurants.  So i bounced around.  I worked at one of the hotels out past the highway.  The staff was stealing food along with the delivery drivers and I left when the Ansol system went off when I was cooking 4 hamburgers.  I left there and drove across the street to a Country Kitchen Buffet.  I was hired on the spot and started as the toast cooker the first day and the toast butterer the next.  Not seeing a future as a "Chef" here I quickly moved on to a truck truck stop out on the highway.  I pulled the graveyard shift and mostly cleaned up after the day cooks.  I had to deal with broken sauces and drunk truckers.  The waitresses smoked while taking the orders and I began to wonder if my chef dreams would ever come to a reality.  I knew I loved to cook but this was not cooking.  Not how I wanted to do it anyway.  An add appeared for a line cook at the local Holiday Inn so I jumped on that.  Jackpot!  I started as the PM linecook and went through a weeks training to learn the extensive menu.  I was encouraged to come up with specials and had to multi-task at my highest level yet.  I started picking up extra hours on the weekend buffets.  I worked the omelet station and helped to prepare the eclairs and cream puffs on Friday nights.  We would serve up to 2000 people each day on the weekends. I guess there wasn't much else to do in Kearney but eat.  I experienced a banquet here for 3000 people.  The Cattleman's Association had their yearly event and Bush Sr. was the guest speaker.  The prep was massive the security insane and the plating and dishes afterwards was staggering to say the least.  Prime rib with the ever classical pickled apple slice and kale garnish.
     I worked here until I came upon the opportunity to be the Head Chef for a new steak house that was opening up.  The "Silver Dollar Steakhouse"  A local restaurant manager who had a huge following decided to go into business for himself. "Tom Silver" set it up and I was tasked with running it.  My dream of being a chef was forming.  We cut all our own steaks, made sauces, and served many fancy items.  All though many were frozen, as we could not make them all.  It was one of those giant menus that blocked the view of the others at your table.  For almost  a year we did what we could to build the business.  But it never took hold. The competition was to steep and the 90 hour weeks were taking there toll on me and my family.  Finally it closed. The many stories of that place will not be revealed here, that would take a whole different blog to deal with.
     I decided to move forward with my cooking dreams.  It had been almost ten years since I first started cooking for a job.  I talked it over with my wife and applied to cooking school in Portland, Oregon.  It took a while for the financial aid to get processed and in the mean time I still had to work.  The local IGA had a position open for a baker/do-nut maker.  I applied and got the job.  It started at 2 am.  I would go in make the do-nuts, bake the breads, rotate the day old stock and run the bakery case until 9 when the next shift started.  After that I would clean up.  I learned here how good fresh do-nuts are; eating a dozen do-nut holes every night right out of the fryer and freshly glazed.  You could say I was a growing boy.  This continued until late fall when I was finally ready to leave for school.  We had bought a van and loaded up all of our stuff and headed westward.  I was on my way to the Western Culinary Institute to become a chef trained in the manner of Escoffier. 

     My days of fast-food and short order cooking were coming to an end.  The vagabondchef was evolving and about to bloom.

Kearney is 1733 miles from Boston and San Francisco.

Just south of Kearney is Harold Warp's museum of American history.  If you have never been here I would suggest you look it up.  They have a collection of most every item made in America and it's evolution. Plus hangers of cars, plains, kitchen mock-ups etc.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2157